Werner Egk and Joan Von Zarissa: Music As Politics and Propaganda Under National Socialism Jason P

Home , Befreit, Berliner Tageblatt, Berlin State Opera, Bernhard Wosien, Beulich, Charles Huntziger

Florida State University Libraries

Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2011 Werner Egk and Joan Von Zarissa: Music as Politics and Propaganda under National Socialism Jason P. Hobratschk

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

WERNER EGK AND JOAN VON ZARISSA:

MUSIC AS POLITICS AND PROPAGANDA

UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALISM

JASON P. HOBRATSCHK

A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2011 Jason P. Hobratschk defended this dissertation on October 6, 2011.

The members of the supervisory committee were:

Denise Von Glahn Professor Directing Dissertation

Joseph Kraus University Representative

Douglass Seaton Committee Member

Birgit Maier-Katkin Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

To my mother, Linda, for her eternal unconditional love and support;

to my father, Harvey, who, despite having only an eighth-grade education, remains one of the most intelligent men I have ever known;

and to Ryan, for his love and patience.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe sincere thanks to many people who made this project successful. Foremost among them the governments of Germany and of the United States, who made the research for this project possible through a generous Fulbright Full Grant. I especially thank Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rathert of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, a wonderful Ersatz-Doktorvater who advocated for this project and provided much helpful guidance along the way. Special thanks are also due Mr. Reiner Rohr and Ms. Julie McBride of The German American Fulbright Committee who made the transition to a foreign culture very smooth. Thanks also go to Ms. Jamie Purcell and Ms. Meredith B. Simpson of the Florida State University Office of National Fellowships; and Dr. Douglass Seaton, for their kind assistance in the Fulbright application process. A scholar would be hard-pressed to find an archive as welcoming and accommodating as the Stadtarchiv Donauwörth. For creating such a convivial research atmosphere, I thank the Oberbürgermeister of Donauwörth, Mr. Armin Neudert, and especially the staff of the Stadtarchiv, Director Dr. Ottmar Seuffert, Mr. Deniz Landgraf, and Ms. Fulya Ergin. The Stadtmuseum Bocholt was likewise an inviting place to learn, and for that I thank Mr. Georg Ketteler. For helping me to negotiate the immense troves of knowledge housed at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, I heartily thank Dr. Sigrid Moisy, Dr. Nino Nodia, and Ms. Gertrud Friedl of the Abteilung für Handschriften und Seltene Drücke. A special thank you goes to Ms. Stephanie Fischer, who, after a few months, answered my insistent “Guten Morgen, Frau Fischer” with a cheerful “Guten Morgen, Herr Hobratschk.” Kindest thanks are also due to the personnel of the Musikabteilung, Dr. Veronika Giglberger, Dr. Reiner Nägele, Dr. Uta Schaumberg, and the kind personnel at the reading room desk. Gratitude is also due to Dr. Thomas Rösch of the Orff-Zentrum München and to Ms. Brigitte Bergese, for allowing me access to letters among Egk, Orff, and Hans Bergese; to Ms. Kristin Hartisch of the Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde; and to the personnel of the Staatsarchiv, München. I also thank Dr. John Michael Cooper of Southwestern University and Dr. Joanna Biermann of the University of Alabama for making me think. At Florida State University, I happened to meet fellow choral musician Jo-Anne Van der Vat-Chromy, who provided translations of Dutch documents with the help of Lidewij Besnard.

Thank you both. Thank you to Jena Whitaker for her translations from the French. Thanks go also to Ms. Martha Dahlbert, for giving me a score of Egk’s Quattro Canzoni. I could not have received a kinder validation for my research and work than that which I got from Dr. Heike Lammers-Harlander as we sat together on a lovely Donauwörth day. In Heike I found a kindred spirit. Herr Rathert and Heike provided invigorating confirmation that my perspective on Egk and Joan von Zarissa found resonance among German scholars. Thank you. And I must thank my doctoral committee, Dr. Douglass Seaton, Dr. Joseph Kraus, and Dr. Birgit Maier-Katkin for their guidance and thoroughness. Special thanks go to my Major Professor, Dr. Denise Von Glahn, for the many hours—years—of chatting about, reading through, and listening to me complain about my most recent thoughts on Egk. Finally, thank you, Werner Egk. How I would like to have met you personally.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ...... ix List of Figures...... x List of Musical Examples ...... xiv Abstract...... xv 1. WERNER EGK IN WEIMAR GERMANY...... 1 2. WERNER EGK’S CAREER WITHIN NATIONAL SOCIALISM...... 14

Bayerische Fahnen (1933)...... 14 Columbus (1933)...... 15 Egk’s Contributions to Völkische Kultur – I...... 18 Egk’s Radio Plays of 1933–34...... 22 Das große Totenspiel (1933) ...... 22 Job, der Deutsche...... 23 Egk’s Contributions to Völkische Kultur – II ...... 34 Georgica (1934)...... 40 Die Zaubergeige (1935)...... 40 Bayerische Tanzbilder „Auf der Alm“ (Georgica, 1935)...... 56 Kapellmeister at the Berliner Staatsoper...... 57 Der Weg (1936)...... 58 Geigenmusik mit Orchester (1936)...... 60 Olympische Festmusik (1936)...... 61 Natur-Liebe-Tod (1937)...... 66 Mein Vaterland (1937)...... 67 Variationen über ein altes Wiener Strophenlied (1938)...... 67 Peer Gynt (1938)...... 67 Die hohen Zeichen (1939)...... 85 Music for the Film Jungens (1940)...... 86 Egk’s Appointment to the Reichsmusikkammer ...... 88 Egk’s Work on Behalf of Composers’ Rights ...... 95 Columbus (1942)...... 96 Finis (1944)...... 97 3. “WELCH EIN BILD FÜR EINE DON-JUAN-HANDLUNG!”...... 98 The Scores of Joan von Zarissa...... 98 Joan von Zarissa: Egk’s Burgundian Don Juan Tragedy ...... 100 Differences between the Original and Revised Versions of Joan von Zarissa...... 115 Egk’s Joan von Zarissa, as Premiered in Berlin...... 126 Egk’s Inspiration for Joan von Zarissa...... 132 The Artwork of Jean Fouquet ...... 132 The Feast of the Pheasant ...... 139 Influences of Fouquet and the Feast of the Pheasant in Joan von Zarissa ....141 Collaboration with Josef Fenneker ...... 143

Raimond van Marle’s Iconographie de l’art profane au moyen-age et a la Renaissance...... 160 Werner Egk’s Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona...... 163 4. THE GENRE OF JOAN VON ZARISSA ...... 167 Joan von Zarissa as New German Dance...... 167 Modern Dance in National Socialist Germany ...... 170 Historical Antecedents...... 170 Dance under National Socialism...... 171 Leaders of Modern Dance in National Socialist Germany ...... 175 Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt and Otto von Keudell ...... 175 Rudolf von Laban ...... 177 New German Dance after Laban...... 183 Egk’s Association with Modern Dance ...... 185 New German Dance and the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk...... 191 Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk ...... 193 Joan von Zarissa as Gesamtkunstwerk...... 194 5. MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF JOAN VON ZARISSA...... 203 6. THE RECEPTION OF JOAN VON ZARISSA...... 221

Premieres of Joan von Zarissa, 1940–1942...... 221 Joan von Zarissa in Paris, 1942–1944...... 250 Premieres of Joan von Zarissa, 1943–1944...... 265 7. JOAN VON ZARISSA AS PROPAGANDA...... 268 German Cultural Propaganda in France...... 268 Joan von Zarissa as Cultural Propaganda...... 281 8. A READING OF JOAN VON ZARISSA AS SUBVERSIVE...... 291 9. WERNER EGK’S DENAZIFICATION...... 301

10. ENCORE!...... 334

APPENDICES ...... 339

A. JOAN VON ZARISSA LIBRETTO, ORIGINAL VERSION ...... 339

B. VON KEUDELL NOTE, 9 JANUARY 1934...... 375

C. JOAN VON ZARISSA PERFORMANCES...... 378

D. COMPILATION OF CULTURAL PROPAGANDA PRESENTATIONS IN OCCUPIED FRANCE, AA PARIS 1115X ...... 384

E. SD-BERICHTE ZU INLANDSFRAGEN, 18 AND 25 OCTOBER 1943...... 387

vii

F. LUCHT REPORT ON THE FRENCH PREMIERE OF JOAN VON ZARISSA...... 398

G. EGK’S OMGUS QUESTIONNAIRE AND APPENDIX ...... 402

H. DONAUWÖRTH WERNER EGK CULTURAL PRIZE RECIPIENTS...... 417

I. PERMISSIONS ...... 418

REFERENCES ...... 422

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 430

viii

LIST OF TABLES

9.1. Egk’s income, 1931–1944...... 305

9.2. Egk’s revised income report...... 319

LIST OF FIGURES

1.1 Hanna Höch (1889–1978), Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer- Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (1919)...... 6

2.1. Comparison of Egk’s adaptation of Peer Gynt to Henrik Ibsen’s original...... 68

2.2. Comparison of cover designs for the first edition of Křenek’s Jonny spielt auf and Ziegler’s guide for the Entartete Kunst exhibition...... 78

3.1. Joan von Zarissa, original version, table of contents...... 116

3.2. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, table of contents...... 117

3.3. Comparison of the original and revised versions of Joan von Zarissa...... 118

3.4. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, cast of characters...... 119

3.5. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, p. 210, lower portion...... 121

3.6. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, p. 212, top system...... 122

3.7. Joan von Zarissa, concert suite, disposition of the orchestra...... 124

3.8. Joan von Zarissa, concert suite, p. 105...... 125

3.9. Program for the Berlin premiere of Joan von Zarissa...... 127

3.10. Joan von Zarissa premiere program insert...... 130

3.11. Jean Fouquet, La Vierge et l’Enfant entourés de séraphins et de chérubins...... 134

3.12. Codex gallicus 6, folio 2v...... 136

3.13. Codex gallicus 6, folio 210v...... 138

3.14 Codex gallicus 6, folio 56r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 145

3.15. Codex gallicus 6, folio 60r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 146

3.16. Codex gallicus 6, folio 64r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 147

3.17. Codex gallicus 6, folio 68r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 148

3.18. Codex gallicus 6, folio 86r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 149

3.19. Codex gallicus 6, folio 98r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 150

3.20. Codex gallicus 6, folio 115v and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 151

3.21. Codex gallicus 6, folio 123r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same...... 152

3.22. Fenneker’s sketch of Codex gallicus 6, folio 2v...... 153

3.23. An initial sketch for Joan von Zarissa by Fenneker...... 155

3.24. Fenneker’s rendering of the stage design for Joan von Zarissa...... 157

3.25. Fenneker’s rendering of the drop scene for Joan von Zarissa...... 159

3.26. Van Marle, Fig. 179, Savage man...... 160

3.27. Van Marle, Fig. 416, Death triumphant...... 162

4.1. Werner Egk, Augsburg, Maximilianstraße, undated (1924 or 25)...... 197

4.2. Werner Egk, Scheidungsprozeß (Ehescheidung), 1928...... 198

4.3. Werner Egk, Selbstbildnis, Spring 1925...... 199

5.1. Form of No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage.” ...... 208

5.2. Form of No. 11, “Pantomime.” ...... 210

5.3. Form of No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women.” ...... 211

5.4. Form of No. 10, “Opening Dance.”...... 211

5.5. Themes and keys in No. 13, “Perette’s Wrath.”...... 212

5.6. Themes and keys in No. 14, “Apparitions,” the final movement of the revised version of Joan von Zarissa...... 212

5.7. Obfuscation of key in No. 10, “Opening Dance.”...... 216

5.8. Harmonic analysis of the Hero’s fanfare, No. 11, “Pantomime.” meas. 58–69...... 218

6.1. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: The Most Beautiful of the Captured Moorish Women...... 229

6.2 Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: the Iron Duke...... 230

6.3. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Joan...... 230

6.4. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Isabeau...... 231

6.5. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Isabeau in mourning. ..231

6.6. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Florence ...... 232

6.7. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Lefou...... 232

6.8 Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Perette...... 233

6.9. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Standard Bearer...... 233

6.10 Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Monster...... 234

6.11. Fenneker’s sketch of the stage design for the Vienna Staatsoper performances of Joan von Zarissa...... 247

6.12. Model of Brayer’s stage design for the Paris performances of Joan von Zarissa...... 258

7.1. Arno Breker, Comradeship...... 273

7.2. Sculptor Arno Breker in his studio...... 274

xii

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

2.1. Zwiefacher rhythm in the prelude to Die Zaubergeige, meas. 15–23...... 48

3.1. Egk, Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona (1932), Finale...... 164

5.1. Battle orchestration in No. 4, “The Duel,” meas. 23–26...... 204

5.2. Battle orchestration in No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” meas. 70–81...... 205

5.3. Joan von Zarissa, No. 1, “Procession,” meas. 21–28...... 207

5.4. Joan von Zarissa, No. 4, “The Duel,” meas. 77–89...... 214

5.5. Hero’s tucket in No. 11, “Pantomime,” meas. 58–64...... 218

5.6. Joan’s fanfare in No. 12, “Love-Dance,” meas. 105–11...... 219

xiii

ABSTRACT

Werner Egk’s Joan von Zarissa, a relocation of the Don Juan saga to fifteenth-century Burgundy, provides a case study in the complexities of creating art and establishing an artistic career in Germany during the National Socialist period. Egk’s 1932 radio play Die Historie von Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona is a progenitor to Joan von Zarissa. Egk’s first works for radio were a reflection of the leftist Weimar milieu in which Egk came of age as a composer. They provided the foundation for Egk’s later works, perpetually lauded as both illustrative and dramatic. Werner Egk’s oeuvre from the National Socialist period appears to be a collection of disparate pieces across a variety of genres. By considering them as part of a young composer’s attempt to forge a career, Egk’s “Nazi works” such as Job, der Deutsche and works as “culturally Bolshevistic” as Peer Gynt become possible to reconcile with one another. The ostensibly dissimilar genres actually map Egk’s compositional path from film and radio to opera and dance. Additionally, Egk wrote journal articles that attempted to make space for himself and his colleagues. The Joan von Zarissa published today is not that which premiered in Berlin on 20 January 1940, nor is it that which Egk originally composed. The primary sources from which Egk drew his inspiration were Jean Fouquet’s paintings and the Feast of the Pheasant. Egk collaborated with artist Josef Fenneker to create a stage design that captured the salient features of these models. Joan von Zarissa is an example of New German Dance, but this label does not admit the presence of spoken and sung texts within it. The work is more correctly a latter-day Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk synthesizing gesture, poetry, music, set, and lighting. Egk’s music is an extension of conventional tonal music. Its power and dance-like quality are carried by its rhythm and meter. Melody is fundamental to Joan von Zarissa, serving both to delineate structural form and to unify the drama. While Egk expands his chordal vocabulary beyond conventional triads and seventh chords, he often retains functional harmonic progressions.

xiv

Joan von Zarissa premiered at the Berliner Staatsoper on 20 January 1940. By the time all German theaters shut down in September 1944, Egk’s work had been produced in fifteen cities across six European countries. Joan von Zarissa was danced twenty times in Occupied Paris between 1942 and 1944. The cohesive nature of Joan von Zarissa and Egk’s recreation of the atmosphere of Renaissance court culture were universally acclaimed. Both inside and outside the Reich, Joan von Zarissa met with excitement and success. The hybrid German-French nature of Joan von Zarissa created a perfect work of cultural propaganda that the Germans directed toward Occupied France. In producing Joan von Zarissa, Paris Opéra Director Jacques Rouché occupied the stage with a palatable work, thereby preventing the production of something perhaps more insidious. Ultimately, Joan von Zarissa never truly gained entry into the French canon. Egk created a framework for subtextual interpretation in the many bifurcated elements of Joan von Zarissa. These include the dual-platform stage, on which different actions occur simultaneously; the image of Odysseus and the Sirens, which causes observers to question what is being presented, especially by the choir behind it; and the parallel nature of the drama of Joan von Zarissa itself. The presence of a subversive subtext is confirmed by the use of disjunctly joyful elements that mitigate the problematic material preceding them. The choruses of Joan von Zarissa call both Germans and the French to question the National Socialist regime. After World War II, Egk was called to account for his artistic activity in the Third Reich in three separate denazification proceedings. Egk was blacklisted by the Americans, exonerated by the Germans, un-exonerated by a single German prosecutor, retried, re-exonerated, and almost retried again. Egk did not deserve to be blacklisted by the Americans, nor does he deserve a naïve whitewash. Egk occupies the expansive field of grey between. Like others who survived Nazi Germany, Egk had made a life for himself within National Socialism but never embraced its Weltanschauung. After the war Egk continued to compose, work for composers’ rights, and advocate new music; and Joan von Zarissa continued to traverse the globe in productions from Buenos Aires to Berlin to Bangkok.

CHAPTER ONE

WERNER EGK IN WEIMAR GERMANY

The image on Werner Egk’s tombstone is a labyrinth of his own design. The maze is the most fitting icon for the final resting place of a composer whose career was nothing short of labyrinthine. From his musical start to his career under National Socialism to his denazification, Egk was constantly buffeted by strong forces that shaped both man and career. Throughout, Egk sought to establish a career for himself, taking advantage of the National Socialist infrastructure when it was helpful to him, but perpetually disavowing roles such as conspirator or profiteer. It is impossible to say that Egk did not benefit from National Socialism, and it is just as impossible to say that Egk embraced National Socialism. Egk remained in Germany when many other composers fled, and he negotiated the National Socialist maze in a manner that allowed for his personal success as a composer and the support and protection of his family. Had Egk lived another place or another time, his career and works would not offer the insight they do about the life of an artist and his work under National Socialism. Egk’s early career, however, predates National Socialism. His career began in the liberal atmosphere of Weimar Germany, and his first successful public works were for radio when it was still in its infancy. Egk’s early works reflect the socialist-pacifist-avant-garde circle in which he came of age as an artist. Werner Egk was born Werner Josef Mayer on 17 May 1901 in the Swabian village of Auchesheim, near Donauwörth. His father had planned for the young Werner to become a postal official; however, Mayer decided on a career as an artist, initially vacillating between the visual and musical arts. By the late 1910s Mayer had settled on music and pursued a self-designed course of study. In 1919 and 1920 Mayer visited the City Conservatory for Music in Augsburg. In 1920 he studied voice with a chamber singer Nieratzki in Odenwald; piano with one Professor Helberger in Frankfurt; theory with a student of composer Friedrich Klose; and music history on his own. The following year, Mayer studied piano with Anna Hirzel-Langenhan in Munich, where he also studied theory, composition, and conducting with Carl Orff. In 1922 Egk matriculated at Ludwig Maximilian’s University in Munich and studied musicology under Adolf Sandberger. Mayer’s first compositions and practical experience date from these years. In 1920 Mayer composed a series of songs to texts of Theodor Däubler, Franz Werfel, Rainer Maria

Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and others. In 1921 he worked as a stage director, set painter, and Director of Stage Music at the Steinecke-Saal in the Schwabing borough of Munich. Mayer composed music to a sacramental play for the inauguration of the playhouse of the Steinecke- Saal in 1921, along with two string trios. Werner Mayer met violinist Elisabeth Karl in 1922. The following year, they were married, and Mayer adopted “Egk” as his artistic pseudonym, a tribute to his wife “Elisabeth nee Karl,” in German “Elisabeth geborene Karl.” Many think that Egk is an acronym for the self- aggrandizing epithet, “a great artist” (Einen großen Künstler); however this is not the case.1 But this does not mean that Egk did not aspire to greatness. In 1922 sculptor Karl Bauer made a bust of the young Egk, though he had thus far gained no acclaim, a testament that Egk thought himself destined for fame.2 In 1923 Egk attended a meeting of the National Socialist German Workers Party, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, or “Nazi” Party) but found it did not suit him. According to Egk’s autobiography, Die Zeit wartet nicht, the Nazi “hooligans, braggarts, drunkards, and sadists” would later serve as models for the troll-world of his 1938 opera Peer Gynt.3 In 1924 Elisabeth gave birth to their only child, Titus.4 The family

1 Werner Egk, Die Zeit wartet nicht: Künstlerische Zeitgeschichtliches Privates aus meinem Leben, expanded and illustrated paperback edition (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1981), passim and 550–51. Hereafter, “Egk, DZ.” Egk’s account is expanded by Heike Lammers-Harlander in “Werner Egk und der Erfolg der Zaubergeige” (Lecture, Stadtbibliothek Donauwörth und Historischer Verein, 18 November 2008). Egk’s name change became official in 1937, in compliance with National Socialist laws regarding the use of stage names. 2 Bauer’s bust of Egk resides in the Werner Egk Begegnungstätte in Donauwörth, Germany, along with two others: one by Bernhard Bleeker (1959/60, cast 1982) and one by Arno Breker (August 1978, cast January 1979). Additionally, the Werner Egk Begegnungsstätte houses a life mask made by one Weber-Hartl (1942); two portraits, one by Kurt Weinhold (1942) and one by Erwin Hennig (1959); and a death mask made by Gerhard Gareissen (1983). 3 Egk, DZ, 105–06. To encapsulate the experience of Hitler’s speech, Egk cites Bertolt Brecht’s 1934 Alfabet: Adolf Hitler, dem sein Bart Ist von ganz besonderer Art. Kinder, da ist etwas faul Ein so kleiner Bart und ein so großes Maul. 4 Unfortunately, a detailed discussion of Titus Egk lies beyond the scope of this investigation. Titus had been pressed into service on Christmas 1943 and dispatched to Monte Cassino. He survived the German retreat but was later charged with “illegal separation from the troop” (unerlaubte Entfernung von der Truppe) and sentenced to two years in military prison. After he was released, he was sent to the Russian front. Titus’s final letter to his parents

spent two years (Summer 1925–September 1927) in Italy, a trip undertaken to help Egk recuperate from life-threatening influenza. In Italy, Egk composed his Kleine Symphonie (Little Symphony), a work that bears the mark of Egk’s lifelong idol, Igor Stravinsky. In 1927 and 1928 Elisabeth Egk embarked on her performing career as a violinist. Among her repertoire were selections from what would coalesce into Egk’s 1935 opera, Die Zaubergeige (The Magic Violin). The Zaubergeige selections were a substantial draw, especially in traditional Munich, a very different city from Cologne, the other city on Elisabeth’s 1928 tour, where they met with less success. In August 1928, after the death of Elisabeth’s well-to-do father, the family, along with Elisabeth’s sister and mother, moved into a home in the Obermenzing borough of Munich. Egk was engaged as a conductor at Munich’s Phöbus-Palast, but the position lasted only a few months. Just as Elisabeth’s career was starting, Werner moved to Berlin to start his own, leaving the family behind.5 The bustling Berlin of 1928 must have seemed a different planet to the young Egk, who had to that point lived in the village of Auchesheim and in historical Augsburg. Munich, which, while larger, still seemed quaint compared to the teeming Berlin metropolis. In July 1929 Egk composed several dances for Else Adami, wife to Jewish Berlin architect Dr. Alfred Gellhorn. This connection gained Egk access to the Gellhorn Circle (Gellhornkreis). Within the circle sat various important leftist artists, including composer Kurt Weill; poet, cabarettist, and satirist Erich Mühsam; avant-garde philosopher and writer Mynona, alias Salomo Friedländer, friend to Dadaists Johannes Baader and George Grosz; poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht; and Peter Pfitzner, son of composer Hans Pfitzner, from whose music Egk would later strive to distance his own. Around the same time, Egk encountered director Erwin Piscator and composer Paul Hindemith.6 Egk’s relationship with these figures was more than a passing acquaintance, as

was dated 7 January 1945, after which he disappeared. Egk was unsuccessful in his post-war efforts to determine the fate of his son, and his initial hopefulness slowly yielded to the sad realization that Titus had been lost. 5 Lammers-Harlander, Werner Egk und der Erfolg der Zaubergeige, 5. Lammers-Harlander asserts that it was Elisabeth’s Egk family money that paid for the Egk’s stay in Italy and for their home in Munich. The Zaubergeige numbers were scheduled for thirty-eight performances in Cologne, of which twenty-seven were cancelled; fifty-five in Munich, of which three were cancelled. This may reflect a general lack of success in Cologne, where 163 performances were scheduled, out of which thirty were cancelled, compared to Munich, where 156 performances were scheduled, out of which only five were cancelled. 6 Egk, DZ, 158–72. Mühsam died in the Oranienburg concentration camp in 1934.

their repeated appearances in his appointment books suggest.7 Egk also made acquaintance with Ernst Křenek, Alban Berg, and Igor Stravinsky, and he experienced Brecht and Weill’s Dreigroschenoper in the company of its creators. In short, Egk found himself among the best- known avant-garde of Berlin and, as did the members of this circle, counted himself an ardent socialist and pacifist.8 Bertolt Brecht recommended Egk to Hans Flesch, who offered Egk a composition contract for the newly founded radio program Funk-Stunde.9 On 18 August 1929 Egk’s first radio work, Ein Cello singt in Daventry (A Cello Sings in Daventry) premiered. The bilingual cantata for tenor, double choir, and orchestra centered on a metropolis citizen who returns home amid the bustle of the city: “train-light, sky-signs, traffic-lights, scurring-crowds [sic], fortune- tellers, match-sellers, paper-sellers.” Once there, he is still dogged by “automobiles–bank– discount–typewriters–advertisements,” the detritus of his ten-hour workday that drives him to smoke and drink. The citizen tunes his radio to 1600, a station from Daventry, England, and hears a cello play from across the sea. Though he doesn’t know who plays, he knows the cello plays for him, and he finds peace. Robert Seitz, the work’s librettist, wrote the work in both English and German in the hopes that it would be received by an English station, making the work an artistic inversion of itself. In inaugurating his radio project with Egk’s Ein Cello singt in Daventry, Flesch introduced Egk, by association an avant-garde artist, to Berlin. Egk followed this work with Weihnacht 1929 (Christmas 1929) and Ein neuer Sender sagt sich an (A new station announces itself), both radio works for chorus, orchestra, soloists, and speakers. The latter was premiered by the Association of Contemporary Music in Munich.10 The income generated by these first three works enabled Egk to return to his family in Obermenzing in August 1929. 11 Upon his return to Munich, Egk studied composition and orchestration with famed composer and contemporary-music advocate Hermann Scherchen.12

7 Lammers-Harlander, Werner Egk und der Erfolg der Zaubergeige, 7–8. 8 Egk, DZ, 161–62, 552. 9 Ibid., 172–73. 10 Program, Festwoche Neuer Musik München, 15.–22. May 1931. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Abteilung für Handschriften und seltene Drücke, Nachlass Werner Egk, Ana 410. Hereafter, Egk’s bequest will be abbreviated “BSB Ana 410.” 11 Ibid., 175–77, 552. 12 Egk, DZ, 185ff.

Egk’s Zeit im Funk (Time in Radio), a radio “experiment” for tenor, men’s chorus, orchestra, and speakers, premiered in conjunction with the opening of the radio studio in Munich on 27 November 1929.13 The work chronicled world events from 1 October to 1 November 1929 in a montage of news reports from Paris, New York, Berlin, Peking, and other cities. Reports of speed records, economic depression, catastrophes, assassinations, statesmen, revolution in China, and a dialogue between a choruses of workers and machines were to be punctuated by short, heated flash-debates between diametrically opposed pairs: a general with a pacifist; or a member of the Deutschnationaler Party, the precursor to the NSDAP, with a Communist.14 Egk’s use of montage technique in Zeit im Funk, and to a lesser extent in Seitz’s bilingual libretto for Ein Cello singt in Daventry, were similar to the works of Dadaism, embodied in Hanna Höch’s Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer- Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (see Figure 1.1).

13 BSB Ana 410. 14 “Zeit im Funk” in Werner Egk, Musik–Wort–Bild: Texte und Anmerkungen; Betrachtungen und Gedanken (Munich: Albert Langen Georg Müller Verlag, 1960): 20–28. According to Egk’s comments on the work, the flash-debates were cut from the production that remained nonetheless “aggressive and provocative.” The NSDAP is the National Socialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or “Nazi” party.

Figure 1.1. Hanna Höch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919. Collage of pasted papers, 114 x 90 cm. Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Public domain within the United States.

Egk was exposed to such works through the Gellhorn Circle. Zeit im Funk is also similar to Alfred Döblin’s pastiche novel Berlin Alexanderplatz of the same year, whose narrative is spliced with train schedules, Bible passages, song texts, weather reports, and recipes. Egk’s proximity to the creators of these other works places his own creations within those of the liberal avant-garde of Weimar Germany. In June 1930 Egk and Seitz again collaborated on a reportage project. 91 Tage Zeitgeschehen (91 Days of Events) recounted world events from 1 February through 4 May 1930: bootlegging in America; catastrophes and assassinations; the Disarmament Conference in London; unemployment figures; strikes and demonstrations; turmoil and mutiny; war in China; and the freedom movement in India. A review in the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag provided an example from the work:

America! 2,400 people die of alcohol poisoning (boom, boom!) New York … (Sonny boy) Penitentiary in Columbus … Children in Troppau shredded by a grenade … Cows drowning in flooded Montauban (the music mimics the mooing of cows), etc.15 Egk’s next work was Trebitsch Lincoln, the story of Jewish-Hungarian Ignatius Trebitsch- Lincoln, a missionary and later Anglican priest and parliamentarian. The English-naturalized Trebitsch-Lincoln offered to serve as an English spy during World War I but was rejected, so he spied for the Germans instead. After his English imprisonment for espionage, he became involved in German right-wing politics and in the Kapp Putsch attempt to overthrow the Weimar government. Trebitsch-Lincoln fled Germany but continued his espionage activities, for which he was later arrested and acquitted of high treason in Austria and deported. By the time Egk decided to make a radio production about him, Trebitsch-Lincoln was a Buddhist monk in China. Egk’s work premiered successfully as part of the Third Festival of the Association of Contemporary Music in Munich.16 Between 1927 and 1931 this association was responsible for the premiere of Bartók’s Quartet no. 3; Egk’s Ein neuer Sender sagt sich an and Kanadisches Intermezzo (Canadian Intermezzo); Carl Orff and Karl Marx’s Schulwerk; Orff’s Kleines Konzert (Little Concerto) and Kantate (Cantata); as well as performances of 175 works by contemporary composers including Berg, Debussy, Hindemith, Kodaly, Milhaud, Pfitzner, Ravel, Reger, Schönberg, and Stravinsky; and various works of early music.17 For the Fourth Festival of the Association Hermann Scherchen directed the premiere of Egk’s oratorio Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen (Fearlessness and Good Will) on 18 May 1931, one day after Egk’s thirtieth birthday. Egk’s libretto is utterly pacifist and opens,

15 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 151, 5 June 1930. “Amerika! 2400 Personen starben am Alkoholvergiftung (bum, bum!) New York … (Sonny boy) Zuchthaus in Kolumbus … Kinder in Troppau, zerrissen durch eine Granate … Kühe im überschwemmten Montauban am Ertrinken (die Musik ahmt das Muhen der Kühe nach) usw.” Ellipses in original. “Sonny boy” appears to be a reference to the Al Jolson hit song. Troppau is Opava, Czechoslovakia. 16 Program, Neue Music München, III. Festwoche, Vereinigung für Zeitgenössische Musik e.V., 1930. BSB Ana 410. 17 Program, Festwoche Neuer Musik München, 15.22. May 1931. BSB Ana 410.

He who is pricked by a mosquito, But he who is ready to kill, What good does it do him if he kills it? brings death upon himself. He who is bitten by a snake, He who is ready to defend, What good does it do him if he kills it? must fear attack. A thousand mosquitoes remain, But how does one face danger? ready to prick. But how does one face every danger? A thousand snakes remain, There is no danger for him ready to bite. Who practices fearlessness and good will, He who fears attack, without thinking of any resistance. thinks of defense. He who fears death, thinks of killing.

In this work the farmer Gamani is wrongly accused of stealing oxen, beating a woman, causing her to miscarry, and murder. With no witnesses to attest to his character, he is sentenced by the King to be trampled to death by an elephant, but the elephant refuses to trample an innocent man. Suspected of sorcery by the crown, Gamani replies that he has no spell, but that he, an innocent man, trusted in the truth that fostered in him fearlessness and goodwill, even toward the elephant. The folk celebrate Gamani as stronger than his foes, stronger than the King, and victor of the elephant.18

18 Textbuch: Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen. BSB Ana 410. “Der von einer Mücke gestochen wird, / Was nützt es ihm wenn er sie tötet. Der von einer Schlange gebissen wird, / Was nützt es ihm, wenn er sie tötet. Da bleiben noch tausend Mücken, / die bereit sind zu stechen. / Da bleiben noch tausend Schlangen die bereit sind zu beißen. Der den Angriff fürchtet, / denkt an die Gegenwehr. / Der den Tod fürchtet, / denkt daran, zu töten. Aber der bereit ist zu töten, / der zieht den Tod auf sich. / Aber der bereit ist zur Gegenwehr, / der hat den Angriff zu fürchten. Wie aber begegnet man der Gefahr? / Wie aber begegnet man jeder Gefahr? Für den gibt es keine Gefahr, / Der Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen übt, / ohne an Gegenwehr zu denken.”

Reviews of Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen were mixed. Some found Egk’s work to be a realization of the potential of new music, lauding his ostinato techniques and diatonic-polytonal harmonic language.19 Others saw the work as primarily descriptive and marked by a naïve lack of form.20 This is not surprising, given Egk’s background in theater accompaniment and his unconventional musical education. One of the most extensive reviews, however, telling not only of Egk’s work but also of the change in prevailing political winds in Germany, was the lengthy review carried in the Völkischer Beobachter, the primary organ of the NSDAP. The Völkischer Beobachter was the folkish (völkisch) voice of the NSDAP. To be völkisch was to be “national, with an emphasis on the value of race and national identity” as compared to the “international” voice of a non-German weltanschauung.21 A National Socialist Weltanschauung is not a general world view, but a “value system determined by race, character and fate represented, for the German people, by National Socialism.”22 The reviewer attacked everything from new music to Egk’s knowledge of zoology to his weltanschauung in his carefully conflated review: Since Arnold Schönberg came before the Munich public with his opus Pierrot lunaire in 1913 and had an undisputedly cheerful success, one has taken “innovation” as the expression of one not grown in the “expertise” of German cultural soil. Even now, a remnant of those uprooted in the postwar period continues to search along these paths. Now, the word “search” indicates something “intended,” something “desired,” but something that also has nothing in common with intuitive artistry.… The farmer Gamani … is to be trampled by elephants. It is good that Egk chooses even elephants as executioners, because he apparently knows that elephants, despite beating, do not allow themselves to be coerced, even to get up close and personal with a mosquito, so the sudden “reversal” of this thick-skinned one is simply to be found in its good-natured and good-willed natural disposition. Despite all intended good will by

19 Münchener Neueste Nachrichten 136, 21 May 1931. 20 Bayrischer Kurier 141, 21 May 1931. 21 Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, 2nd ed. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), s.v. “völkisch.” 22 Ibid., s.v. “Weltanschauung.” In order to distinguish the National Socialist Weltanschauung from the generic term, the Nazi version will be capitalized in the body of this document.

Egk-Gamani, the magic would turn to black magic, had a hungry panther or malevolent person arisen as his hangman. In all, it manifests itself in a sinister pacifistic weltanschauung that believes itself able to foster sympathy through mushiness and cant; had the two notions been able, for example, to free Germany from its foreign and yet more from its domestic tormentors— for nearly sufficient “good will” has now been summoned—we would stand as the freest people on the earth. I do not wish to be misunderstood, I bear sincere sympathy for the composer and would be happy on his behalf, if he would wrench himself from such a powerless philosophizing to a reckless fearlessness.23 Critic Paul Stefan heard in Egk’s “‘barbaric’ rhythmic energies and vehemence of the brass” another Stravinksy, but he concluded that Egk was a singular, meaningful new musical personality.24 And Berlin critic Dr. P. A. Pisk saw Egk carrying on the didactic tradition of

23 Völkischer Beobachter 143, 23 May 1931. “Als Arnold Schönberg im Januar 1913 mit seinem Opus „Pierrot lunaire“ vor das Münchener Publikum trat, und sich dabei einen unbestrittenen Heiterkeitserfolg holte, nahm man die „Neuheit“ als Ausdruck einer mit dem Boden deutscher Kultur nicht verwachsenen „Könnerschaft“ an. Daß ein Teil der vom Boden losgelösten Nachkriegzeit auf dem angedeuteten Wege weitersucht, liegt in eben dieser Zeit. Nun liegt schon in dem Worte „Suchen“ etwas „Beabsichtigtes“, etwas „Gewolltes“, was aber mit intuitivem Kunstschaffen auch nicht das geringste gemein hat.… Der Bauer Gamani … soll von Elefanten zertreten werden, es ist gut, daß Egk gerade Elefanten als Vollstrecker erwählt, denn wahrscheinlich ist ihm die Tatsache bekannt, daß Elefanten trotz Schlägen sich nicht zwingen lassen, auch nur einer Mücke zu Leibe zu gehen, also ist das plötzliche „Kehrt“ dieser Dickhäuter nur in ihrer gutmütigen und wohlwollenden Naturveranlagung zu suchen. Trotz alles beabsichtigten Wohlwollens von Egk-Gamani wäre der Zauber zum faulen Zauber geworden, wären ihm hungrige Panther oder übelwollende Menschen als Henker erstanden. Es äußert sich in allem eine unselige, pazifistische Weltanschauung, die glaubt, durch Weichlichkeit und Gewinsel Mitleid heischen zu müssen; wenn die zwei Begriffe vermocht hätten, beispielsweise Deutschland von den äußeren und viel mehr noch von den inneren Peinigern zu befreien–denn des „Wohlwollens“ ist ja nun nachgerade genug aufgebracht worden–, wir ständen als das freieste Volk auf der Weltkugel. Ich möchte nicht mißverstanden werden, ich hege für den Verfasser das aufrichtige Mitgefühl und würde mich in seinem Interesse freuen, wenn er von einer solch kraftlosen Philosophiererei sich zu rücksichtloser Furchtlosigkeit durchringen würde.” Emphasis in original. 24 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 237, 29 May 1931.

Brecht and Hindemith’s Der Lindbergflug (Flight of Lindberg) that had premiered under Scherchen’s baton in December 1929.25 Two of Egk’s works that followed these were of a completely different style: Der Löwe und die Maus (The Lion and the Mouse, 1931) and Der Fuchs und der Rabe (The Fox and the Raven, 1932) were Singspiele for children’s choir to texts by schoolchildren. These works were understandably non-controversial and well-received, but Egk had not abandoned his Weimar experiments. Egk had again collaborated with Seitz on Großstadt Weihnacht (Christmas in the Metropolis, 1931), and he composed the cosmopolitan Zur Gast bei Frau Chang (A Guest of Mrs. Chang) in February 1932. In light of Egk’s earlier reports on China in Zeit im Funk and 91 Tage Zeitgeschehen, critics opined that Egk reported too little on the modern Chinese woman but that he had created a realistic Chinese atmosphere in his music.26 Egk’s music to Von Helden der Gegenwart (Of Heroes of Today) of the same year complemented Hanns O. Münstere’s ballads on the archetypal polar explorer, engineer, American pilot, and doctor; and again explored international boundaries.27 On 30 May 1932 Egk’s “melodrama” Die Historie von Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona (The Story of Knight Don Juan of Barcelona) premiered on Bavarian Radio. Egk had adapted an old German puppet play to the new medium of radio. Ritter Don Juan was more than a melodrama, however, and represented an evolution from Egk’s earlier radio works toward opera. Egk included four singing roles: Kaspar, a hermit, the Spirit of Don Pedro, and unison choir. The other five roles, including Don Juan, were speaking roles. Egk included a seating chart in the score, indicating the positions of the instruments and conductor relative to the microphone. This revealed Egk’s understanding of radio broadcast, an attribute, according to critics, noticeably absent from his earliest radio works. 28 Ritter Don Juan drew upon the Don Juan tale but set its characters in southern Germany. While Egk retained Don Juan’s Spanish name, he remade Don Juan’s servant into Kaspar, a German commedia dell’arte type who speaks in a Bavarian dialect, as do the other common

25 Berlin Börsen Zeitung 242, 28 May 1931. 26 Münchner Post 38, 16 February 1932. 27 Bayrische Radiozeitung, n.d., BSB Ana 410. 28 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Trésor Mus. Mss. 11907. The quoted text is found on page 1 of the typewritten transcription of the play inserted in the manuscript.

characters in the melodrama. When the Spirit of Don Pedro accepts Don Juan’s invitation to dinner, it is at a Gasthaus (tavern) in the middle of a mystical German forest. These woods house mystical creatures and continue the German dark forest tradition of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz. Kaspar is particularly terrified by the “Prrrrrrrrr – Prrrrrrrrr” of a demon. In response, he cheers himself by singing a Tanzerl, a moralizing dance-song enumerating Don Juan’s sins of murder and lust. The meal to which Don Pedro sits down is one of Braten (roast), a favorite of many Bavarian brewhouses. Before Kaspar settled on Braten for the meal, the waitress was happy to recite a very Bavarian menu, including seven different types of sausage.29 Die Historie von Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona is a progenitor to Joan von Zarissa. The rustic work from the cosmopolitan Egk was alternately praised and criticized for its simplicity. Its proponents saw the work as another in Egk’s line of children’s theater. Its detractors had come to expect more from the composer. The evolution from Ritter Don Juan to Joan von Zarissa marks the trajectory of Egk’s development from a fledgling composer of radio works to an established composer of large-scale works. This is not to say that Egk had not composed more traditional or absolute art music before, nor that Egk’s radio works were not significant. The cosmopolitan, contemporary, avant-garde, and pacifist natures of Egk’s first successful works for radio were a reflection of the liberal Weimar milieu in which Egk spent his formative years as a composer. They provided the foundation for Egk’s later success in opera and dance, Egk’s music for which was perpetually panegyrized as both illustrative and dramatic.

29 Ibid, 5. Kellnerin: Was wünschen der Herr? Haben der Herr schon bestellt? Kaspar: Ja was habns denn? Kelln.: Bei uns könnens scho alles haben: Ein Schweinsschnitzel, ein Kalbsschnitzel, ein Beefsteak, ein Rindsbraten, ein Lungenbraten, ein Saftbraten, eine Antn, ein Ganser, oder wollns Würstl haben? Regensburger, Wiener, Frankfurter, Knackwürstl, Bratwürstl, Weiss- würstl, Dampfwürstl? Kaspar: Sie – habens keine Blunzn [Blutwurst]? Kelln.: Nein, bedaure, Blunzn haben wir sganze Jahr nicht. The exact nature of the Braten is difficult to specify, since this particular tavern offers three, including beef and lung. Kaspar’s first choice, blood sausage, wasn’t available year-round.

With the 30 January 1933 election of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, Weimar Germany would give way to the National Socialist New Germany, with its paradoxical antiquarian cultural paradigms, many modeled on the whims or perceived tastes of Hitler himself. While the advent of National Socialism did not immediately obliterate the liberalism of Weimar, its most ardent adherents would have to flee or adapt in the coming years. Scherchen fled in 1933, along with many others in the years following. Egk did not. As Egk established himself as a composer within the new regime, his cosmopolitan, avant-garde, and pacifist themes would disappear from some of his works but surface again in others, vestiges of Egk’s Weimar liberalism that National Socialism could not exorcise. In the end, Egk would never fully embrace National Socialism, though he utilized its infrastructure to forge a career, nor would he forget the freedom fomented by the culture of Weimar Berlin.

CHAPTER TWO

WERNER EGK’S CAREER WITHIN NATIONAL SOCIALISM

A work-by-work evaluation of Werner Egk’s oeuvre composed during the National Socialist period suggests a collection of disparate pieces of polarized intent across a variety of genres. By considering them as part of a young composer’s attempt to forge a career, Egk’s “Nazi works” such as Job, der Deutsche and works as “culturally Bolshevistic” as Peer Gynt become possible to reconcile with one another. Egk’s career began in accompanying film. It was a small step from providing an illustrative soundtrack for a film to creating music for a radio play. It was a step of some consequence, however, to create both the utilitarian and dramatic musics required for a sacramental play and even further to compose libretti and inherently dramatic music required for operas or for a dramatic dance-poem such Joan von Zarissa. These ostensibly dissimilar genres actually map Egk’s compositional path. Along the way Egk also wrote journal articles in an attempt to make space for himself and his colleagues, a new generation of German composers who grew out of and then outgrew German Romanticism.

Bayerische Fahnen (1933)

Egk’s first work completed in the Third Reich suited it well. On 19 May 1933 Bavarian Radio broadcast the radio play Bayerische Fahnen (Bavarian Flags), comprising seven “impressive scenes from German and Bavarian flag-history.” The play was written by Alfons von Czybulda and directed by Alois Johannes Lippl, the Managing Director (Oberspielleiter) of Bavarian Radio from 1932 to 1935. The play spanned German and Bavarian history from the First Reich, the Holy Roman Empire; through the Second Reich, Wilhelmine Germany; to the Third Reich, National Socialist Germany. The play ended with a scene titled “The Eternal Reich,” a model of the nationalistic programming featured on German radio after the National Socialist assumption of power. For this play Egk composed music for the Bavarian Radio men’s chorus and brass ensemble. It has since been lost.1

1 Robert Braunmüller, “Aktiv im kulturellen Wiederaufbau. Werner Egks verschwiegene Werke nach 1933,” in Werner Egk: Eine Debatte zwischen Ästhetik und Politik, ed. Jürgen Schläder (Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2008), 40.

Columbus (1933)

On July 13, 1933 Bavarian Radio (Bayerische Rundfunk) broadcast Egk’s next radio play, Columbus. Rather than a new product of the New Germany, Columbus was a vestige of Weimar Germany. Egk, having been engaged by Bavarian Radio in 1932 to write a radio-opera, completed its composition in that year; the work was to be broadcast in January 1933 but was not broadcast until July.2 The radio play chronicled the struggle of Columbus to gain funding for his exploration of a westward route to India. After an endless journey across an unknown ocean, Columbus claimed the New World for Spain. All are seized by a fever for the golden treasures the New World is alleged to offer. Having found no promised gold, Columbus falls victim to mutiny. He is brought back to Spain in chains, and after a lukewarm exculpation and trivial further adventures, dies half-forgotten there.3 For his libretto Egk went back to roughly contemporary sources: works by Calderon and others. N.S. Funk boasted that everything Columbus spoke in the play could be “authentically substantiated.”4 In Columbus, then, Egk employed a method to which he returned in Joan von Zarissa, the use of texts by authors contemporary to the setting of the drama. Egk worked closely with Hermann Scherchen on the composition of Columbus, but Scherchen fled to Austria before its premiere.5 Scherchen had reason to flee: he was a public figure who was also Communist. The Communists were the group first suppressed after the National Socialists gained power and the group on whom they blamed the 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire as the inauguration of revolution.6 Scherchen was not formally expunged until 6 January 1942, when he was “forbidden from any endorsement within the purview of the Reich Culture Chamber for the Greater German Reich for reason of his political orientation.”7 An

2 Egk to Frau [Gustel Jansen-] Scherchen, 27 March 1969. BSB Ana 410. 3 Funk Zeitung, “Uraufführung der Funkoper Columbus,” n.d. BSB Ana 410. 4 N.S. Funk 1, no. 23 (9 July 1933). Spaniard Pedro Calderón de la Barca lived from 1600 to 1681, and is therefore not actually a contemporary of Columbus. 5 Braunmüller, “Aktiv im kulturellen Wiederaufbau,” 37–38. 6William Schirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 190–95. 7 Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, R 56-II. Memorandum of 6 January 1942. “Betrifft: Frühere Generalmusikdirektor Herman Scherchen, geb. 21.6.1891. Hierdruch [sic] wird dem Obengenannten aufgrund

15 allusion to Egk’s work with Scherchen may be read in the review of Columbus published in the Völkischer Beobachter: Our time is grappling after a new, tonal language appropriate and specific to itself. We cannot get around this if we wanted, and [can]not admit it to those, those to whom a falsely-understood tradition and lame epigonism mean enough. The years of internationalist Marxist and Jewish domination have addled and exacerbated the situation, as they trained the young, budding composers in one spirit, that replaced creative formal design with constructivism and above all knowingly estranged new talent from the nurturing topsoil of national identity. The reviewer lauded Werner Egk, who, despite being led astray was able to find his way back. The writer continued that Egk’s strong creative talent is on its way to making real and healthy musical progress. Although no perfection yet exists apart from some intense points, so must work and performance be counted and praised as success and as bold achievement. Also all those who work at success and have mastered the not inconsiderable difficulties [must be praised].8 The back-handed reviewer did not regard Columbus as completely successful, but he touted Egk as a composer of the New Germany, though this work had originated in Weimar Germany and was set outside the Reich.

seiner politischen Einstellung jede Bestätigung im Bereich der Reichskulturkammer für das Großdeutschen Reich untersagt.” Hereafter, “Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde” will be abbreviated “BA.” 8 Völkischer Beobachter 197 (16 July 1933). “Unsere Zeit ringt nach einer neuen, ihr gemäßen und eigentümlichen Tonsprache. Darum kommen wir nicht herum, wollen wir und nicht zu denen bekennen, denen falsch verstandene Tradition und lahmes Epigonentum Genüge bedeuten. Die Jahre internationalistischer Marxisten- und Judenherrschaft haben die Situation insbesondere auch dadurch verwirrt und erschwert, als sie die jungen, aufstrebenden Komponisten in einem Geist erzogen, die Konstruktivismus an die Stelle schöpferischen Gestaltens setzte und der vor allem die jungen Begabungen bewußt dem mährenden Mutterboden des Volkstums entfremdete.… Es sei hier lediglich zusammengefaßt, daß das Werk den Gesamteindruck hinterließ, daß hier eine kräftige schöpferische Begabung echten und gesunden musikalischen Fortschritts auf dem besten Weg ist. Wenngleich also außer an einigen konzentrierten Stellen noch keine Vollendung vorliegt, so muß doch Werk und Aufführung als Erfolg und als wagemutige Tat verzeichnet und gerühmt werden. Und damit auch alle, die sich um das Gelingen bemüht, und die nicht geringen Schwierigkeiten gemeistert haben.…” Emphasis in original.

The Völkischer Beobachter was never overly congratulatory of Egk. Dr. Max Neuhaus, after hearing the concert performance of Columbus in April 1934, thought less of Egk’s efforts than did his colleague, as his comments made clear: Egk says in a foreword to the libretto, that “the musical language of the work is derived from the great archetypes of the last centuries.” Therein he errs fundamentally. The musical language is not derived from the great archetypes of the last centuries, but from the calamity in the relation of tones to one another that, in the abrogation of eternally valid laws, has first been taught by Arnold Schönberg. (That the beginning of this corruptive work of Schönberg almost coincides with the notorious Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 has hardly been considered adequately.) As the music sounded, it appeared as though the conductor had not heard the mistakes in the orchestra at the proofreading rehearsals. It swarms with them. Later it occurred to us that these “mistakes” were intended in order to produce “sound combinations of one’s own style.” When in one chord the major third sounds at the same time as the minor, yes, that may give the impression of suspenseful uncertainty; but when such jokes are perpetually repeated, when alongside the bass note a half-step above or below sounds as well, then through a sense of hearing so developed, gross discomfort arises in our souls.9

9 Max Neuhaus, Völkischer Beobachter 89 (9 April 1934). “Egk sagt in einem Vorwort zum Textbuch, daß „die musikalische Sprache des Werkes sich von den großen Vorbildern des letzten Jahrhunderts herleite“. Darin irrt er fundamental. Nicht von den großen Vorbildern des letzten Jahrhunderts leitet die musikalische Sprache her, sondern von dem Unheil, das in der Aufhebung ewig gültiger Gesetze, in dem Beziehungen der Töne untereinander, zuerst von Arnold Schönberg abgerichtet worden ist. (Daß der Beginn dieser Zersetzungsarbeit Schönbergs fast auf das Jahr zusammenfällt mit dem berüchtigten Zionistenkongreß zu Basel im Jahre 1897, ist kaum noch hinreichend bedacht worden.) Als die Musik erklang, da schien es, als habe der Dirigent bei den Korrekturproben die Fehler in den Orchesterstimmen nicht gehört. Es wimmelt davon. Später kam uns zum Bewußtsein daß diese „Fehler“ beabsichtigt waren, wohl um „Klangmischungen eigener Art“ hervorzubringen. Wenn in einem Akkorde die große Terz gleichzeitig mit der kleinen erklingt, so mag das ja den Ausdruck von erwartungsvoller Unsicherheit geben können; wenn solche Scherze aber dauernd wiederholt werden, wenn neben den Baßtönen fast immer gleichzeitig der Halbton drüber oder drunter miterklingt, dann steigt uns durch ein sein [sic] entwickeltes Gehört krasses Unbehagen in die Seele.”

Another review of the concert performance of Columbus in Munich found Egk to be a promising young Bavarian musician who unfortunately adhered rigidly to “sound combinations of an expressionistic technique that proclaims itself especially clearly in the accumulation of extra- harmonic tones in the return of a wearisome diatonicism.”10 Negative reviews of Egk’s music referencing expressionism reflected the cultural shift from Weimar to National Socialist Germany. In the short time between the composition of Columbus and its premiere, the acceptable harmonic language of Germany had undergone a sea change from liberal Weimar experimentalism to National Socialist asceticism. Expressionism was verboten.11

Egk’s Contributions to Völkische Kultur - I

In addition to being a composer, Egk was the regular correspondent reporting on contemporary music for Völkische Kultur, the “monthly journal for the entire spiritual [geistig] movement of the New Germany.” In addition to music the journal devoted articles to cultural studies, literature, arts, history, and politics. Between October 1933 and January 1936 Egk wrote eleven articles or book reviews for Völkische Kultur. 12 Historian Michael Kater posits that the composer’s “publications such as those for Völkische Kultur signify that Egk, despite being steeped in the modernist culture of Weimar, was

10 Der Volksfreund (Aachen) 96 (25 April 1934). “Egks starres Festhalten an den Klangkombinationen einer expressionistischen Technik, die sich besonders deutlich in der Häufung harmoniefremder Töne und in der Wiederkehr einer ermüdenden Diatonik kundgibt, spricht jedoch nicht für eine weise Benutzung überlieferter musikalischer Formen.” 11 When Paul Hindemith attended the Columbus production staged in Zurich in 1955, he complimented the “powerful work,” and apologized to Egk for not staying after the performance, but having to “leave under protest” in order to meet with Swiss composer Walter Schultheiß. (Paul Hindemith to Werner Egk, 7 March 1955; BSB Ana 410.) 12 The term geistig, here reflects the all-encompassing scope of the journal, since that word means variably “intellectual,” “mental,” or “spiritual.” Regular articles appeared in the columns devoted to cultural studies, history of German literature, contemporary poetry, philosophy, fine arts, architecture, history, German pre- and early history, race issues, school administration, youth education, gymnastics and dance, theater, German language, Catholic and Protestant theology, culture and rights, rural customs and tradition, Germandom abroad, women’s issues, military science, and contemporary critique.

early on trying to arrange himself with the new Nazi rulers.”13 While that may be so, Egk often lights on controversial points that make a reader wonder exactly what arrangement he was attempting to construct. Instead of seeking to align him with National Socialism, many of Egk’s divergent articles share the common goal of making a place for him within the cultural landscape of the New Germany. Egk’s inaugural article, titled “Music Yesterday and Today” focused on contemporary music in the context of its forbears. Egk divided composers into five groups: eclecticists and epigones of the Romantics, atonal music composers, popular hit-composers, those composers who “wish to realize the idea of a community,” and folk-musicians. Those of the first group acted as though Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Wagner had been rejected by their own tradition, only “to be publicized by lately-born copycats.” According to Egk, the opposite was true: the copycats hid behind the masters to “conceal their smallness.”14 Here, the modernist Egk set himself apart from those German Romantic epigones. Egk embarked on his discussion of atonal composition by practically apologizing for a lengthy discourse when the movement had found so few adherents in Germany. Egk pointed to chromaticism as the origin of atonality, though it may have angered the epigones of the first group, who equated “atonal” with “anarchical” or “ugly.” Egk countered that a piece of music “can sound very ugly while righteously tonal” and defended the atonal composers, who worked under a self-imposed law more exacting than any that had come before. He equated dodecaphonic technique with the handling of a melodic motive of a tonal work “used

13 Michael Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5. 14 Werner Egk, “Musik gestern und heute,” Völkische Kultur 1 (October 1933): 208–11. “Der Begriff, hinter dem sich die große Masse der Eklektizisten und Epigonen im Kampf um ihre eigene Bedeutung und im Kampf gegen eine neue geistige Haltung—im Musikalischen genau wie im Politischen—verschanzt, ist die Tradition. Als ob Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms und Wagner darauf angewiesen wären, von spätgeborenen Nachahmern propagiert zu werden! In Wirklichkeit ist der Vorgang genau umgekehrt. Jene Leute stellen sich nicht vor die Titanen, um für sie zu kämpfen, sie haben es nötig sich hinter ihnen zu verstecken um ihre Kleinheit zu verbergen.” The word “epigone” is a keyword used generally to describe the hangers-on to romanticism in the discussion of the changes in musical culture from romanticism to modernism, be that atonality, dodecaphony, or Egk’s extended diatonicism. The term is often used by critics and writers other than Egk, and the composer Hans Pfitzner particularly bears the label.

architecturally through mirror imitation [Umkehrung, or “inversion”] and cancrizans [Krebs, or “retrograde”] and varied by every thinkable rhythmic alteration.” By defending atonality and dodecaphony to a certain extent, Egk defended his own music, which, while tonal, was replete with non-harmonic additions. Egk sarcastically acknowledged that the “discoverers of song-style” proceeded from the “completely correct premise that the constriction of art music from the large part of music consumers must lead to the dying off of art music.” Egk continued that such composers, “with a stunning commercial instinct and disarming cold-bloodedness, marry a virtuoso-artistic American jazz style with Yiddish folklore and give it one more shot of sentimental irony of their own.” This “refined” product, Egk explained, took cabaret, radio, theater, the recording industry and the concert hall, snobs and the entire public by storm. Great jubilation! Finally the long-missed connection between art and the masses had been established.15 Egk opposed this group to his own, composers who “wish to realize community through the musically-stylistic.” Their model was classic vocal polyphony, in which the “individual lives through the whole and the whole through the individual.” Egk lamented that while much had been written on the power of this music to build community, no community had yet arisen outside “circles, conventicals, and sects” centered on enjoying polyphony. They saved the construction of community for later. Egk posited, Community presupposes a collective weltanschauung, which can then decree a musical style, but the reverse cannot be. It is possible to interpret the instinctive connection to the pre-Classical form principles as a parallel to the political ideation of recent years, and one can hope that the new Germany will avail itself of the results of this development to purify it [the instinctive connection to pre-Classical form principles] of every

15 Ibid., 210. “Sie verheirateten mit einem verblüffenden geschäftlichen Instinkt und einer entwaffnenden Kaltblütigkeit den virtuos-artistischen amerikanischen Jazzstil mit der jiddischen Folklore und gaben aus Eigenem noch einen herzhaften Schuß sentimentaler Ironie dazu. Dieses raffinierte Produkt eroberte das Kabarett, den Rundfunk, das Theater, die Schallplattenindustrie und den Konzertsaal, die Snobs und das große Publikum. Heller Jubel! Endlich war wieder die langvermißte Verbindung von der Kunst zur Masse hergestellt.”

arbitrariness and cultivate and enhance it to be a viable means of expression for resulting representative-cultic causes.16 Egk’s rhetoric on fostering community and his reference to the “cultic” cause paralleled the language he would later use to describe Job, der Deutsche, which premiered the following month. Here, Egk aligned himself with the National Socialist cultural goal of fostering Volksgemeinschaft, the “community of the people,” the ideological antithesis to artificial, un- German society or Gesellschaft.17 Volksgemeinschaft was an important tenet of National Socialism, community born out of common blood, destiny, and National Socialist belief, in which individual interests were subsumed for the benefit of the entire body of the people.18 Egk offered himself and his works as capable of achieving this goal. Egk closed his article with a discussion of folk music, pointing out that other countries had already provided “living examples of the renewal of art music in the spirit of folksong.” According to Egk, that spirit arose from a time before the “hegemony of chromaticism” and broke out “in the colors of an expanded, steely diatonicism.” Through its clarity, aggressiveness, dynamism and strength, this style could engage and inspire that Volk who identified with it.19 Egk’s references to an expanded diatonicism again aligned with his own compositional style. The influence of folksong and folk-like composition foreshadowed his work in Die Zaubergeige, parts of which his wife had already introduced to Germany. Egk’s second article for Völkische Kultur was published the following month, November 1933. Egk opened his article “Music for Radio Plays”: “we all still remember the advent of radio plays, in which merry real glasses clinked, doors slammed open and shut, chains rattled and steps within cavernous chambers reverberated from the speaker.” He then traced out the development of German radio plays from mere “works of entertainment and enjoyment to

16 Ibid., 210–11. “Gemeinschaft setzt eine gemeinsame Weltanschauung voraus, die dann den musikalischen Stil bestimmen kann, aber umgekehrt geht das nicht. Es besteht aber die Möglichkeit, die instinktive Anknüpfung an die vorklassischen Formprinzipien als einen Parallelvorgang zu der politischen Ideenbildung der letzten Jahre zu deuten, und man kann hoffen, daß das neue Deutschland sich der Ergebnisse dieser Entwicklung bemächtigen wird, um sie von jeder Willkürlichkeit zu reinigen und sie zu einem brauchbaren Ausdruckmittel für die sich ergebenden repräsentativ-kultischen Anlässe auszubilden und zu steigern.” 17 Ed. Benz, et al., Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Volksgemeinschaft.” 18 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Volksgemeinschaft.” 19 Egk, “Musik gestern und heute,” 211.

weltanschauung-oriented, ethically assertive radio plays for building community and state.” He lamented the continued existence of “melodramatic kitsch and objectionable illustration-music” regularly reported in the press as “the very pretty musical illustration by Mister X.” Egk closed with an inventory of radio plays that accomplished the task of fusing strong ideas to music of a more serious nature than Egk’s own earlier radio works.20 In this article Egk traced his own development as a composer of music for radio plays, from his early Ein Cello singt in Daventry to his lighter Der Löwe und der Maus to his more serious Das große Totenspiel (The Great Death-Play) that premiered the same month as his article.

Egk’s Radio Plays of 1933–34

Egk composed several radio plays that premiered in 1933 and 1934 and about which little is known. In a letter to Guido Gatti regarding an upcoming article for the journal Rassegna, Egk referred to three radio plays from 1933 for which he wrote music: Hölderlin to a text by Rosskopf, for orchestra; Heimliche Reich (Covert Empire) to a text by Alois Johannes Lippl, for large orchestra and baritone; and Kleine Schöpfung (Little Creation) to a text by Ernst Wiechert, for large orchestra and choir.21 In 1934 Egk composed music for Das kaiserliche Liebesgespräch (The Imperial Call of Love). The radio program premiered on 2 April 1934.22 Two other works from 1933 enjoy substantial historical documentation: the radio play Das große Totenspiel and the sacramental play Job, der Deutsche (Job, the German).

Das große Totenspiel (1933)

On All Saints’ Day (1 November) 1933 Bavarian Radio premiered Das große Totenspiel, written by Ernst Wiechert with music by Werner Egk. Like Bayerische Fahnen, both score and libretto have been lost. According to an advertisement in the Bayerische Radio-Zeitung,

20 Werner Egk, “Hörspielmusik,” Völkische Kultur 1 (November 1933): 277–78. “Man findet sogar noch melodramatischen Kitsch und üble Illustrationsmusik, die nach Art der Kinotheken unglückseligen Andenkens Versatzstücke für jede beliebige Stimmung bereitstellt. In den Funkkritiken heißt es dann regelmäßig: „Sehr hübsch die musikalische Illustration von Herrn X.“ 21 Egk to Guido Gatti, 2 February 1934. BSB Ana 410. Rassegna Dorica was a Milanese cultural journal that ran a series of articles on music composition in 1933 and 1934. < http://www.ripm.org/journal_info.php5?ABB=RAD> (Accessed 24 June 2011). 22 Fred K. Prieberg, Handbuch deutsche Musiker 1933–1945 (CD ROM, Fred K. Prieberg, 2004), 8279.

22 however, the roles included God, Mary, the Angel, Death, a mother, her son, and a young woman. The Radio Orchestra was joined by the Radio Choir, and both were conducted by Egk.23 Das große Totenspiel was broadcast by other radio stations in March 1934 to commemorate the newly instated Heldengedenktag, or Heroes Remembrance Day.24

Job, der Deutsche (1933)

On 16 November 1933 Job, der Deutsche premiered in the Grosse Messehalle in Cologne, Germany. This Thingspiel (Tribunal Play) was written by Kurt Eggers, set to music by Egk, and choreographed by Dr. Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt, stage director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1931 to 1933.25 The program for the premiere touts Job, der Deutsche as “the first festival play in Germany,” an “honorable commission” from Reichsminister Dr. Josef Goebbels.26 Job, der Deutsche is a variation on the biblical account of Job. According to the program for the premiere, Eggers prophetically foresaw how Job, the German Man, who, after a lost war, had to go through all hardships of poverty, through pestilence and vice, who, finally, after overcoming all vileness, after conquering the Evil Foe, entered eternity as a victor.27

23 Braunmüller, “Aktiv im kulturellen Wiederaufbau,” 40–41. 24 Ibid. This day commemorated the fallen of the First World War and of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of 9 November 1923. From 1939, the day was a commemoration of the fallen of both World Wars, and the latter commemoration received its own national holiday, the Gefallenen der Bewegung (The Fallen of the Movement) on 9 November. 25 Gerald Fitzgerald, Editor-in-Chief, Annals of the Metropolitan Opera: The Complete Chronicle of Performances and Artists (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. and New York: The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc., 1989), 428–449. His name is listed as Hanns Niedecken-Gebhard in the Annals. Egk’s manuscript for Job, der Deutsche is housed in the Musik Abteilung of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Trésor Mus. ms. 17522. The title page bears the name Der Weg and the date 1933; however, the score is that of Job, der Deutsche. 26 Program, Das Spiel von Job, dem Deutschen, 16 November 1933. BSB Ana 410. “Die Landestelle Rheinland hat durch den Herrn Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels den ehrenvollen Auftrag erhalten, als erste die „Rheinische Spielgemeinschaft für nationale Festgestaltung“ und die ersten nationalen Festspiele in Deutschland durchzuführen.” 27 Ibid. “Das Mysterium von Kurt Eggers „Das Spiel von Job dem Deutschen“ entstand im November 1932. Eggers hat prophetisch vorausgeschaut, wie Job, der deutsche Mensch, der nach einem verlorenen Kriege durch alle Nöte der Armut, durch Seuche und Laster hindurchgehen mußte, schließlich nach Überwindung aller Widerwärtigkeiten, nach Bezwingung des bösen Feindes als Sieger in die Ewigkeit eingeht.”

The program did not specify exactly what Eggers prophesied. Given the economic ruin of the defeated Germany seized by the National Socialists, and the German Everyman nature of Job, Eggers drew an analogy to Germany itself after World War I and envisioned its future triumph. The spectacle involved some 500 participants, including roles for Job, his wife, seven sons, and a servant; the voice of the Lord of Glory; the Evil Foe; and an infernal triumvirate of Poverty, Pestilence, and Vice, along with their minions. The Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger reported: Job, the German, is the victim of temptation for the Lord of Glory, whom the Evil Foe challenges to battle for a human soul, as in Goethe’s Faust. The adversary, Mephistopheles in new clothes, in his unassuming earthly life, brings what wickedness and misfortune this world has to offer: war and pestilence, poverty and vice. Job’s seven sons take up arms and go off to war with courage and joy. They are brought back dead. Poverty nags, pestilence lurks, vice entices—but Job remains steadfast and trusts his God. He will be saved; he may enter that Reich that promises eternal bliss. The angels rejoice, the flags greet, the choirs of heaven sing: a person remained true to himself, Job, the German! And a proud song breaks out in the hall, in the world: “Now thank we all our God.…” (“Nun danket alle Gott.…”) and closes the German Passion with victory and praise.28 After the production, the newly-appointed leader of the Reich Theater Chamber, Secretary Otto Laubinger thanked the participants on the behalf of Reichsminister Dr. Josef Goebbels.29 Job, der Deutsche is a Thingspiel, an open-air production named for the Thing (“Place of Judgment”), the tribune in which the German Court met. Thingspiele were popular in Nazi

28 Erik Krünes, Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger, 17 November 1933. “Job, der Deutsche, ist für den Herrn der Herrlichkeiten, den der böse Feind, wie in Goethes Faust herausfordert, mit ihm um eines Menschen Seele zu kämpfen, das Opfer der Versuchung. Was es an Schlechtigkeit und Unglück in dieser Welt zu geben vermag, bringt der Widersacher, Mephisto in neuem Kleid, in sein bescheidenes Erdenleben: Krieg und Seuche, Armut und Laster. Die sieben Söhne Jobs greifen zum Gewehr und ziehen mit Mur und Freude in den krieg hinaus. Man bringt sie tot zurück. Die Armut keift, die Seuche droht, das Laster lockt—doch Job bleibt standhaft und vertraut seinem Gott. Er wird gerettet, er darf eingehen in das Reich, das ewige Seligkeit verspricht. Die Engel jubilieren, die Fahnen grüßen, die Chöre des Himmels singen: Ein Mensch blieb sich selber treu, Job, der Deutsche! Und ein stolzer Gesang braust auf, durch die Halle, durch die Welt: „Nun danket alle Gott …“ und schließt die deutsche Passion mit Sieg und Lob.” 29 Berliner Tageblatt 542, 17 November 1933.

Germany from 1933 to 1937 and fell under the purview of the short-lived Reichsbund der deutschen Freilicht- und Volksschauspiele (Reich Organization of Open-air and Community Theater).30 The genre developed as a proletarian alternative to bourgeois theater, first originating in the 1920s among Social Democrats and Communists. Choruses, the central element of the genre, simultaneously fascinated and disciplined their hearers.31 The thingspiel sought to bridge the gulf between actors and audience that had developed in the theater. In a rejection of theater architecture, thingspiele were performed in large open-air theaters in the round with seating for thousands, with the natural landscape comprising part of the set. Extras were recruited from the audience gathered to see the production. Productions included choruses of speech, song, and movement; pantomime and allegorical figures; flag ceremonies; modern dance and ballet; and sound and lighting effects. Music was integral to thingspiele. In lieu of a curtain, musical cues delineated scenes. The music was highly rhythmic, and finales featured both actors and spectators joining in national or battle hymns. Actors often had no individual identity but represented nameless workers or soldiers. Some characters were aggregate: a group dressed in identical costume represented a single entity or allegorical figure, such as Niedecken- Gebhardt’s characters of Poverty, Pestilence, and Vice. Finally, Thingspiele were massive: in October 1933, a Thingspiel by Gustav Goes performed in Berlin featured approximately 17,000 costumed actors before an audience of 60,000.32 With drama, movement and dance, music, and natural landscape for a set, the Thingspiel was a Gesamtkunstwerk that sought to move the masses and foster Volksgemeinschaft. Job, der Deutsche, a play that “in its choric-cultic form,

30 Henning Eichberg, “The Nazi Thingspiel: Theater for the Masses in Fascism and Proletarian Culture,” trans. Robert A. Jones, New German Critique 11 (Spring 1977): 133–150. It is important to clarify that the term “Thingspiel” originates from the place in which open-air instructional plays were performed, the Thingplatz (lit., “Thing-‘place,’” the open-air circular theater, many of which were constructed after 1933 specifically for the production of such plays). “Thingspiel” can function as label of genre as well, though the terms Weihespiel (“sacramental play,” of which Job, der Deutsche is one) and Massenspiel (“mass play”) are more descriptive. From 1935 Josef Goebbels sought the eradication of such “mystical” terms as Thing, Kult (“Cult”), and Mystik (“Mysticism”) from the press, as they were incongruent with the National Socialist movement, whose leaders later sought to distance themselves from a reputation as cultic or mystic. See Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Thing (Thingplatz, Thingstätte).” 31 Eichberg, “Nazi Thingspiel,” 141. 32 Ibid., 139–140.

25 in the denial of individualism and emphasis on folk-identifying solidarity, expresses true Volksgemeinschaft through a grandiose harmony of stage and audience at its close” was just such a work .33 One critic surmised that Egk, after his years of wandering in Italy, lived among farmers in the Bavarian mountains and created music out of this healthy German topsoil. The critic stated that in Egk’s music: simple rhythms and a strong sense of color are united. The Prelude was ceremoniously played; the Pastorale transition to the play, a quiet song of praise to homeland; the March to War of the sons is resolute, soldierly and powerful; the great Funeral March for the fallen heroes is dignifiedly restrained and grows to the Transfiguration of the Dead in major; the sounds of the Song of Poverty are moving; the great Dance of Vice and Pestilence is a drunken spook from Hell—the Closing March, though, the Entrance of the German People, a radiantly clear avowal to freedom and a life of honor.34 The author commended Egk, “who in all his works, never celebrated the over-bred, but instead created folk-identifying (volkhaft) music understandable by everyone.”35 However, the reviewer also referred to the dance of Vice and Pestilence as a “drunken spook from Hell.” This dance, or rather, the music Egk composed for this dance, were something of a problem, as will be seen.

33 Program, Job dem Deutschen, 16 November 1933. BSB Ana 410. 34 “Kölner Mosaik” in an unnamed newspaper, no. 291, 15 November 1933. BSB Ana 410. “Hierin finden sich ein einfacher Rhythmus und starker Sinn für Farben vereint. Das Vorspiel ist feierlich getragen; das Pastorale als Ueberleitung zum Spiel ein stilles Preislied auf die Heimat; Der Auszugsmarsch der Söhne ist entschlossen, soldatisch und stark; der große Trauermarsch für die gefallenen Helden ist würdig verhalten und steigert sich bis zur Verklärung der Toten heroisch in Dur; die Klänge des Armutsliedes sind ergreifend; der große Tanz des Lasters und der Seuche ist ein taumelnder Höllenspuk—der Schlußmarsch aber, der Einzug der deutschen Menschen, ein strahlend klares Bekenntnis zu Freiheit und einem Leben in Ehre. Werner Egk, der ein geborener Münchener ist und nach seinen italienischen Wanderjahren nun im bayrischen Gebirge unter Bauern lebt, zieht seine schaffenden Kräfte aus gesundem Erlebnisgrund.” 35 Ibid. “In all seinen Werken, zuletzt in der Musik zu dem großen Totenspiel von Ernst Wiechert, hat er nie das Ueberzüchtete gefeiert, sondern immer nur eine volkhafte, allgemein verständliche Musik geschaffen.” The word “Überzüchtete” is difficult, and I have translated it as “over-bred.” Züchten, “to breed” or “to raise,” is an agricultural term usually associated with livestock or plants, and also for inbreeding (durch Inzucht züchten). Here, it refers to an over-cultivated, intellectual art music.

“Tango music in a Germany mystery play?” the reviewer of the Cologne newspaper Westdeutscher Beobachter asked upon hearing a dress rehearsal of Job, der Deutsche. He then answered his own question: As the medieval painters most drastically depict Hell and the Temptation of St. Anthony, in this play the entire life in its opposition of good and evil will be represented. Vice presses on Job in tango step and invites him [Job] to find forgetfulness of sorrow and misery in him [Vice].36 Egk accompanied scantily-clad, fiery-red-headed Vice and her minions with sultry tango music, a characterization of evil.37 Tango had an dubious reputation in National Socialism. Writing in 1938 for the Deutsche Tanz-Zeitschrift (German Dance Journal), Reinhold Sommer acknowledged that For years the most different circles have earnestly endeavored to find a dance form in accordance with the cultural aspirations of our time.… … It was often said that the foreign dances foxtrot and tango originate in an individualistic Epoch and therefore henceforth appear unaesthetic. As counterexamples, one cites simple dances such as the Rheinländer, polka, and not least, the waltz, that are simply and therefore symmetrically built and in which a swaying in festive rhythm comes about much more quickly than in the so-called modern dances. It is indisputable that in the Rheinländer, and in the polka, as in the waltz, that is, dances that already have been cultivated in Germany for over one hundred years, a unifying dance-like link is present. This uniformity is based in simplicity in the first place. For example, in the waltz, there is only a right or left turning; in the Rheinländer, one distinguishes the open part, in which the dance partners separate and again come

36 Westdeutscher Beobachter 286, 10 November 1933. “Tangomusik in einem deutschen Mysterienspiel?—Und das Laster wird dargestellt? Wie die mittelalterlichen Maler ja auch die Hölle, und wie sie die Versuchungen des heiligen Antonius höchst drastisch darstellen, so wird auch in diesem Spiel das ganze Leben in seiner Gegensätzlichkeit von Gut und Böse gezeigt. Das Laster dringt im Tangoschritt auf Job ein und fordert ihn auf, in ihm Vergessen zu finden von Leid und Not.” 37 Pictures of the production were included in the Westdeutscher Beobachter 292 of 16 November 1933. The Bearers of the Dead (Totenträger) were costumed as Nazi soldiers. Vice and Pestilence were played mostly by women wearing very short skirts or shorts. Erik Krünes, in the Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger of 17 November 1933, refers to the “fiery red-head [mit brennend rotem Haar] Flokina von Platen” as Vice.

together, and the closed round-dance part. That is all comparatively simple and easy for everyone to learn. Not to be forgotten, these dances are enjoyable and everywhere allow a happy sentiment to arise, so that here dance is obviously an expression of joie de vivre [Lebensfreude]. Above all, we dance instructors also believe that we are certainly not able to disclaim either dance, the foxtrot or tango.38 Some seven years later Sommer was still trying to establish the canon of acceptable dance in Germany. In the pages of Die Musik he described the tango as follows: Tango. The question whether Tango is to be viewed as foreign to the German type or, in movement and music, similar and thereby to be played and danced in the future, must be clarified by the administration of the Dance Section of the Reich Theater Chamber in agreement with the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda and with the Reich Music Chamber. 39

38 Reinhold Sommer, “’Mode’tänze oder deutsche Tänze?” Deutsche Tanz Zeitschrift 3, no. 110 (November 1938): 17–18. “Seit Jahren bemühen sich die verschiedensten Kreise ernsthaft, eine Tanzform zu finden, die dem Kulturstreben unserer Zeit entspricht.… Man hat vielfach dem Tanz die Schuld gegeben und gesagt, daß die ausländischen Tänze Foxtrott und Tango einer individualistischen Epoche entstammen und daß daher die Tänze als solche unschön aussehen. Man nannte als Gegenbeispiel die einfachen Tänze, wie Rheinländer, Polka und nicht zuletzt den Walzer, die schlicht und dabei symmetrisch aufgebaut sind und bei denen eine Schwingung im festlichen Rhythmus viel eher zustande kommt als bei den sogenannten modernen Tänzen. Es ist unbestritten, daß beim Rheinländer, bei der Polka sowie beim Walzer, also Tänzen, die in Deutschland bereits seit mehr als hundert Jahren gepflegt werden, tatsächlich eine einheitlich tänzerische Linie vorhanden ist. Diese Einheitlichkeit fußt in erster Linie in der Einfachheit. Beim Walzer z. B. gibt es nur eine Rechts- oder eine Linksdrehung, beim Rheinländer z. B. unterscheidet man den offenen Teil, bei dem die Tanzpartner sich trennen und wieder zusammengehen, und einen geschlossenen Rundtanz-Teil. Das alles ist verhältnismäßig einfach und für jedermann leicht zu erlernen. Nicht zu vergessen, dieses Tanzen macht Spaß und läßt überall schnell eine fröhliche Stimmung aufkommen, so daß hier der Tanz als Ausdruck der Lebensfreude augenfällig ist. Darüber hinaus glauben wir Tanzlehrer allerdings auch auf die beiden Tänze Foxtrott und Tango nicht verzichten zu können.” 39 Reinhold Sommer, “Neugestaltung des Gesellschaftstanzes.” Die Musik XXXIV, no. 8 (May 1942): 253–255. “Tango. Die Frage, ob Tango als ein der deutschen Art fremder oder in Bewegung und Musik anzunähernder Tanz anzusehen und damit weiterhin zu spielen und zu tanzen sei, müßte durch die Leitung der Fachschaft Tanz in der

In May 1939 a “clarification on the degeneracy of dance” was issued by Dr. Peter Raabe, President of the Reich Music Chamber, and Dr. Ludwig Körner, President of the Reich Theater Chamber: Certain developments in social dance, especially some new foreign “dances,” whose introduction in Germany would not be consistent with the principles of a character-conscious culture, give cause to make the propagation of new types of domestic or foreign dances dependent upon a “Declaration of Inoffensiveness.” In each case, these will be conveyed in the Official Memoranda of the Reich Music Chamber and the Reich Theater Chamber and in music journals. Prior to the announcement of the Declaration of Inoffensiveness every propagation of such dances—through publication, propagation and performance of associated dance music and through teaching or demonstration of the dances—is to be avoided.40 By 1945 no such clarification regarding the tango appeared in the official memoranda nor in Die Musik. But Sommer’s use of the phrase “in the future” (weiterhin, also “from now” 41) indicates that the tango continued to be danced in 1942 when he was writing. The Westdeutscher Beobachter that granted Egk a certain leeway with the tango music at the rehearsal described above, changed its opinion of Egk’s music after the premiere. At issue was not the use of tango but rather Egk’s use of harmony and non-harmonic tones:

Reichstheaterkammer im Einvernehmen mit dem Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda und mit der Reichsmusikkammer geklärt werden.” 40 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 6, no. 13 (1 July 1939): 35. BA R 56-II/21. “Gewisse Erscheinungen im geselligen Tanz, insbesondere einige neue ausländische „Tänze“, deren Einführung in Deutschland mit den Grundsätzen einer artbewußten Kultur nicht vereinbar wäre, geben Veranlassung, die Verbreitung neuartiger in- oder ausländischer Tänze von einer Unbedenklichkeitserklärung abhängig zu machen. Diese wird jeweils in den „Amtlichen Mitteilungen“ der Reichsmusikkammer und der Reichstheaterkammer und in den Musikzeitschriften mitgeteilt. Vor Bekanntgabe der Unbedenklichkeitserklärung ist jede Verbreitung solcher Tänze—durch Verlegen, Verbreiten und Aufführen von entsprechender Tanzmusik und durch Lehren oder Vorführen der Tänze—zu unterlassen.” 41 Karl Breul, Cassell’s New German and English Dictionary, rev. and enl. J. Heron Lepper and Rudolf Kottenhahn (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1939).

Regarding the music of Egk, it speaks the word of the atonals more than is bearable. Stravinsky and Schönberg might be more than uncalled-for as godparents of a music for the first German character-play. We are not served when the keys C and D Major sound concurrently to illustrate something.42 On the other hand, Egk’s use of the tango to characterize vice was apparently understood by the critics of Job, der Deutsche. Vice was the moral antithesis to the honorable Job, represented by the chorale at the end of the play. As a Weihespiel, Job, der Deutsche is a conflation of religion and state. The drama is based on the biblical account of Job, and the organ, the icon of German sacred music, is a key element in the musical score.43 Typical for a sacramental play it ended with a procession of flags accompanied by the singing of a hymn. In this hymn the religio-political conflation presents itself most clearly. In the program for the 16 November premiere, the text of Martin Rinckart’s well-known chorale “Nun danket alle Gott” was printed, that the audience might join in singing. The day before, the unemployed of Cologne were invited to a free performance of Job, der Deutsche. In this program, there was no Rinckart hymn. Instead, the words of the Deutschlandlied (“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!”) were printed in the program. On the reverse was this me ssage to the audience: Comrades! I am pleased that it was possible for us to invite you as our guests this evening to the public dress rehearsal of our festival play Job, der Deutsche and bid you, in the spirit of genuine National Socialistic camaraderie, cordial welcome. May this performance give

42 Hanns Schumacher, “Job, der Deutsche,” Westdeutsche Beobachter 294, 18 November 1933. “Zur Musik Werner Egks ist zu sagen, das sie mehr als erträglich dem Atonalen das Wort redet. Strawinsky und Schönberg dürften als Paten einer Musik für das ersten deutsche Symbolspiel doch mehr als überflüssig sein. Uns ist nicht damit gedient, daß die Tonarten C- und D-Dur gleichzeitig zur Untermalung eines Stoffes ertönen.” 43 The organ as a German symbol was utilized by Sergei Eisenstein in his 1936 Russian propaganda film Alexander Nevsky. The Teutonic Knights attempting to invade Novgorad were accompanied by a bishop whose miter bore “crosses,” devices strikingly akin to swastikas and by monks who played plainchant-like tunes on a positive organ. The organist continues to play as battle commences, is thrown from the bench, and plays dead. The organ was a prominent feature of the Kölner Messehalle, located directly behind the stage and clearly visible in photographs of the performance.

you an eloquent testimony of the will of the New Germany for unity among all classes and clans, of the willingness to sacrifice, and of the standing together of all the people.—I expect from you a favor in return. Tomorrow and in the next days, visit everyone you know and all the residents of your neighborhoods; tell them of this performance; and say to them that no Cologner is allowed to miss this show. Thus you help me in accomplishing this national duty, as we help you. Heil Hitler! Toni Winkelnkemper M.d.R. Head of the Rhineland Region of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda44 In the premiere program, this message was replaced by a membership form to join the Reichsbund der deutschen Freilicht- und Volksschauspiele (Minimum annual dues: RM 10,--).45 The Deutschlandlied was replaced by Rinckart’s “Now thank we all our God.” Those who had the means to buy tickets and join the Reichsbund gave thanks to God for their blessing of a new state. Those without jobs gave thanks to the German state that offered them salvation through work.46

44 Program, Öffentliche Generalprobe, Das Spiel von Job, dem Deutschen (15 November 1933), BSB Ana 410. “Kameraden! Ich freue mich, daß es uns möglich war, Euch heute abend al unsere Gäste zu der öffentlichen Generalprobe unseres Festspieles „Job, der Deutsche“ einzuladen und heiße Euch im Geiste echter nationalsozialistischer Kameradschaft herzlich willkommen. Möge diese Vorstellung Euch von dem Wollen des neuen Deutschland zur Einigkeit aller Stände und Stämme, von der Opferfreudigkeit und von dem Zusammenstehen aller Volksgenossen ein beredtes Zeugnis geben.—Ich erwarte aber auch von Euch eine Gegenleistung. Besucht morgen und in den nächsten Tagen alle Bekannten und alle Mitbewohner Eures Häuserblocks, erzählt ihnen von dieser Aufführung und sagt ihnen, daß kein Kölner es versäumen darf, diese Aufführung zu besuchen. So helft Ihr mir bei der Durchführung dieser nationalen Aufgabe, wie wir Euch helfen. Heil Hitler! Toni Winkelnkemper M.d.R. Leiter der Landesstelle Rhld. des Reichsministeriums für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda. 45 Ibid. 46 Coincidentally, in a state-sponsored building program parallel to those instituted as part of F. D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States, numerous jobs were created by the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Reich Labor Service) in its campaign to construct numerous large arenas specifically for Thingspiele. By 1935, such productions would be

Job, der Deutsche offers the first reasonable work by which to evaluate Egk’s involvement in the National Socialist regime. Generally, this is not a particularly fruitful exercise.47 Such an inquiry does not speak to the complexities of cultural life under National Socialism, nor does it help to understand Egk’s cultural products. That said, the question “Was Egk a Nazi?” dogs the composer. This question will be explored in greater detail in Chapter 9; however, Job, der Deutsche provides occasion for a preliminary inquiry. In his memoir Die Zeit wartet nicht, Egk wrote: Alois Johannes Lippl, the popular author of the volkstümlich Bavarian plays Whitsuntide Organ and Holledau Molds procured for me through his friend Dr. Gerst a supplemental contract to compose the music for a volkstümlich mystery play, Job, der Deutsche. In 1948, Lippl became director of the Bavarian State Theater under Minister of Culture Hundhammer. Kurt Eggers, the author of the mystery play, aimed for the understanding of the masses and drew upon Goethe, Calderón, and Hofmannsthal. What came from it, if I may use an expression by Pierre Boulez: dust and shit.48 The value of such a judgment, forty years after the fact, might be limited. Egk might have sought to exculpate himself from a very National Socialist activity and preserve his image for posterity. His frank negative description of his own work, though, reflects a sometimes painful honesty, similar to the harsh judgment that Albert Speer inflicted on himself in his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich.49

discouraged by National Socialist leaders. By 1937, the genre would cease to exist. See Eichberg, “Nazi Thingspiel,” 137. 47 Even were it possible to precisely quantify Naziness, the benefit of ascertaining that a composer like Egk was precisely 26.74% or 73.26% (or 0.01% or 99.99%) Nazi remains in itself of insubstantial value and discloses little about the complexity of cultural production within a totalitarian regime. 48 “Alois Johannes Lippl, der populäre Verfasser volkstümlicher bayerischer Schauspiele, der „Pfingstorgel“ und des „Holledauer Schimmels“, verschaffte mir durch seinen Freund Dr. Gerst einen zusätzlichen Auftrag zu einem volkstümlichen Mysterium, „Job, der Deutsche“, die Music zu schreiben. 1948 wurde Lippl unter dem Kultusminister Hundhammer Intendant des Bayerischen Staatsschauspiels. Kurt Eggers, der Verfasser des Mysterienspiels, zielte auf das Verständnis der Massen und stützte sich auf Goethe, Calderón und Hofmannsthal. Was dabei herauskam, war, wenn ich mich eines Ausdrucks von Pierre Boulez bedienen darf: Staub und Scheiße.” 49 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (first published New York: MacMillan and Company, 1970; reprinted New York: Galahad Books, 1995). Speer was Hitler’s architect and from 1942

Egk’s negative opinion of Job, der Deutsche, however, was not an invention for his memoirs. In a letter of 3 May 1934 to composer Ernst Krause, Egk recollected his career thus far, citing his important friendship with Hermann Scherchen: In 1931 the performances of my oratorio [Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen] caused a stir. My friendship with Hermann Scherchen also dates from then, though since ’33 it has been purely platonic since he no longer comes to Germany. The entire past year [1933], I had part in countless national contracts, which flowed in to the greatest astonishment of my contemporaries and to my own. The latest major such thing was my music to Job, der Deutsche, a nightmarish national kitsch that came out last November with much to-do in the Cologne Messehalle. Since then, I have again decided after a long while to dedicate myself to my private composition plans and have had great luck in this, that Schott publishers have financially supported me thus far so that I can abandon position [Stellung] and contracts.50 Egk was scienter. He knowingly composed “national kitsch” and identified it as such honestly and immediately. He also unapologetic for doing what he needed to start his career. But he also confessed that nationalistic kitsch was not his preferred genre—it kept him from the work he wanted to do, but was necessary for financial support. With the support of B. Schott’s Söhne publishers in Mainz, Egk no longer needed to sacrifice his principles in order to survive and could compose what he wished.

Reichsminister für Bewaffnung und Munition (Reich Minister for Armament and Munitions). Eugene Davidson’s introduction of this edition explores Speer’s self-criticism at length. 50 Egk to Ernst Krause, 3 May 1934. BSB Ana 410. “1931 begann durch die Aufführung meines Oratoriums einiges Aufsehen zu entstehen, seit da datiert auch meine Freundschaft mit Hermann Scherchen, die allerdings seit 33 rein platonisch ist, weil er nicht mehr nach Deutschland kommt. Das ganze vorige Jahr hatte ich mit zahllosen nationalen Aufträgen zu tun, welche mir zum grössten Erstaunen der Mitwelt und zu meinem eigenen automatisch zuströmten. Die letzte grössere solche Sache war meine Musik zu „Job, der Deutsche“, einem schauerlichen nationalen Kitsch der letzten November in grosser Aufmachung in der Kölner Messehalle herauskam. Seitdem habe ich beschlossen, mich wieder mal auf längere Zeit meinen privaten Kompositionsplänen zu widmen und hatte dabei das grosse Glück dass mich der Verlag Schott finanziell soweit stützt dass ich auf Stellung und Aufträge verzichten kann.”

This reading is complicated by an article Egk wrote for the December 1933 issue of Völkische Kultur. Egk reported on Job, der Deutsche and explained the metaphysical function of its music: In the attribution of the word with the depictions of fundamental visible and mental actions there lies the danger that the world appears much simpler than it is. Here music enters in its most meaningful function, because it has to the greatest extent the ability to stir the soul, independent from mental and educational requirements. Unique and assuming only the willingness of the hearers, it may bring all the stops of the soul to sound and wake all metaphysical, spiritual, and ethical seeds to life and growth. The fulfillment of this duty is also very capable of incorporating the musician and his creation anew in the great community of the Volk. In such work, an active interest in cultural reconstruction falls to him, and therein lies an essential sense that such duties will be placed on him today.51 Here, Egk seems to embrace the role of the National Socialist musician in the construction of a new culture. This was Egk’s public face, the face of a new-music composer attempting to forge a career for himself.

Egk’s Contributions to Völkische Kultur - II

Before the premiere of his next work, Egk contributed two additional articles to Völkische Kultur that again claimed cultural ground for the new composer. In his “Wege der Harmonik” (“Methods of Harmony”), a review of Alfred Ottokar Lorenz’s Der musikalische Aufbau von Richard Wagners Parsifal (The Musical Structure of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal), Egk quoted

51 Werner Egk, “Volksschauspiel und Musik,” Völkische Kultur 1 (December 1933): 317–19. “In der Zurückführung des Wortes auf die Darstellung elementarer sichtbarer und seelischer Vorgänge liegt aber die Gefahr, daß die Welt um allzuvieles einfacher erscheint, als sie ist. An dieser Stelle tritt nun die Musik in ihre bedeutungsvollste Funktion, denn sie hat im Höchsten Maße die Fähigkeit, unabhängig von gedanklichen und bildungsmäßigen Voraussetzungen, Tiefenspannung herzustellen. Einzig und allein die Bereitschaft der Hörenden vorausgesetzt, vermag sie alle Register der Seele zum Klingen zu bringen und alle metaphysischen, geistigen und ethischen Keime zum Leben und Wachstum zu wecken. Die Erfüllung dieser Aufgabe ist wohl auch geeignet, den Musiker und sein Schaffen erneut in die große Gemeinschaft des Volkes einzugliedern. In solcher Arbeit fällt ihm ein aktiver Anteil am kulturellen Wiederaufbau zu, und es liegt ein entscheidender Sinn darin, daß solche Aufgaben heute gestellt werden” (319).

Lorenz’s observation that the power of tonality was strongest when the composers wandered to distant keys, embodied in works of the High Romantic, ultimately in those of Wagner, who had employed the “keenest enharmonicism” with frequency and recklessness as none before him. Lorenz had observed that the generation following Wagner, “that indeed never again comprehended, that could no longer summon up the power of this musical sense of unity, flung itself into the arms of atonality.’”52 Egk posited that Wagner, like Beethoven before him, was bound to personal rather than absolute standards and left in his wake a generation of composers who “saw no possibility of being meaningful at all and were filled with a deep and hopeless skepticism.” That generation, Egk declared, is the generation before his own. Egk concluded: … The young generation has abandoned a slippery chromaticism and enigmatic enharmonicism, renounced the means of enchantment and intoxication, to avail itself of a simpler language suitable to work toward the formation of will within the new community.53 That chromaticism was no more slippery than the slope on which Egk found himself in this article. Egk identified Wagner, at this time still Hitler’s favorite composer, as the endpoint of an inaccessible system inappropriate for the New Germany and the catalyst for the atonal movement. He championed the simpler style of new composers, able to more aptly mold the will of the people, the style in which he himself was composing. In June 1934 Egk opened his next article for Völkische Kultur, “Programmpolitik” (“Programming Policy” or “The Politics of Programming”), with a rather cheeky intercession on behalf of contemporary music: The musical programs of the past year were so dominated by the Classic composers, that one could have thought an eternal Classic composer celebration had broken out in opera houses and concert halls. This stagnation, so distressing to living composers, quickly brought about a veritable chorus of cries for help from their deepest souls: “Play recent

52 Werner Egk, “Wege der Harmonik,” Völkische Kultur 2 (March 1934): 139–41. “„Die folgende Generation, die die Kraft dieses musikalische Einheitsgefühls nichts mehr aufbringen konnte, ja nicht einmal mehr verstand, hat sich dann der Atonalität in die Arme geworfen.“” 53 Ibid., 141. “… die junge Generation einer gleitenden Chromatik und schillernden Enharmonik abgewandt, den Mitteln der Bezauberung und Berauschung entsagt hat, um sich einer einfacheren Sprache zu bedienen, die geeignet ist willensbildend auf die neue Gemeinschaft zu wirken.”

music!”—“Don’t forget the living!”—“Listen to your contemporaries!” Alongside this, on the advertisements of organizers, more names began to surface whose bearers were not yet (or not yet completely) dead.54 Egk italicized the crux of his argument: We need works that present original thoughts in original form and therefore suitably add the great inheritance of the past to the genuine contribution of the future. It is requisite that these works not be performed sporadically and not as a last resort, but in a distinguished place in dominant form and number on programs.55 Egk not only carved out a niche for contemporary works, his own among them, he also lambasted the omnipresent “organized yes-men, often supported by the intellectually-limited contingent of expert critics ready to find everything old better than anything new and, endowed with an unmistakable instinct for the inferior, to strike dead the better with indignant protest.”56 Egk traced the hegemony of historical music back to the fifth-century B.C.E. politician and musicologist Damon of Athens, who saw in the new Dithyramb the dissolution of his political system. Training his sights on conductors, Egk volleyed that it is much easier for them to preen the plumage of contemporary Damons and thereby “to enjoy a secure, well-tempered popularity, than to work for the transformation of the world through mental hard work without regard to one’s own person and to local or momentary opportunity.” Egk closed with a warning:

54 Werner Egk, “Programmpolitik,” Völkische Kultur 2 (June 1934): 279–280. “Die musikalische Programme des vergangenen Jahres waren so sehr von den Klassikern beherrscht, daß man hätte denken können, in den Opernhäusern und Konzertsälen wäre eine ewige Klassikerfeier ausgebrochen. Diese für die lebenden Tonsetzer so erschreckende Stagnation bewirkte aber bald, daß sich ein Wahrer Chor von Hilferufen aus tiefster Seele vernehmen ließ: „Spielt junge Musik!“—„Vergeßt die Lebenden nicht!“—„Hört eure Zeitgenossen!“ Daneben begannen in den Ankündigungen der Veranstalter allmählich auch wieder mehr Namen aufzutauchen, deren Träger noch nicht (oder noch nicht ganz) gestorben sind.” 55 Ibid., 279. “Wir brauchen Werke, welche originale Gedanken in originaler Form darstellen und deshalb geeignet sind, dem großen Erbe der Vergangenheit den echten Beitrag der Gegenwart hinzuzufügen. Es ist zu fordern, daß diese Werke nicht vereinzelt und nicht an letzter Stelle aufgeführt werden, sondern an hervorragender Stelle in einer die Programme beherrschenden Form und Anzahl.” 56 Ibid., 280. “Immer und überall ist das organisierte Muckertum, häufig unterstützt von dem geistig beschränkten Teil der Fachkritik, bereit, alles Alte besser zu finden als alles Neue und begabt mit einem untrüglichen Instinkt für das weniger Gute, das Bessere mit empörten Protesten totzuschlagen.”

Nothing is more dangerous than this unfruitful and meretricious hooray-conservatism that would be happiest when it would have once again changed nothing. One must not be misled by the plea that it is the incontrovertible premeditation and will of the public to hear again and again what is familiar. There is a great, broad base to the new and upcoming open-minded ranks, refined in instinctive, healthy nature, that just waits for the fall of an outdated embodiment of public musical life and programming policy rooted in the social structure of the pre-war era [i.e., pre-World War I] and makes place for one of universal timeliness. Only then will it be possible for a creative youth to find the resonance that unmistakably displays the mark of cultural flowering.57 In this article for a journal devoted to nurturing the fledgling culture of the New Germany, Egk staked an unapologetic claim to his corner of the cultural landscape within which he would cultivate his music. While Egk toed the party line in his rhetoric regarding the development of the National Socialist Weltanschauung, he very nearly ran afoul of that party in his disavowal of the Romantic tradition, its epigones, and the Romantically-oriented established musical culture, not to mention his self-serving near-defense of atonality. Egk instead advocated for the production of contemporary music utilizing extended diatonicism, music able to relate to the German people at whose center stood Egk himself.58 Three months after this article was published Egk wrote another. “Hans Pfitzner und die deutsche Jugend” (“Hans Pfitzner and the German Youths”) was Egk’s contribution to a months- long fracas across the pages of Völkische Kultur and Die Musik. In May 1934 Conrad Wandrey

57 Ibid. “Nichts ist gefährlicher als dieser unfruchtbare und aufdringliche Hurrakonservativismus, der dann am zufriedensten wäre, wenn sich noch einmal doch nichts geändert hätte. Man lasse sich nicht durch den Einwand beirren, daß es der unumstößliche Vorsatz und Wille des Publikums sei immer wieder das Altgewohnte zu hören. Es gibt eine große, dem Neuen und Kommenden aufgeschlossene Schicht, eine breite Basis, gebildet von instinktsicheren, gesunden Naturen, die nur darauf warten, daß eine überalterte, in der sozialen Struktur der Vorkriegszeit wurzelnde Gestaltung des öffentlichen Musiklebens und der Programmpolitik falle und einer solchen von allgemeiner Aktualität Platz macht. Damit wird es erst einer schöpferischen Jugend möglich sein die Resonanz zu finden, die das untrügliche Anzeichen der kulturellen Aufblühens darstellt.” 58 Because the remainder of Egk’s writings for Völkische Kultur are in large part variations on the themes already presented, I have elected to dispense with their individual exploration from this point. Important arguments pertinent to the discussion of Egk’s works under National Socialism are included at their appropriate points in the following discussion.

wrote an article for Völkische Kultur titled simply “Hans Pfitzner” on the occasion of Pfitzner’s sixty-fifth birthday. In the article, the Romanticist Pfitzner is designated the last composer of the Romantic era, is cast as out-of-touch with the New Germany, and is used as a foil for championing the work of a new generation of composers.59 Pfitzner defended himself in an open letter to the editor of Völkische Kultur, Wolfgang Nufer, published in the July 1934 issue of Die Musik and accused Wandrey of fabricating his image as artist and inflicting more harm than “one hundred lampoons by his opponents and foes.”60 In the meantime Nufer had asked Egk, ostensibly because he was Völkische Kultur’s contemporary music correspondent, whether or not he wanted to weigh in on the debate. Egk declined, deciding to wait until Wandrey responded not wanting to enter into a controversy with the older composer which may have proven to be “lifelong,” an apparent jibe at Pfitzner, some thirty years Egk’s senior.61 In August 1934 Wandrey fired back with an open letter to the editor of Die Musik, in which he defended his opinions and left the debate to posterity to decide a victor.62 Egk joined the fray in September 1934. He credited Paul Hindemith, whose German career was collapsing at the time, with the “strongest influence on the young generation” and noted that influence extended beyond national boundaries to composers Bartók, Casella, Malipiero, Honegger, and Stravinsky, composers of a “single spirit” that diverged from the Romantic tradition.63 Egk, speaking for the younger generation, wrote, We hope that just this aromantic spirit, observable in other areas, is suitable to form a new generation whose task it will be to counteract the separation of all, to clear away the last vestiges of romantic subjectivity and to establish new humanistic systems.64

59 Conrad Wandrey, “Hans Pfitzner,” Völkische Kultur 2 (May 1934): 193–201. 60 Hans Pfitzner, “Offener Brief von Hans Pfitzner,” Die Musik XXVI, no. 10 (July 1934): 728–32. 61 Egk to Nufer, 28 May 1934. BSB Ana 410. 62 Conrad Wandrey, “Hans Pfitzner: Offener Brief an den Herausgeber der „Musik,“” Völkische Kultur 2 (September 1934): 401–05. 63 Werner Egk, “Pfitzner und die deutsche Jugend,” Völkische Kultur 2 (September 1934): 406. By 1935, Hindemith’s career in Germany was all but over, primarily due to Hitler’s personal distaste of Mathis der Mahler. 64 Ibid. “Wir hoffen, daß gerade dieser aromantische Geist, welcher sich auch auf andern Gebieten feststellen läßt, geeignet ist, eine Generation zu formen, deren Aufgabe es sein wird, die Vereinzelung aller aufzuheben, die letzten Reste des romantischen Subjektivismus abzuräumen und neue menschliche Ordnungen aufzubauen.”

Egk conceded that, when this new evolution was complete, the new generation would not abandon Pfitzner but instead would “view his work with deep adoration, since it expressed one of the most substantial and most beautiful pages of German character in such a perfect way.”65 Egk did not apologize for his advocacy of his own generation, nor did he disavow Pfitzner’s place in German music. Egk’s salvo roused the ire of writer Ludwig Schrott, whose response “‘Not so impudent, not so proud’ … a necessary correction” was published in the February 1935 issue of Die Musik and brought the battle to an indecisive end. Schrott was pro-Romantic, noting that the Führer himself “perpetually draws new strength from the world of Richard Wagner.”66 For the time being, Schrott was correct; however, after the German army’s defeat at Stalingrad, the Führer turned instead to the operettas of Franz Léhar, especially Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow).67 This was all the more surprising because Hitler had disparaged the very same as kitsch in speeches between 1920 and 1922.68 Schrott parried, When the thorns and stones densely strewn along Pfitzner’s path of life are simply denied or when one expects more from the “aromantic style” of German youths taught by Hindemith, Bartok, Casella, Malipiero, Honegger, and Stravinsky for the establishment of “new humanistic systems” instead of from German Romanticism, that proves the influence of the Soviet Star on our cultural life at that time. When such a washed-out internationalism still sails today under the flag of “völkische Kultur,” to hell with it!”69

65 Ibid., “Wenn auch in der deutschen Jugend dieser kurz angedeutete Umwandlungsprozeß zu einem neuen Lebensgefühl in vollem Gange ist, und wenn auch Pfitzner keiner jener Neuerer ist, die ungestüm an den Toren der Zukunft rütteln, wird gerade diese Jugend seinem Schaffen tiefe Verehrung entgegenbringen, weil es eine der echtesten und schönsten Seiten des deutschen Wesens in so vollkommener Weise ausgedrückt hat.” 66 Ludwig Schrott, “»Nicht so dreist, nicht so stolz …« eine notwendige Richtigstellung,” Die Musik XVII, no. 5 (February 1935): 353–355. 67 Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (Woodstock and New York: The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc., 2002): 263. 68 Ibid., 233. 69 Schrott, “Nicht so dreist,” 354. “Und wenn damals die auf Pfitzners Lebensweg reichlich gestreute Dornen und Steine einfach geleugnet wurden oder man von dem an Hindemith, Bartók, Casella, Malipiero, Honegger und Strawinskij geschulten »neuer menschlicher Ordnungen« mehr erwartete, als von der deutschen Romantik, so entsprach das den seinerzeitigen Enwirkungen [sic] des Sowjetsterns auf unser Kulturleben. Wen ein solch verwaschener Internationalismus aber heute noch unter der Flagge »völkische Kultur« dahersegelt, hol ihn der Teufel!”

Egk had already trod this aesthetic minefield in his earlier articles for Völkische Kultur, and he did so without placing himself in the company of such (to the Nazis) personae non grata as Hindemith. While Egk’s attack on Romanticism was once again meant to clear the way for himself and his fellow contemporaries, his positive view of Hindemith was of no help to the cause.

Georgica (1934)

Georgica, drei Bauernstücke für Orchester (Georgica, three farmer-pieces for orchestra, 1934) was Egk’s first real attempt at putting the ideals that he expounded in Völkische Kultur into practice, but the exercise was only marginally successful. Egk based Georgica on the bucolic poem by Virgil and composed the work while he was waiting on the libretto for his opera Die Zaubergeige to be finished. Georgica was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Herbert Janssen in November 1934.70 Olin Downes of the New York Times said of Georgica, that Egk writes a series of witty though not important developments of a species of Bavarian dance-tune. The pieces were good as contrast and entertainment, though they are scored for a large orchestra disproportionate to the musical thought. There have been much worse novelties—and much better.71 Georgica received a second premiere as a ballet, retitled Bavarian Dance Scenes “On the Alm River” (Bayerische Tanzbilder „Auf der Alm“) on 22 October 1935 in Cologne, with Egk conducting.72

70 Egk, Die Zeit wartet nicht: Künstlerische Zeitgeschichtliches Privates aus meinem Leben, expanded and illustrated paperback edition (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1981), 215, 553–4. On page 256, Egk apparently misplaced the discussion of Georgica, making it appear as though the work premiered in 1936. However, reviews of Die Zaubergeige indicate that Georgica had been premiered and later performed in museum concerts in Frankfurt under Wetzelsberger and in Leipzig by early May 1935. See Neue Augsburger Zeitung 54 (5 May 1935); Offenbacher Zeitung 113 (16 May 1935). 71 New York Times (15 November 1934). 72 The ballet is discussed after Die Zaubergeige.

Die Zaubergeige (1935)

Of all Egk’s works, Die Zaubergeige (The Magic Violin) is the o en that established Egk’s career within National Socialism. Die Zaubergeige is an opera, one of the genres by which a composer asserts his stature. The success of Die Zaubergeige issued from its perceived Volkstümlichkeit, its reflection of the characteristic essence of a people.73 Die Zaubergeige was an adaptation of an eponymous puppet play by Franz Graf von Pocci. The libretto was the collaborative product of Egk and Ludwig Andersen, a pseudonym for Dr. Ludwig Strecker, proprietor of B. Schott’s Söhne.74 Pocci’s version was itself an adaptation of the Grimm fairy tale “Der Jude im Dorn” (“The Jew in the Thornbush”). In the Grimm fairy tale, a “faithful and hard-working” farmhand asks his unscrupulous employer for his earnings for his three years of faithful service. The farmer pays three copper pennies, and the farmhand, thinking himself rich, sets out. On his way, he gives the pennies to an old beggar and gets three wishes in return. He wishes for a gun that never misses; for a violin (Geige) that, when people hear it, makes them dance; and that when the farmhand bids someone do something, they cannot refuse him. The farmhand, gun and violin in hand, meets an old Jewish man coveting a lyrical lark high in a tree. The farmhand, convinced that the Jew has swindled many, shoots the bird from the tree and bids him retrieve it from the thornbush into which it falls. As the Jew wriggles among the thorns, the farmhand begins to play his violin. The Jew must dance, and as he does, the thorns tear his clothes and flesh. The Jew offers the farmhand one hundred gulden to stop playing. The farmhand accepts this bargain and goes about his way, while the Jew, “half-naked and pathetic,” reports the theft to a judge. The farmhand is quickly apprehended, and the judge sentences the farmhand to be hanged for theft. As a last request, the farmhand asks that he may play his violin once more before he dies. As the farmhand strikes up, judge, Jew, and everyone around them dance themselves to agony. To stop the music, the judge gives the farmha n d back not only his life, but also the hundred gulden. The farmhand presses the Jew to confess where he got the money, and the desperate Jew cries out for

73 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Volkstümlichkeit.” Volkstum is defined as “Das arteigene Wesen eines Volkes; Nationalität.” Volkstümlichkeit is the degree to which something exhibits what is conceived to be the quintessence of a people. In order to avoid circumlocution, the German term will be used. 74 Kölnische Zeitung 260, 23 May 1935.

all to hear, “I stole it; I stole it, and you truly earned it!” The farmhand stops playing, and in lieu of the farmhand, the Jew is hanged.75 In the Egk-Andersen version, the farmhand Kaspar is not at all industrious but decides to pursue a life of singing, dancing, drinking, and card playing. In the forest, Kaspar comes across Cuperus, the spirit of the mountain, dressed as a beggar, and in return for his kindness, Kaspar receives one wish. He wishes for the magic violin. Enter Guldensack (Moneybags), who relishes his two hundred ducats made at dishonest business dealings and sings a hymn of praise to his god, Money. Kaspar appears and plays for Guldensack, who dances himself to exhaustion. Kaspar replies, “Well-danced, you money-wolf, you unchristian, well-danced!” Two thieves, Fangauf and Schnapper, enter and rob the unconscious Guldensack. After coming to, Guldensack returns to his mistress’s home, where Gretl, Kaspar’s love, is now working, to find that the evening’s entertainment has been cancelled. The mistress, Ninabella, recommends a different divertissement, Spagatini, the violinist who appeared and became famous practically overnight. Guldensack finds the violinist, recognizes him as Kaspar, and poorly negotiates a price of one thousand ducats for Spagatini’s service. Kaspar goes to Ninabella’s castle and sees Gretl, who is taken aback at the change in Kaspar after his newfound success and wealth. The Bürgermeister arrives to hang a gold necklace about Spagatini’s neck, and the people sing, “The stars will be your crown, the world your empire, stardom your throne!” followed by a seven-fold “Heil!”76 After the company dances a spagnola, Kaspar and Ninabella retire to a pavilion, where Guldensack enters with officers and Kaspar, drunk on Spanish wine, is arrested. Cuperus appears and absconds with the left-behind violin. As Kaspar is about to be executed, Cuperus appears and begins to play the violin. Unable to bear the music, Fangauf and Schnapper come out from behind a nearby tree and confess to the deed. Kaspar, again poor but now honest, and Gretl sing, “Riches, honor, they can fade; love and truth last forever!”77 Egk and Andersen mitigated the outright anti-Semitism present in both the Grimm original and in Franz Graf von Pocci’s adaptation. In Pocci’s play, “Mauschl, a Jew” acquires

75 Brüder Grimm, Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, vol. 2 (Berlin: Realschulebuchhandlung, 1815): 133–138. Digital full-text edition at (Accessed 24 May 2011). 76 Werner Egk and Ludwig Andersen, Die Zaubergeige, libretto (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1935), 33 “Die Sterne werden deine Kron, / Die Welt dein Reich, der Ruhm dein Thron!” 77 Ibid., 47. “Der Reichtum, die Ehren, die können vergehn, / Die Lieb und die Treue muß ewig bestehn!”

his money by going to Kasperl’s employer Stoffelbauer, one of the “dumb farm folk,” and offering him a cow that produces eighteen liters of milk a day, “sure as he was an honest Jew.”78 Mauschl then steals the cow back and intends to sell him to a butcher, when he comes across Kasperl, who has since acquired his violin. Mauschl asks for something “composed by the great musician Majer-Bär [Meyerbeer], because he’s one of our people.”79 Mauschl dances “as if he has no choice and springs like King David before the Ark of the Covenant.”80 While Die Zaubergeige often serves as evidence in cases arguing that Egk was anti- Semitic, this charge requires further exploration. It is true that Egk selected for his first opera a story based on a Grimm fairy tale with a clear anti-Semitic stance, but he and Andersen adapted Pocci’s play, removing from their libretto the reference to Meyerbeer, a well-known musical target Jew since Wagner; the offensive reference to King David; and any outright references to the Jewish character as such. That said, Egk and Andersen retained Jewish stereotypes of crooked-dealing and money-grubbing, and the more vague descriptor “unchristian.” Egk and Andersen focused on the volkstümlich aspects of the story instead of the anti-Semitic ones. Kaspar’s adopted foreign name Spagatini, his drunkenness on Spanish wine, and the presence of the Spagnola reflect Kaspar’s loss of his true self as he finds success. Kaspar abandons his German identity in favor of foreign influences. Guldensack, instead of being an archetypal villain in whose destruction by Kaspar’s machinations the audience is allowed to delight, becomes a non-entity and simply disappears at the end of the opera. Had Egk wished to emphasize the anti-Semitism of Die Zaubergeige, something that would have ingratiated him with any ardent National Socialists in his audiences, he could have relied on the Karl Seidelmann revision of Pocci’s drama published in 1934. Seidelmann “picked

78 Franz Graf von Pocci, Kasperlkomödien (Berlin: Hans Heinrich Tillgner Verlag, 1922), 38–39. “Mauschl: Is das doch a dumm’s Volk, die Bauern; bin ich gewest beim Stoffelbauer in Kerchberg hab’n gesogt: Was hab’ ich ihm gesogt? / Hab’ ihm gesogt: Stoffelbauer, willst du nit kaufen e Kuh in dein Stall bab [sic] zu verkaufen e Prachtstück von einer Kuh, und die wird der geben, wird der geben all Tag achtzehn Maß Milch, so wahr ich en ehrlicher Jüd bin.” The “honest Jew” epithet is intended as an oxymoron, i.e., this is not a viable oath at all. 79 Ibid., 40. “Mauschl: Werd mer machen e grauß Pläsier, und wenn er’s kann, so spiel er mir was, das ha kaumpeniert der grauße Musikus der Majer-Bär, so ist gwest ach Ener von unsere Leut.” 80 Ibid., “Ist mir doch, als ob ich tanzen müßt und springen wie König David vor der Bundeslade.” The remainder of the drama is preserved by Egk and Anderson, and the conclusions of the Pocci and Egk-Andersen versions are generally identical.

the raisins of [Graf Pocci’s] cake” and baked a new one more palatable to contemporary National Socialist tastes.81 In the Seidelmann edition, Kasperl, instead of aspiring to be a louse, aspires to be a health insurance inspector, government representative, or a party secretary.82 Kasperl uses unemployment as an excuse to try to wriggle out of giving Cuperus his pittance.83 Mauschl, instead of asking for something by Meyerbeer, asks for something by Willi Rosen, the renowned Jewish cabarettist, perhaps the “beautiful song, ‘Do you also like to dance as much as I?’” After Kasperl begins to play Mauschl replies, “O, wonderful! wonderful! O Rosen! O Tauber Richard! O David!”84 The reference to Tauber Richard, in German literally “deaf Richard,” is to the Jewish tenor Richard Tauber, who fled Germany in 1933 after being beaten outside his Berlin hotel by a band of Nazi brownshirts.85 At the conclusion, Kasperl asks Cuperus, “And I won’t be hanged? And I won’t be sent to a concentration camp?” Kasperl receives the violin, now ordinary, and Gretl for his own. He must fall from the Kunsthimmel, “ideal heaven of art” or “artificial heaven,” to the mundane world and forfeit an artist’s life for one of complete fulfillment with Gretl.86 If Egk had wanted to rely on the anti-Semitic viewpoint of Die Zaubergeige to guarantee its success among National Socialist audiences, he could have easily used Seidelmann’s edition. Die Zaubergeige premiered on 22 May 1935 in Frankfurt under General Intendant (General Manager) Hans Meissner. Meissner had been manager of the Frankfurt Opera since

81 Franz Graf von Pocci, Die Zaubergeige, ed. Karl Seidelmann, music by Christoph Dietrich (Potsdam: Ludwig Voggenreiter Verlag, 1934), 5. “Wird sich der selige Graff Pocci im Grab herumdrehen? An nahezu drei Dutzend Textstellen habe ich die Rosinen seines Kuchens herausgepickt und neue hineingestopft, wie sie unserem heutigen Geschmack vielleicht besser munden.” 82 Ibid., 9. “Ich bin ganz zum vornehmen Herrn g’schaffen, zum Krankenkasseninspektor, zum Abgeordneten, zum Parteisekretär oder so was G’scheits.“” 83 Ibid., 14, 15. 84 Ibid., 21. 85 http://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/lexm_lexmperson_00003109. (Accessed 24 May 2011) 86 Pocci, ed. Seidelmann, Die Zaubergeige, 55. “Cuprus: …Aber die Uhr deines Künstlerlebens ist abgelaufen. Die Zaubervioline ist in deinen ordinären Händen zur gewöhnlichen Geige geworden. Falle zurück aus dem idealen Kunsthimmel auf die materielle Erde! Hier nimm deine Margareta. Kasperl (auf die Knie fallend): Also werd’ ich nicht gehenkt? Cuprus: Nein, du brauchst nicht baumeln. Kasperl: Und ich komm auch nicht ins Konzentrationslager?”

July 1933, assigned there from a previous position at the City Theater of Stettin. His predecessor was the Jewish Josef Turnau, who had been dismissed in May 1933. Turnau had staged productions of Arnold Schönberg’s Von Heute auf Morgen, Wilhelm Grosz’s Achtung! Aufnahme!, and George Antheil’s Transatlantic. Meissner sought to distance himself and the Frankfurt Opera from this inappropriate repertoire and establish instead an acceptable German one. His conductor, Bertil Wetzilsberger, was friends with the leaders of B. Schott’s Söhne publishers in Mainz, who from 1934 had supported Egk.87 Under Meissner, Egk saw the potential to launch a career as a conductor as well as a composer. Four days after the Frankfurt premiere, Die Zaubergeige enjoyed its north-German premiere in Bremen, and at the 12 June performance, the composer conducted.88 In a 21 June letter to Meissner, Egk tactfully asked to conduct a performance of the work himself as a trial run for productions which “other theaters had already requested he conduct himself.”89 Egk finally got the opportunity to do so on 27 November 1935. In the meantime, he had conducted a performance in Essen.90 It was in Egk’s best interest to wait for the Frankfurt conducting engagement, since Frankfurt enjoyed a better cultural reputation than did Bremen or Essen. From there, it would be easier to return to Berlin, not as a film accompanist, but as a composer and conductor. In the pages of the May 1935 Neues Musikblatt, Egk explained Die Zaubergeige in what has come to be known as the “Lochhamer Opernbrief” (“Lochham Opera Letter”).91 Egk wrote that “as an ordinary citizen, I was overjoyed when I could hear a melody that was so finite, accessible, and sensible, that one could whistle it afterward, as they left the theater.”92 He decided in his opera, “not to philosophize, nor, above all, to use music as symbol for abstractions, but to write as simple a diatonic melody as possible.” He continued,

87 Heike Lammers-Harlander, “Werner Egk Komponist 1901–1983,” Lebensbilder aus dem Bayerischen Schwaben 17 (Weisenhorn, Germany: Anton H. Konrad Verlag, 2010): 335–336. Arnold Schönberg’s Von Heute auf Morgen premiered on 1 February 1930; Wilhelm Grosz’s Achtung! Aufnahme! on 23 March 1930; and George Antheil’s Transatlantic on 25 May 1930. 88 Egk, Terminkalender, BSB Ana 410. 89 Egk to Meissner, 21 June 1935, BSB Ana 410. 90 Egk, Terminkalender, BSB Ana 410. 91 The letter was also published in the Zeitschrift für Musik 7, July 1935, 738–40. 92 Neues Musikblatt 7, May 1935.

All this, therefore, because I do not have the desire to reap praise as a philosopher or musical chess master or as an esoteric mystic; but instead because I wanted to write a piece for those who love the simple, who perceive the touching as touching, the comic as comic, the good as good, and the bad as bad, to enjoy. Presently, the set designer is happy because he has such a colorful world to build; the director is happy because so much is solved; the singers are happy because they can sing out; and the composer is happy because he will be performed. Hopefully the folk, for whom the whole is intended, are also happy. But those who don’t expect more from art than what any operetta can give them, those who do not know the fatherland with its forest secretly populated by a thousand beloved figures because the mood-traps of the “Haus Vaterland” can give them all they desire, they should stay peacefully at home—I have not thought of them. And those overly clever people, who are no longer able to believe in sincere, simple feelings, who detect behind every word the irony, the hidden cynicism or the speculation of sentimentality, after the old custom of the Kurfürstendamm, I gladly wish to forego as an audience. With these hopefully small exceptions, though, the work appeals to the rich and the poor, the young and the old, to men and women, and master baker, letter carrier, chimney sweep, civil servants, directors, professors, and to all other stations, on those whom the King of England took care to wish a happy new year on New Year’s Eve at midnight.93

93 Ibid., “Als gewöhnlicher Volksgenosse freute ich mich immer unbändig, wenn ich eine Melodie hören durfte, die so endlich, greifbar und sinnlich war, daß man sie noch nachpfeifen konnte, wenn man aus dem Theater herausging.…” “Also beschloß ich auch im Stillen, in meiner Oper weder zu philosophieren noch überhaupt die Musik als Symbol für Abstraktionen zu mißbrauchen, dafür aber eine möglichst einfache diatonische Melodik zu schreiben. Das alles deshalb, weil ich nicht das Bedürfnis habe als Philosoph oder musikalischer Schachmeister oder als esoterischer Mystiker Lob zu ernten, sondern weil ich denen, die das Einfache lieben, das Rührende als rührend, das Komische als komisch, das Gute als gut und das Schlechte als schlecht empfinden, ein Stück schreiben wollte, an dem sie sich freuen sollen. Vorläufig freut sich der Bühnenbildner, weil er eine so bunte Welt zu bauen hat, freut sich der Regisseur, weil so viel lost [sic] ist, freuen sich die Sänger, weil sie sich aussingen können und freut sich der Autor, weil er aufgeführt wird. Hoffentlich freut sich auch das Volk, dem das Ganze zugedacht ist. Die aber, die von der Kunst nicht mehr erwarten, als ihnen jede Operette geben kann, die das Vaterland mit seinem von tausend geliebten Gestalten heimlich bevölkerten Wald nicht kennen, weil ihnen die Stimmungsattrappen des „Hauses Vaterland“ alles zu geben vermögen, was sie verlangen, die sollen ruhig zu Hause bleiben, an die habe ich nicht gedacht. Und

Egk’s references to 1920s Weimar culture aligned him with his New German audience. Haus Vaterland was a large pleasure palace with numerous restaurants and a cinema located on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. It was also home to Universum Film AG or UfA, the producer of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). In Weimar Germany, the Kurfürstendamm was a center for fashion, shopping, leisure, and nightlife, as it is today. Egk is not interested in those lazy Germans who would rather enjoy such divertissements as these or in those who pride themselves on their cleverness. Instead, Egk appeals to the New Germany with an honest, lyrical, volkstümlich expression of the German Everyman. To the music critic of the Frankfurt General-Anzeiger, the Volkstümlichkeit of Egk’s music lay in his use of “all sorts of folk music, of South German folk music particularly, including rural Ländler, waltzes, marches, together with their typical accompaniments.”94 Most prominent among these is the Zwiefacher dance rhythm, which freely alternates between triple and duple metrical units and originated in Bavaria and had gained popularity in the folkdance movement following World War I.95 This rhythm first presents itself in the prelude of Die Zaubergeige:

jene neunmal Klugen, die nicht mehr fähig sind an ein ehrliches einfaches Gefühl zu glauben, die hinter jedem Wort nach der alten Sitte des Kurfürstendamm die Ironie, den verdeckten Zynismus oder die Spekulation auf die Sentimentalität wittern, auch auf die möchte ich als Publikum gerne verzichten. Mit diesen hoffentlich geringen Ausnahmen aber wendet sich das Stück an Arm und Reich, and Jung und Alt, an Mann und Weib, and Bäckermeister, Briefträger, Kaminkehrer, Regierungsräte, Direktoren, Professoren und an alle anderen Stände, denen der König von England an Sylvester um Mitternacht ein gutes neues Jahr zu wünschen pflegt.” The reference to the New Year’s address is obtuse. Assuming that Egk is speaking about New Year 1935, the King would have been George V, first cousin of German Kaiser Wilhelm II; however, neither the king’s speeches from Christmas 1932 nor Christmas 1935 mention Germany. (There were not speeches in 1933 or 1934). 94 General-Anzeiger 119 (23 May 1935). 95 Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Zweite neubearbeitete Ausgabe, Ludwig Finscher, ed. Sachteil Band 9 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998) s.v. “Zwiefacher.” More precisely, the Zwiefacher originated in Oberpfalz, Hallertau, Nördlinger Ries, and Oberfranken.

Example 2.1. Zwiefacher rhythm in the prelude to Die Zaubergeige, meas. 15-23.

The Zwiefacher is most conspicuously associated with the peasant Kaspar and, by its association with Bavaria, reinforces his volkstümlich character. In Act II, Scene 6, at the entrance of the mayor (Oberbürgermeister), the Zwiefacher appears, but in a series of seventh chords with grace-note figures. Kaspar is drunk on Spanish wine, and his drunkenness is reflected in Egk’s harmonization of the Zwiefacher. As the mayor arrives, Egk provides a march. At the end of the scene, the march is combined with the drunken Zwiefacher to accompany a choir ejaculating “Heil!” in a practically cacophonous free-for-all, as the mayor hangs a great gold chain about Spagatini’s neck. The use of the word “Heil!” here conjures the specter of Adolf Hitler. Thousands were seen cheering the same to their Führer in Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 film Triumph of the Will, chronicling the 1934 Nuremberg Party Rally, released just shy of two months before the premiere of Die Zaubergeige. There is a parallel here. The Oberbürgermeister decorates Spagatini, actually Kaspar the peasant, for his musical gifts. On 30 January 1933, Paul von Hindenburg, the second President of the German Reich declared Adolf Hitler Chancellor of the German Reich, paving the way for the National Socialist assumption of power. In Die Zaubergeige, the ceremony is accompanied not by a straightforward, dignified march, but by a polluted one composed in extended diatonicism, indicating a negative connotation.

The mayor and Kaspar are accompanied by a march that musically contradicted prevailing National Socialist attitudes. On the other hand, Guldensack is accompanied by music that approaches dodecaphony, apparently reinforcing National Socialist stereotypes. Here, a parallel could be drawn between Guldensack and the Jewish composer Arnold Schönberg, the ubiquitous antihero of New German music, the embodiment of musical intellectualism and the lack of a clear racial identity.96 Music critics who heard Die Zaubergeige did not hear the whisper of Schönberg. What they did hear, likely owing to Egk’s use of percussion and repeated chords variably accented, was Stravinsky. The critic of the Frankfurt General-Anzeiger who earlier pinpointed the Volkstümlichkeit of Die Zaubergeige added, … Not one of the many alluded precursors from which Egk extracts the tradition remain innocent and as they were originally intended. They all are broken, changed. How does he do it? Sometimes through other “false” instrumentation, through a sort of recoloration. Sometimes through the opposite: through exaggeration. But mostly through harmonic changes, through non-triadic additions or “false” basses or non- functional harmonic juxtapositions. Or in that he does not allow forms to be completed, but uses them fragmentedly. Without a doubt, all of this is reminiscent of middle Stravinsky, of his small works, of L’Histoire du Soldat, but also of Petruschka. In fact, one must name him [Egk] the “Bavarian” Stravinsky (and some have), because his raw material is, needless to say, not Russian, but Bavarian folk music, and also what he displays in art music is taken from the vicinity, from the German tradition.97

96 In 1927 Egk had already composed a sketch entitled Judenmusik (Jew-Musik) while he was accompanying films in Berlin, with similar musical content (Lammers-Harlander, “Egk,” 339). To clarify, Egk, as an autodidact, did not compose dodecaphonic music for either Judenmusik or Die Zaubergeige. 97 General-Anzeiger 119, 23 May 1935. “… kein einzige von den vielen erwähnten Vorformen, die Egk der Ueberlieferung entnimmt, bleibt naiv und so, wie sie ursprünglich gemeint war. Sie alle sind gebrochen, verwandelt. Wie er das macht? manchmal durch andere „falsche“ Instrumentation, durch eine Art Umfärbung. Manchmal durch das Gegenteil: durch Uebertreibung. Meistens aber durch harmonische Veränderungen, durch dreiklangfremde Zusätze, oder „falsche“ Bässe, oder harmonische Rückungen. Oder indem er die Formen nicht fertig werden läßt sondern bruchstückartig verwendet. Das alles erinnert zweifellos an den Stil des mittleren Strawinski, an seine kleinen Stücke, an die „Geschichte vom Soldaten“, aber auch an Petruschka. Man müßte ihn freilich den „bayrischen“ Strawinski nennen (und hat es getan), denn sein Ausgangsstoff ist natürlich nicht die

In the Offenbacher Zeitung, music critic Ernst Krause did not attempt to reconcile the Bavarian and Stravinskian in Egk’s music, as his review demonstrated: Still another significant force adds to the folk-like melody of this “play-opera”: a strongly developed, irrepressible rhythm. It definitely does not come from jazz. In its accumulation of ostinato creations and asymmetrical meters, its three- and four-part rhythms, it is much more reminiscent of Stravinsky with whose style this music shares a great deal in common. Also in the harmonic, for Egk’s music in no way leaves the tonal train tracks; however, [it] is studded with spicy mixed tones and dissonant counterpoints (as we know them from Stravinsky).98 In a more critical review that appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter, a critic conceded that “this opera still exhibits certain childhood illnesses,” though they did not detract from the positive impression of the opera. One apparent illness was Egk’s imitation of the style of Stravinsky, “whose inspirational role is not to be overlooked, though it perpetrated much mischief and confusion.”99 Regardless of Stravinsky’s influence, Egk’s goal remained a melody that people could whistle on their ways out of the theater. According to Helmut Schmidt-Garre in the Zeitschrift für Musik, Egk succeeded: From the few rehearsals that I have thus far heard of this work, one can perceive how the melodic always gains more ground, a melody that has in its straightforward simple style

russische, sondern die bayrische Volksmusik, und auch was er an Kunstmusik heranzeigt, ist aus der Nähe geholt, aus der deutschen Ueberlieferung.” 98 Offenbacher Zeitung, 23 May 1935. “Zu der volksnahen Melodik dieser „Spieloper“ kommt nun noch ein anderes bezeichnendes Moment hinzu: ein stark entwickelter, unbändiger Rhythmus. Er kommt durchaus nicht vom Jazz her. Vielmehr erinnert er in seiner Häufung von Ostinatobildungen und ungleichförmigen Metren, seinen drei- und vierteiligen Rhythmen an Strawinskij, mit dessen Stil diese Musik überhaupt viel gemeinsam hat. Auch im Harmonischen, denn Egks Musik verläßt keineswegs tonale Gleise, ist jedoch gespickt an würzenden Mischtönen und dissonanzbildenden Kontrapunkten (wie wir das von Strawinskij kennen).” 99 Völkischer Beobachter 144, 24 May 1935. “Daß diese Oper noch gewisse Kinderkrankheiten besitzt, soll nicht bestritten werden, wenn es auch den positiven Eindruck nicht vermindert. Ob manche Anklänge eine Stilkopie darstellen (Strawinsky, dessen anregende Rolle nicht zu übersehen ist, wenn sie auch viel Unheil und Verwirrung angerichtet hat) schaut ihm in 1. Akt mehrmals über die Schulter.”

the means to volkstümlich effect, without ever the danger of the banal or of only getting at a merely romanticized folksiness.100 Not only did Egk succeed at the creation of an accessible melodic style, but in it, he captured the nature of what was perceived as German. According to a speech by Josef Goebbels at the 1938 Reich Music Festival (Reichsmusiktage) in Düsseldorf, an accessible melody was the marrow of music: Not program and not theory, not experiment and not construction constitute the essence of music. Its essence is melody. Melody as such uplifts the heart and quickens the mind; it is not therefore kitschy or objectionable, because it owes its memorability to being sung by the people.101 The Düsseldorf festival was also the occasion of the launch of the Degenerate Music exhibition created by Dr. Hans Severus Ziegler and modeled on the Munich Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937.102 Egk’s perceived proximity to Stravinsky was something of a problem in National Socialist Germany. While Stravinsky enjoyed performing and conducting engagements in Germany through early 1933, once the Nazi Weltanschauung gained ascendancy, German companies were reluctant to engage him or perform his works. The issue was Stravinsky’s characterization by National Socialists as a “cultural Bolshevist.”103 This label connoted much beyond Stravinsky’s association with Russia and communism. In the early struggle of the

100 Helmut Schmidt-Garre, “Werner Egk,” Zeitschrift für Musik 7 (July 1935): 736–737. “Aus den wenigen Proben, welche ich bisher von diesem Werk härte, kann man erkennen, wie das Melodische immer breiteren Boden gewinnt, eine Melodik, die in ihrer geraden einfachen Art das Zeug zu volkstümlicher Wirkung in sich hat, ohne jemals der Gefahr des Banalen oder einer bloß romantisierenden Volkstümelei auch nur nahe zu sein.” This article is followed by a reprint of Egk’s Lochhamer Opernbrief. 101 Josef Goebbels, “Zehn Grundsätze deutschen Musikschaffens” in Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 5, no. 11 (1 June 1938): 41. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde, R 56-II, 20. “Nicht das Programm und nicht die Theorie, nicht Experiment und nicht Konstruktion machen das Wesen der Musik aus. Ihr Wesen ist die Melodie. Die Melodie als solche erhebt die Herzen und erquickt die Gemüter; sie ist nicht deshalb kitschig oder verwerflich, weil sie ihrer Einprägsamkeit wegen vom Volke gesungen wird.” 102 See Albrecht Dümling and Peter Girth, eds., Entartete Music: eine kommentierte Rekonstruktion zur Düsseldorfer Austellung von 1938 (Düsseldorf: Kleinherne, 1988). 103 See Joan Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music in Hitler’s Germany,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 56, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 525–594.

National Socialist party for political dominance, its primary rival was the Communists.104 The term “Bolshevist,” though, extended well beyond political party affiliation. The Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) exhibition in the House of German Art (Haus der deutschen Kunst) in Munich in 1937 provides a study in the codification of cultural Bolshevism. Though the commentary here applies to the visual arts, the concepts are equally applicable to music, literature, and other cultural arenas. According to Ziegler, the goal of the Degenerate Art exhibition was to provide a “firsthand survey of the gruesome last chapter of those decades of cultural decadence that preceded the great change” and to “expose the common roots of political anarchy and to unmask degenerate art as art-Bolshevism in every sense of the term.”105 The display further meant to reveal the true peril of a trend that, steered by a few Jewish and openly Bolshevik ringleaders, could succeed in enlisting such individuals to work toward Bolshevik anarchy in cultural politics, when those same individuals might well have indignantly denied any affiliation with Bolshevism in party politics.106 The exhibition was primarily one of anti-example. Some six-hundred fifty works were divided among nine separate rooms, each representing different aspects of the amorphous, subjective designation “culturally Bolshevistic.” The first group comprised works maligned for “barbarism of representation” and its “collapse of sensitivity to form and color,” and a “conscious disregard for basics of technique.” The second group consisted of works on religious themes that put people “more in mind of mumbo-jumbo” and were therefore to be regarded as a “shameless mockery of any religious idea.” Then followed the third group, in which “methods of artistic anarchy are used to convey an incitement to political anarchy … to class struggle in the Bolshevik sense.” The fourth group, also of political tendency, included works of art that served as “Marxist draft-dodging propaganda.” The fifth group was one in which the world was depicted as a “brothel and the human race is exclusively composed of harlots and pimps.” Some

104 See Schirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. 105 Führer durch die Austellung Entartete Kunst (Munich: Verlag für Kultur- und Wirtschaftswerbung, November 1937). Facsimile in Stephanie Barron, et al., “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1991) 360. Emphasis in original. The use of italics in the following discussion reflects their presence in the original Ziegler guide. 106 Ibid., 361–62. Emphasis in original.

of the works of this group were so obscene, vulgar, or “criminal” that they could not be exhibited due to the presence of female visitors to the exhibition. The sixth group featured works demonstrating that “degenerate art often lent its support to that segment of Marxist and Bolshevik ideology whose objective is the systematic eradication of the last vestige of racial consciousness” and which championed the “negro and the South Sea islander as the evident racial ideal of ‘modern art.’” The seventh group of works showed that, “alongside the negro as the racial ideal of what was then ‘modern art,’ there was a highly specific intellectual ideal, namely the idiot, the cretin, and the cripple.” Here, a “mindless, moronic face constituted a special creative stimulus” and human figures showed “more of a resemblance to gorillas than to men.” The eighth group comprised works solely by Jewish artists; the last, “sheer lunacy,” a “cross-section of all the -isms thought up, promoted, and peddled over the years.”107 The overarching theme of the exhibition was encapsulated in the large-writ caption on the walls of Room 5, “Even museum bigwigs called this ‘art of the German people.’”108 Art Bolshevism and cultural Bolshevism in general was un-German in a New Germany that championed a traditional idyllic German archetype. Other practically synonymous pejoratives could be drawn from the language of the exhibition as well: “barbaric,” “intellectual,” and “Jewish.” The extension of the Nazi anti-aesthetic of art to music is confirmed by Ziegler’s 1938 Degenerate Music Exhibition. Stravinsky was included in that exhibition despite performances of Stravinsky’s works around Germany at the time of the exhibition.109 Igor Stravinsky could be condemned as a cultural Bolshevist on a number of counts. The perceived barbarism and lack of form of Le Sacre du printemps alone made a case. In April 1933, however, Stravinsky sent a letter to Willy Strecker of B. Schott’s Söhne in Mainz, his German publisher, in which he explained, I loathe all communism, Marxism, the execrable Soviet monster, and also all liberalism, democratism, atheism, etc. I detest them to such a degree and so unreservedly that any connection with the country of the Soviets would be senseless.110

107 Ibid., 364–381. 108 Ibid., 61. “So schauen kranke Geister der Natur…aber auch Museumsbonzen nannten das ‚Kunst des deutschen Volkes.’” 109 Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music in Hitler’s Germany,” 570. 110 Stravinsky in Evans, “Stravinsky’s Music in Hitler’s Germany,” 538.

Here, Stravinsky places too much emphasis on the literal Bolshevik aspect of cultural Bolshevism. Stravinsky, though by lineage racially acceptable to the Germans, presented other problems. Stravinsky was Russian-born but French-nationalized. As such, he was, in the National Socialist mind, a man without a Volk. By 1936 attitudes toward Stravinsky had loosened very slightly. Through Strecker Stravinsky arranged to conduct at the Frankfurt opera, sharing the program with Bertil Wetzelsberger. This was to be a second German concert planned after the Baden-Baden festival of contemporary music in April 1936, in which Stravinsky was to participate. Hans Meissner, the music representative appointed by the Reich Music Chamber to oversee concert programs, forbade the engagement.111 Analogies drawn between Die Zaubergeige and Stravinsky’s music were not in Egk’s best interest. He, too, ran the risk of being accused of cultural Bolshevism, not because of his lineage—he was Bavarian and therefore definitely German—but because of the music itself. In the pages of Völkische Kultur, Egk used as non-culturally-Bolshevistic a venue as possible to declare Die Zaubergeige, even with its Stravinskian rhythms and mixed meters, as definitely German. For the June 1935 issue, Egk wrote a review of Richard Eichenauer’s infamous Musik und Rasse (Music and Race). In his review, Egk alights on two elements of music, melody and meter, the two style elements most often cited in contemporary reviews of Die Zaubergeige then in performance. Egk stated, For example, it is established that through the millennia, the diatonic melody is identical with the dominance of the Nordic spirit, or that the introduction of close and small pitches, chromaticism, and the subdivision into still smaller intervals is symptomatic of the incursion of the Near-Eastern attitude toward life.112 Here, Egk claimed the most important element in Die Zaubergeige, melody, as essentially Nordic. Further, he set aside his new diatonic melody from the chromatic melodies of the Romantic era, making place for his music. Egk also commented on rhythm, defining non-

111 Ibid., 544–47. Meissner was the director of the Frankfurt Opera, where Egk’s Die Zaubergeige had its premiere not quite one year earlier. 112 Werner Egk, book review: Musik und Rasse by Richard Eichenauer in Völkische Kultur 3 (June 1935): 284–85. “Zum Beispiel wird festgestellt, daß durch die Jahrtausende hindurch die diatonische Melodik identisch ist mit der Herrschaft des nordischen Geistes, oder daß der Einbruch der engen und kleinen Tonstufen, der Chromatik und der Unterteilung in noch kleinere Intervalle wesensgleich ist mit dem Einbruch des vorderasiatischen Lebensgefühls.”

foursquare rhythms, such as those of the Zwiefacher in Die Zaubergeige, along with Stravinskian rhythmic elements, as distinctly German. Egk the “ultra-Bavarian” invoked race, knowing that his Germanness was above reproach, in order to rebut the arguments of those placing his music in proximity to that of Stravinsky, the cultural Bolshevist. 113 Egk pointed out, How often has one encountered the view that primitive, regular meter is especially German. Eichenauer demonstrates, however, that the altogether too stamped-out regularity is romantic, un-German, and un-Nordic, while the “non-quadratic rhythm, the wrestling of multiple stress patterns” depicts “something extraordinarily German.”114 The critic of Berlin’s Friedericus equated Volkstümlichkeit with modernism in his review of Die Zaubergeige. He wrote, his volkstümlich and thereby modern opera Die Zaubergeige met with such a one hundred percent affirmation before a parquet of experts and the musically educated that his name, unknown just yesterday, is on the tips of everyone’s tongues today.115 The modernism that arises from Die Zaubergeige is not musical modernism. It is rather the contemporary National Socialist Weltanschauung that viewed a bucolic Bavarian landscape as an ideal setting for a simple life, a perfectly Romantic idea. One could argue that the presence of an educated audience contradicts the volkstümlich nature of the work. According to Egk’s Lochham Opera Letter, inherently volkstümlich works should appeal to the uneducated layman as well as to the expert. Perhaps the Volkstümlichkeit of Die Zaubergeige actually had little to do with its ultimate purpose: by writing a work congruent with the volkstümliche weltanschauung of contemporary music, of which Egk was always a strong proponent, Egk ensured a place for

113 Berliner Tageblatt, Abend Ausgabe 244, 1. Beiblatt (24 May 1935). “Werner Egk wohnt in Lochham bei München. Er ist ein Urbayer. Er holt die Triebkräfte seiner Oper aus dem heimischen Boden, aus der heimischen Tradition.” 114 Ibid., 285. “Wie oft begegnet man auch der Ansicht, daß der primitive gerade Takt besonders deutsch sei, Eichenauer zeigt aber, daß die allzu weit getriebene rhythmische Regelmäßigkeit romanisch, undeutsch und unnordisch ist, während die „unquadratische Rhythmik, das Ringen mehrerer Betonungsordnungen etwas ungemein Germanisches“ darstellt.” 115 Friedericus, 2. Ausgabe, 28 (July 1935). “Werner Egk heißt der eine und ist ein 34 Jahre alter Urbayer. Seine volkstümliche und dabei moderne Oper: „Die Zaubergeige“ fand am 21. Mai im Frankfurter Opernhaus vor einem Parkett vom Sachverständigen und musikalisch Gebildeten eine so hundertprozentig bejahende Aufnahme, daß sein Name, gestern noch unbekannt, heute in aller Munde ist.”

himself and his music. This was something of a ruse, however, considering that Egk’s music is not especially völkisch.

Bayerische Tanzbilder „Auf der Alm“ (Georgica, 1935)

Egk’s 1934 orchestral work Georgica premiered as a ballet, Bayerische Tanzbilder „Auf der Alm, “in Cologne on 22 October 1935. The ballet was not especially successful. Helmut Heinrichs reported in the Düsseldorf paper Der Mittag, that “the Georgica-dances are to be well- viewed as unused ideas from Die Zaubergeige.” While the ballet was not a “defilement of culture,” the critic saw no reason to seek expressiveness by underpinning an A-major chord with an A-flat and an E-flat in the bass, a similar observation to that made regarding the “false basses” of Die Zaubergeige. 116 The critic of the Westdeutscher Beobachter found Egk’s “unsalted copy of Stravinsky’s Petruschka-suite” written with “willful primitiveness” resulting in a “spirit- and humorless satire.” He continued, Egk “would like to provide painting instead of feeling; he provides loud colors instead of painting, overblown dynamics through an ornamented use of brass instead of timbral discipline.”117 Egk found no better reception in his native Bavaria, as another reviewer made clear: And Werner Egk seeks to “freshen up” the volkstümlich Bavarian dance music he uses, and in fact, one senses occasionally imitations of Stravinsky’s well-known parody-suite or Hindemith’s march-grotesques. Outside this though, a unified impression may be able to arise. The orchestration is intentionally raw, supported by preference for the trumpets and trombones; dynamic shading is all but missing, and the parodic undertone compels the choreographer to joke-scenes and the set designer to fitting costumes and sets that run to the farcical.118

116 Der Mittag 247, 23 October 1935. The German title translates as “Bavarian Dance Scenes on the Alm River.” 117 Westdeutscher Beobachter 493 (23 October 1935). 118 Münchener Neueste Nachrichten 294 (27 October 1935) “Auch Werner Egk sucht die von ihm verwendeten volkstümlichen Tanzmusiken bayerischer Herkunft „aufzufrischen“, und zwar empfindet man gelegentliche Anlehnungen an Strawinskys bekannte Parodie-Suite oder Hindemiths Marschgrotesken, ohne daß jedoch ein einheitlicher Eindruck entstehen könne. Die Orchestrierung ist absichtlich rauh [sic] gehalten unter Bevorzugung der Trompeten und Posaunen, dynamische Schattierungen fehlen so gut wie ganz, und der parodistische Unterton mußte den Choreographen zu Ulkszenen und den Bühnenbildner zu entsprechenden Kostümen und Bildern zwingen, die auf das Gebiet der Posse leiten.”

While German critics were more willing to make exceptions for the music of Die Zaubergeige, they were not so inclined toward Georgica.

Kapellmeister at the Berliner Staatsoper

Despite the reception of Georgica, Egk’s star was still ascending, thanks to the momentum of Die Zaubergeige. Following its successful premiere in Frankfurt, the opera was performed in Bremen, Trier, Hannover, Kassel, Antwerp, and Mannheim.119 Die Zaubergeige was slated, “after some opposition” was overcome, for performance in a new setting at the Staatsoper in Berlin in February 1936.120 Egk had met General Manager Heinz Tietjen, also the General Manager for the opera at Kassel, following a performance of Die Zaubergeige there, and the latter then requested the composer’s presence in Berlin.121 At the dress rehearsal, conductor Hans Swarowsky, overcoming the reticence of General Manager Heinz Tietjen, arranged it so that Egk proposed that he himself direct the production. Egk initially resisted. Swarowsky suddenly became ill and could not conduct. After a visit by Swarowsky, Egk convinced himself to direct the Berlin premiere on 15 February 1936. Following the successful Berlin premiere of Die Zaubergeige and inquiries about Egk’s opinion of the orchestra and choir, Tietjen requested a meeting with him on 28 February 1936. This meeting was the opening of Egk’s new career. He promised to make the manuscript for his next opera available to Tietjen before submitting it to his publisher. Together, and with Egk’s interest in mind, they would decide where the work would premiere: Berlin, Kassel, or in the event that it were inappropriate for either of these, another theater within the Reich. That opera would be Egk’s 1938 Peer Gynt. After the opera Tietjen would award Egk a contract for a large- scale, feature-length, dance work. That work would be Egk’s 1940 Joan von Zarissa. Finally, because Tietjen held Egk to be “in every respect, a man of the future,” he would engage Egk as Kapellmeister (Conductor) at the Staatsoper, effective 7 March 1935. Egk now had a guaranteed performance for his next opera and a contract for a large dance work, but most importantly, he

119 Egk, Die Zeit, 236, 238. 120 Staatsarchiv München Spruchkammer Ka 339, Egk Werner. Hereafter, “StAM, Ka 339.” The date of the premiere is given by Egk in Die Zeit, 240. 121 Egk, Die Zeit, 243–45.

had a position that would offer him a fixed salary of RM 20,000.122 Egk remained a Kapellmeister at the Berliner Staatsoper until September 1940, when he entered into a contract with the Städtischen Bühnen (City Theaters) of Frankfurt am Main. The new Frankfurt contract guaranteed Egk premieres of his new works for five years.123

Der Weg (1936)

On 8 February 1936 the “first world-premiere of a German work [outside Germany] since 1914” took place in Antwerp, that of Egk’s ballet Der Weg (The Way), with the composer conducting.124 A knight on a crusade loses his way in a mythical forest, where he frees a trapped gazelle. The empress Nineana appears and reclaims her gazelle. The knight becomes infatuated with her and attempts to embrace her, but she disappears, leaving him victim of the forest and its demons, who seek to drive him to despair. Along the way, the knight loses his crusader’s sword and helmet. Nineana reappears, drives away the demons, and returns the knight’s possessions. The knight’s earthly way has come to an end. In the final tableau St. Michael knights the crusader, welcoming him into the ranks of his brethren.125 The critic of the Handelsblad van Antwerps, Painpare, reported simply that the work was the story of a knight crusader “whose path is hindered by different symbolic and mythical challenges.” Of the music, the reporter states that the music sounded “distinctly pre-Wagnerian,” opening with a funeral reminiscent of Beethoven’s Eroica and closing with a Verdian heroic apotheosis.126 German coverage of the event offered a more detailed description:

122 Egk, Die Zeit, 242–251. Egk quotes the confidential minutes of the meeting as sent to him later. StAM, Ka 339. Egk provides the salary amount in the minutes of a 17 October 1947 public meeting during his second denazification process. 123 Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, 17. 124 Hamburger Fremdenblatt 42, 11 February 1936; also, Berliner-Börsen-Zeitung 70, 11 February 1936. 125 Program, Koninklijke Vlaamsche Opera, 8 February 1936. BSB Ana 410. 126 Het Handelsblad van Antwerps, 9 February 1936. “«De Weg» ist een eenvoudig gesponnen, plastische gebarenspel en het scenario geschreven naar een oude legende, biedt ons de avonturen van een druisridder versperd wordt door allerlei symbolische of sprookjes-achtige hinderpalen. De muziek klinkt bepaald voor-Wagneriaansch. Ze vangt aan met een soort uitgebreide treurmarsch die veel overeenkomst biedt met die der Eroica en besluit met een op zijn Verdi’s opgevatte heldhaftige apotheose.” Kindest thanks are due to Ms. Jo-Anne van der Vat-Chromy and Ms. Lidewij Besnard for their translation from the Dutch.

The most powerful moments in Egk’s score are the solemn march of the exhausted knight in the tempo of a funeral march, and then the poignant episodes of the wounded gazelle protected by a good fairy. The fairy, metamorphosed into an oriental princess, appears to the crusader in the rhythm of a finely engraved tango. At the close, an adagio offers the soloist the opportunity to carry out a classical dance. Then the finale grows to a rich triumphal march.127 The reception of Der Weg foreshadowed that of Joan von Zarissa. Critics found Der Weg noteworthy in its poignant moments, as they would Joan von Zarissa. Der Weg closed with a grand finale, as would Joan von Zarissa. In Der Weg, the crusader dies, and the triumphal march accompanies his entry into heaven, dissolving the sadness of death in the joy of eternal life. In Joan von Zarissa, the rondeau-finale dispels the sadness of the tragedy that precedes it. The presence of the tango in Der Weg remains a mystery, however. Such an inclusion was an evil characterization in Job, der Deutsche; however, the dance is associated with a positive character in Der Weg. Besides offering information on Egk’s music, reviews of Der Weg confirmed Egk’s success in his fledgling career. The above critic noted that the ballet was “reminiscent of the successful opera Die Zaubergeige in the melodic noblesse, the dazzling orchestration and the rhythmic polymorphism.”128 The Hamburger Fremdenblatt and the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung celebrated not only Egk’s “complete success” in Antwerp, but also the upcoming Berlin debut of Die Zaubergeige and his reception of the “honorable commission” to compose music for the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Berlin Olympic games.129

127 Neues Musikblatt (Mainz) 15, March 1936. “Die stärksten Momente in Egks Partitur sind der feierliche Marsch des erschöpften Ritters im Tempo eines Trauermarsches, und dann die rührende Episode der verwundeten, durch eine gute Fee beschützten Gazelle. Die in eine orientalische Prinzessin verwandelte Fee erscheint dem Kreuzfahrer in den Rhythmen eines fein ziselierten Tangos. Zum Schluß gibt ein Adagio den Solisten Gelegenheit einen klassischen Tanz auszuführen. Dann steigert sich das Finale zu einem klangreichen Triumphmarsch.” 128 Ibid. “Das Ballett „Der Weg“ erinnert an die erfolgreiche Oper „Die Zaubergeige“ durch die melodische Noblesse, die schillernde Orchestration und die rhythmische Vielgestaltigkeit.” 129 Hamburger Fremdenblatt 42, 11 February 1936; also, Berliner Börsen-Zeitung 11 February 1936. “Der junge deutsche Komponist, Werner Egk, dessen Oper „Die Zaubergeige“ in diesen Tagen an der Berliner Staatsoper zum ersten male aufgeführt wird, und der den ehrenvollen Auftrag erhalten hat, die Musik für die Berliner

Geigenmusik mit Orchester (1936)

Werner Egk directed the premiere of his Geigenmusik mit Orchester (Violin Music with Orchestra) on the first day of the Baden-Baden Internationales Zeitgenössisches Musikfest (Baden-Baden International Contemporary Music Festival), 3 April 1936. This festival was an island in the tide of National Socialist cultural conservatism sweeping Germany at the time. Perhaps this was due to the Olympic games Germany would be hosting in some four months: Germany wanted to project an atmosphere of cosmopolitanism and openness in light of the games. Festival participants included Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, and other composers from France, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, and Greece. Among them were Paul Graener, the future President of the Reich Music Chamber, and Francesco Malipiero and Max Trapp, future members of the German and International Olympic Committee for music. Egk’s success with Die Zaubergeige made him an important part of the festival. Geigenmusik premiered with Lars-Erik Larson’s Concert Overture No. 2, op. 13; Karl Höller’s Symphonic Fantasy on a Theme of Girolamo Frescobaldi for orchestra, op. 20; and Petro Petridis’s Greek Suite for large orchestra.130 Reviews were mixed. The Völkischer Beobachter reported, Werner Egk had the greatest audience success with his Geigenmusik mit Orchester, which apparently originated from thematic material collected for the composition of the opera Die Zaubergeige. In any event, the stylistic proximity to the opera is unmistakable. The rhythmic verve of the melody, the original mixture of timbral combinations, and the earthiness of the demeanor of the whole stamp the concerto with an importance that is not to be diminished even by occasional lapses into popular gestures.131

Eröffnungsfeierlichkeiten der Olympiade zu komponieren, hatte die Genungtuung, sein Ballett „Der Weg“ durch die Königlich-vlämische Oper in Antwerpen zur Aufführung gebracht zu sehen. Es war ein voller Erfolg.” 130 Program for the Baden-Baden Internationales Zeitgenössisches Musikfest, 3–5 April 1936. BSB Ana 410. 131 Völkischer Beobachter, Berliner Ausgabe 96, 5 April 1936. “Den stärksten Publikumserfolg hatte Werner Egk mit seiner Geigenmusik mit Orchester, die offenbar aus dem bei der Komposition der Oper „Die Zaubergeige“ gesammelten Themenmaterial entstanden ist. Jedenfalls ist die stilistische Nachbarschaft zu der Oper unverkennbar. Der rhythmische Schwung der Melodik, die originelle Mischung der Klangkombinationen und die Urwüchsigkeit der Gesamthaltung stempeln das Konzert zu einer Bedeutung, die auch durch gelegentliches Abgleiten in populäre Gesten nicht vermindert wird.”

The Frankfurt am Main General Anzeiger pointed out that Egk “relocated Kaspar of Die Zaubergeige,” but “unfortunately, the ideas were diluted.”132 The review published in Der Mittag was less tactfully ambiguous: The most recent work of Werner Egk, a Geigenmusik mit Orchester, stood at the center of interest. What did one expect? Much, some—but on no account a repeat of the Zaubergeige-style. Whoever does not yet know this opera will take pleasure in a light instrumental music that assigns the grateful duties to the violin. The others are certainly dumbfounded to find almost verbatim the features of the opera score: the yodel- and strum-style of the melody; the duple and triple rhythm; the glassy combinations of timbre. This has now lost its appeal to everyone. Such a style is original only once. Is Egk’s expressive compass really so narrowly defined? Curious slump.133 Apparently the German market for such melodically-volkstümlich works as Die Zaubergeige had been saturated. Critics once again demanded music not necessarily beholden to the quaint rusticity of an idealized folkish German life.

Olympische Festmusik (1936)

The 1936 Olympics brought National Socialist Germany, its cultural products, and its representative Werner Egk onto the world stage. Dr. Carl Diem, General Secretary of the Eleventh Olympic Games, and his collaborator Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt, author of Job, der Deutsche, asked Egk and Carl Orff to provide music for Olympische Jugend, a pageant to be

132 General-Anzeiger 81, 4 April 1936. “Im Mittelpunkt des Interesses natürlich: der neue Werner Egk, eine „Geigenmusik“. Es siedelt da noch immer der Kaspar aus der „Zaubergeige“, aber die Einfälle haben sich leider verdünnt.” This review by Düsseldorfer Ernst Krause was broadcast in several newspapers. The use of the phrases pertaining to the dilution of Zaubergeige ideas and the narrow definition of Egk’s expressive compass show up in three newspapers: the Frankfurt am Main General-Anzeiger; the Düsseldorf Der Mittag; and the Leipzig Neue Leipziger Zeitung. The latter two are signed “E.Kr.” 133 Der Mittag 82, 6 April 1936. “Das jüngste Werk Werner Egks, eine „Geigenmusik mit Orchester“, stand im Mittelpunkt des Interesses. Was hatte man erwartet? Vieles, manches—aber keinesfalls eine Wiederholung des „Zaubergeigen“-Stiles. Wer diese reizvolle Oper noch nicht kennt, wird seine Freude haben an einer leichten „Spielmusik“, die der Violine dankbare Aufgaben zuweist. Die anderen sind freilich verblüfft, all die urtümlichen Merkmale der Opernpartitur fast wörtlich wiederzufinden: den Jodler- und Schrammeltypus der Melodik, den drei- und vierteiligen Rhythmus, die gläsernen Klangmischungen. Das hat nun alles an Reiz verloren. Ein solcher Stil ist nur einmal original. Sollten die Ausdruckssphären Egks wirklich so eng umgrenzt sein? Sonderbarer Fall.”

performed at the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Diem believed that Olympic sport was a valuable tool in keeping the German people “fit and militarily strong.”134 Egk likely received the commission prior to an organizational meeting for Olympische Jugend, then called Sieg der Jugend (Victory of the Youths), which he attended with Carl Orff and dance instructor Dorothee Günther on 16 March 1935.135 The early conception of the pageant featured a rhetorical battle, “Overcoming the Foes,” between youth and a group of bureaucrats, intellectuals, financiers (Geldmenschen), seductresses, shallow people (Oberflächliche), movies, and cards.136 In contrast to this National Socialist-oriented play, the final Olympische Jugend pageant was more international in nature, as befit the Olympic Games. The program explained: The Festival Play “Olympic Youths” has been organized in response to the repeatedly expressed wish of the founder of the Olympic Games, Baron de Coubertin, to combine the opening ceremonies at the Festival held in Germany with the final chorus of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Dr. Diem, the General Secretary of the XIth Olympiad, accepted this wish as an obligation, but felt that the magnificent music set to Schiller’s “Hymn to Joy” should form the conclusion of a Festival Play which would take place in the Olympic Stadium itself and which would lend artistic expression to the Olympic ideals. It should be a pageant of youth. Working upon this basis, he planned a Festival and composed the libretto in cooperation with the director, Dr. Niedecken-Gebhard [sic], who was for so many years the stage director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.137 Egk’s Olympische Festmusik was featured throughout this four-tableau, one-and-a-half-hour spectacle of 10,000 participants.

134 David Clay Large, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2007), 33–35. 135 Report of the 16 March 1935 German Organizing Committee for the 11th Olympiad concerning the composition of the pageant. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde, R 8077, 196. 136 Report of the 16 March 1935 German Organizing Committee for the 11th Olympiad concerning the composition of the pageant. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde, R 8077, 196. 137 Olympische Jugend Festspiel (Berlin: Reichssportverlag, 1936), 23. In English. Gebhardt was stage manager at the Metropolitan Opera from 1931 to 1933. See Gerald Fitzgerald, Editor-in-Chief, Annals of the Metropolitan Opera: The Complete Chronicle of Performances and Artists (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. and New York: The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc., 1989), 428–449. His name is listed as “Hanns Niedecken-Gebhard” in the Annals.

On 31 July 1935 Egk wrote to Niedecken-Gebhardt that he was in the middle of the work and would finish “around the end of August, beginning of September, at the latest,” almost one year before the 1 August 1936 opening ceremonies.138 Olympische Festmusik comprised five tableaus interspersed with the music of Orff throughout the pageant. A “Festlicher Willkommruf” (“Festival Welcome-Call”) announced, after the ringing of the Olympia-Bell, the start of the pageant. Egk’s “Einzug der Jünglinge” (“Entrance of the Adolescents”) served as a prelude to the folksongs of Finland, India, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Germany. The flags of the nations entered to Egk’s “Walzer” (“Waltz”), and the tableau concluded with the last movement of the Olympische Festmusik suite, Egk’s hymn “Ewige Olympia” (“Eternal Olympia”). The fourth tableau, “Heroic Struggle and Death Lament,” was a sword dance featuring dancers Harald Kreuzberg and Mary Wigman. While ostensibly denouncing the needless death caused by war, the accompanying narration eulogized those who gave their life for their fatherland and thereby earned the highest victory.139 This tableau featured the “Waffentanz” (Sword Dance) and “Totenklage” (“Death Lament”) movements of Egk’s work.140 The pageant closed with a tableau built around the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, as Coubertin had desired. As a composer at the 1936 Olympics Egk found himself in good German company. Richard Strauss had been commissioned to write music for an Olympic hymn, and Carl Orff shared in the music of Olympische Jugend. Egk’s Olympische Festmusik found itself alongside the overture of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, Liszt’s Les Préludes, and the “Hallelujah” chorus of

138 Egk to Diem, 31 July 1935. BSB Ana 410. 139 Ibid., 11. The text for the tableau is as follows: Allen Spiels Denkt der Toten heil’ger Sinn: dankt der Toten, Vaterlandes die vollendet Hochgewinn. ihren Kreis. Vaterlandes höchst Gebot Ihnen aller Ehren in der Not: allerhöchsten Siegespreis. Opfertod! 140 Almost ten years later, Diem would again invoke the image of this tableau. He delivered an inspirational speech in the Kuppelsaal of the Sportforum, where Olympic fencers met in 1936. His speech of 18 March 1945 was addressed again to youth, a group of Hitler Youth facing a hopeless battle with American and Russian forces, now outside Berlin. (Large, Nazi Games, 323–324.)

Handel’s Messiah, all connected with the opening ceremony. 141 Unlike Orff and Strauss, however, Egk was awarded an Olympic gold medal in the category of Sportart-Kunst, Orchestermusik (“Sport-art, Orchestral Music.”) Cultural competitions were part of the Olympics starting in 1912, and prizes were awarded in the areas of architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture.142 For the 1936 Olympics, thirty-four entries were received for the music portion of the cultural events, distributed across the categories of solo vocal and choral works; solo instrumental or chamber music; and orchestral works. Of these, four works, including Egk’s Olympische Festmusik, came from Germany. Egk relates in his memoirs that Niedecken-Gebhardt requested him to enter his music into the art competition because there were too few entries in the competition.143 Egk agreed, and Olympische Festmusik was forwarded to the German jury for consideration and from there to the contest as a German entry. Egk’s competition consisted of two works from Holland; five from Italy; five from Japan; one from Monaco; seven from Austria; five from Czechoslovakia; three from the United States of America, including Roy Harris’s “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” for orchestra; and two from Yugoslavia.144 Egk’s success at the 1936 Olympics was likely due to his connections in addition to the quality of his music. Egk had taken part in the earliest organization of the pageant for the opening ceremonies in March 1935. His connections with the Olympics predated this, though. Egk had worked with Heinz Niedecken-Gebhardt on Job der Deutsche two years before in 1933. He also enjoyed a favorably-disposed committee. From at least 1934 the German Working Committee for Music (Arbeitsausschuß Musik) awarded composition contracts intended to produce works for the 1936 competition. Special consideration was given to those composers

141 Ibid., 196–201. Though Handel was a German who sought to produce Italian opera in England, his Germanness was not questioned. 142 Richard Stanton, The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions: The Story of the Olympic Art Competitions of the 20th Century (Victoria, B.C.: Trafford, 2000), 35–37. Stanton’s book is the only such on the subject in English. 143 Egk, Die Zeit, 257–258. 144 BA R 8077/169. Cultural Olympic events were replaced by the Olympic Arts Festival in 1952 on the premise that artists were professionals rather than amateurs.

with experience in youth and worker movements.145 The Working Committee was comprised of members recommended by then-President of the Reich Music Chamber Richard Strauss and originally included composers Paul Hindemith and Emil Nikolaus Reznicek, both replaced by November 1934. Strauss removed himself from the committee when he resigned from the Reich Music Chamber in July 1935.146 Egk’s previous work in Job der Deutsche would have likely qualified him for special consideration, but the Working Committee did not offer him a contract. The German committee that recommended Egk’s work for competition consisted of Prof. Dr. Peter Raabe, Presidential Councilor (Präsidialrat) Heinz Ihlert, Prof. Gustav Havemenn, Prof. Georg Schumann, Prof. Fritz Stein, Prof. Heinz Tiessen and Prof. Max Trapp.147 The international Olympic jury consisted of the same, augmented by the Italian Francesco Malipiero, Finnish composer Yrjö Kilpinen, and Federal Councilor Dr. Kurt Biebrach of the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, a.k.a. Propaganda Ministerium (Propaganda Ministry), or “Promi”), and General Secretary of the Berlin Olympics Carl Diem. In effect, it was largely the same committee that initially put forward Egk’s work as a German entry that would also determine the Olympic gold-medalist. The committee convened on 3 June 1936 and made its decision on 11 June; before the results were officially announced, Diem succinctly telegraphed Egk, “Confidential Winner Congratulations / Diem.”148 On 12 June Francesco Malipiero met with Josef Goebbels and, according to Goebbels “referred to Werner Egk as the upcoming bearer of the Olympic medal for music.” “That would be very nice,” Goebbels mused.149 The

145 Albrecht Dümling, “Von Weltoffenheit zur Idee des NS-Volksgemeinschaft,” in ,” in Werner Egk: Eine Debatte zwischen Ästhetik und Politik, ed. Jürgen Schläder (Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2008), 23–24. Surprisingly, the anti-Nazi composer Paul Höffer was awarded a contract in 1935. 146 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 2, no. 21 (24 July 1935): 61. BA R 56-II/17. 147 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 2, no. 2 (16 January 1935): 3–4. BA R 56-II/17. 148 Letter from Diem, 23 May 1936. Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde R 8077, 173. The committee is confirmed by Michael Kater in Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7–8. The telegram is quoted in Dümling “Von Weltoffenheit,” 23–34. 149 Josef Goebbels, Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatliche Archivdienstes Rußlands. Herausgegeben von Elke Fröhlich. Teil I: Aufzeichnungen. 14 vols., (München: K.G. Saur, 1998–2006), I.3/II, 105. “Italien. Komponist Malipiero. Macht guten Eindruck. Ob auch guter Musiker? Bezeichnet Werner Egk als kommenden Träger der olymp. Medaille für Musik. Wäre sehr schön.”

committee conferred the gold medal in the solo vocal and choral works category on Paul Höffer for his cantata Olympic Oath (Olympischer Schwur). The remaining medals in the orchestral division went to non-Germans: the Italian Lino Liviabella was awarded a silver medal for his symphonic poem Il Vincitore (The Victor); the bronze medal was awarded to the Czechoslovakian composer Jaroslav Kricka for his Bergsuite (Mountain Suite). Two honorable mentions were conferred on Italy’s Gian Luca Tocchi, for his Recordo (Record); and Japan’s Bunya Koh, for his Tanz Formosa (Formosan Dance). In the category of solo vocal and choral works, the silver medal was awarded to Kurt Thomas for his Kantate zur Olympiade 1936 (Cantata for the 1936 Olympiad), and the bronze to Harald Genzmer for Der Läufer (The Runner). No medals were awarded in the instrumental solo and chamber works division; however, Gabriele Bianchi from Italy was awarded an honorable mention for Due Improvvisi (Two Improvisations).150

Natur-Liebe-Tod (1937)

After his Olympic success, Egk received a commission for a cantata celebrating the 200th anniversary of the University of Göttingen. Egk’s four-movement Natur-Liebe-Tod (Nature- Love-Death) for bass and chamber orchestra premiered on 26 June 1937. The text of the cantata was drawn from the poetry of Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty (1748-1776), who had been a theology student at the university and a member of the Göttingen Circle.151 Natur-Liebe-Tod was also performed on 29 May 1938 at the first Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf, where the

Michael Kater in Composers of the Nazi Era states “Already in June 1936, weeks before the Olympic event, Goebbels, the chief of the Reich Music Chamber (RMK), who most certainly had been pulling strings, had been told by Malipiero that Egk could be looked upon as the ‘future bearer of the Olympic Medal for Music.’” Kater’s statement is somewhat mendacious. Goebbels’s statement is dated 12 June, nine days after the first meeting of the committee, and the day after Egk himself had been notified, albeit confidentially, by Diem. It is true that this occurred weeks before the Olympics, but there appears no reason to suspect Goebbels was directly involved in the decision, especially given the predisposition of the committee favorably toward Egk. Kater’s definite statement is also incongruous with the subjunctive mood Goebbels uses in the phrase following that which Kater translates [“Wäre sehr schön.” (Italics mine.)]. Nor does it match Goebbels’s entry following his attendance of the 31 January 1939 performance of Peer Gynt in which he describes Egk as “new discovery” in a tone which does not indicate intimate prior knowledge of Egk or his works. See following discussion. 150 Stanton, Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, 179. 151 (Accessed 20 June 2011).

infamous Entartete Kunst exhibition by Hans Severus Ziegler had opened just five days earlier.152

Mein Vaterland (1937)

Egk composed another choral work that premiered with Natur-Liebe-Tod. Egk set Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s 1768 poem “Mein Vaterland” (“My Fatherland”) for unison choir and orchestra or organ.153 Historian Fred Prieberg, in “The Case of Werner Egk,” states this work “was not exactly harmless in the Third Reich and promptly played its role in the Goebbels propaganda film Das deutsche Lied [The German Song].”154 The composition is confirmed in Egk’s denazification record; however, the date of composition is listed as 1938.155

Variationen über ein altes Wiener Strophenlied (1938)

Egk composed his Variationen über ein altes Wiener Strophenlied (Variations on an Old Viennese Strophic Song) for the Berlin performance of Rossini’s Barber of Seville of 19 September 1938. Erna Berger sang the part of Rosina, and Egk’s music became one of her trunk arias. Walter Abendroth, critic for the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger wrote that though Egk’s music aligned itself well with Rossini, the “very personal signature of the composer” was recognizable.156

Peer Gynt (1938)

On 25 November 1938, Kapellmeister Werner Egk of the Berliner Staatsoper fulfilled his promise of his next-born opera to General Intendant Heinz Tietjen. Peer Gynt, dedicated to Tietjen, premiered to mixed reviews. The libretto was an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play by the composer himself, with some substantial omissions, revisions, and additions to Ibsen’s original (see Figure 2.1).

152 Program for the Reichsmusiktage Düsseldorf in Dümling and Girth, Entartete Musik, 105–110. 153 (Accessed 17 October 2011). 154 Prieberg, “Der Fall Werner Egk.” “Nicht die Vertonung von Klopstocks Hymne „Mein Vaterland“ (1937), die im Dritten Reich eben nicht harmlos war und prompt in dem Goebbelschen Propagandafilm „Das deutsche Lied“ ihre Rolle spielte.” Egk’s score is available on loan from B. Schott’s Söhne publishers in Mainz. Research into the film Das deutsche Lied lies beyond the purview of this study. 155 StAM, Ka 339. Anlagen zum Fragebogen. 156 Berliner Lokal Anzeiger 224, 17 September 1938.

Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt Werner Egk’s Peer Gynt Act I Scene at the Fence Prelude Barren Hill Act 1, Tableau Act I Courtyard at Hægstad Courtyard at Hægstad 1 Scene with Ingrid and Åse. Encounter Act II I, 2. Talus in the High Mountains with the “Green one” King’s Hall of the Dovre-Alt (Old Man of Act II I, 3. Hall in the Mountain of the Old One the Mountain or Mountain King) Act III (Without Åse Scenes) I, 4. Forest Clearing in the High Mountains Southwest Coast of Morocco Act II Act IV Pier in a Central-American Port (until the Shipwreck) (Tableau 5) Anitra Scenes Act IV II, 6. Sailor’s Pub in Central America (without Sphinx and Dr. Begriffenfeldt) Based on Act II Finale (the Bøyg with Bird’s Voices). The Unknown One melded from the Strange Passenger and Peer Gynt’s Homeland. Three black -- II, 7. the Button-Molder. Items from “Hill birds. An Unknown One. beside the Riverbed,” “Woody Heath” (Act V) ------III, 8. Hall in the Mountain of the Old One Solveig’s Song from Act IV -- III, 9. Forest Clearing Crossroads Scenes and Finale

Figure 2.1. Comparison of Egk’s adaptation of Peer Gynt to Henrik Ibsen’s original. Fritz Stege, “Berliner Musik,” Zeitschrift für Musik 1, January 1939.

Among the changes Egk made were the relocation of Peer to Central America instead of Africa; the change in color of the troll seductress from Ibsen’s green to Egk’s redhead; and the return trip to the mountain hall that Egk inserted in the third act. The first two changes Egk made allow the reintroduction of an Egk character from an earlier work: the Redhead of Peer Gynt is a reincarnation of redheaded Vice from Job, der Deutsche. In each case, the character is accompanied by a sultry tango by which they seek to seduce the heroes. At least one newspaper criticized Egk for choosing to adapt Ibsen’s play himself instead of using the version translated and adapted by Dietrich Eckart, an important member of the early National Socialist party and devoted follower of Adolf Hitler.157 According to Egk’s recollection in Die Zeit wartet nicht, the problem lay not in his adaptation per se, but in that he adapted the German translation by Christian Morgenstern (1971-1914), not that by Eckart,

157 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 281, 24 November 1938.

thereby angering the Party.158 Morgenstern was incorrectly listed in the 1933 edition of Handbuch der Judenfrage as part Jewish.159 This was a mistake and was later corrected.160 The misconception of Morgenstern’s Jewish ancestry could have also contributed to the negative reaction to Egk’s use of his libretto. On 3 November 1938 Egk took part in a press conference at the Haus der deutschen Presse in Berlin. Egk discussed Peer Gynt, and other musicians discussed the development and importance of music in the home (Hausmusik) and contemporary choral compositions.161 This press conference was the second in a series instituted by Josef Goebbels, whose purpose was to promote “understanding between creators of art and contemplators of art” (Kunstschaffenden und Kunstbetrachtern) and involved composers “explaining the artistic goals of their works in production.” Egk had been ill and unable to take part in the first press conference the preceding month, at which composer Arthur Kusterer discussed his opera Katharina.162 This press conference was the locus of one of the ancillary dramas surrounding Egk’s Peer Gynt. In Die Zeit wartet nicht, Egk related, I could not escape the established little Press-mill in which every misunderstanding between creators of art and contemplators of arts was to be ground. On Wednesday, November 3rd, I had to make good on my appearance at the “House of the German Press.” The conference did not begin with the subject Peer Gynt, but rather with demonstrations on the current development of Hausmusik. It was not very enthralling. Before the start of the presentation, the hall was as if electrically charged, but the many speeches on Hausmusik were as agreeable [to this energy] as a downpour to a timpani head. Many yawned covertly, some openly. I rubbed the bridge of my nose and gritted

158 Egk, Die Zeit, 313. 159 Theodor Fritsch, Handbuch der Judenfrage: Die wichtigsten Tatsachen zur Beurteilung des jüdischen Volkes, 32nd ed. (Leipzig, Hammer-Verlag, 1932), 378. < http://www.archive.org/details/Fritsch-Theodor-Handbuch-der- Judenfrage-3> (Accessed 27 June 2011). 160 Theodor Fritsch, Handbuch der Judenfrage: Die wichtigsten Tatsachen zur Beurteilung des jüdischen Volkes, 49th ed. (Leipzig: Hammer-Verlag, 1944). (Accessed 27 June 2011). 161 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 516, 3 November 1938. 162 Düsseldorfer Nachrichten 502, 3 October 1938.

my teeth. After the music-educator ultimately had to quit speaking, because not one single little question came after her presentation, it was my turn. I was well-prepared and spoke without notes, from the heart. The energy rose again. I related why, despite Grieg, and something about how and what. Then came the questions. A contemplator of art actually had the piano-vocal edition and himself read the stage directions. “So you intend the trolls not to be taken for legendary creatures?” “No.” That was too little for him: “What displeases you about the traditional depiction of the troll-world?” “The struggle and melee that usually coils itself at the hero’s feet in the stage productions of Peer Gynt.” “So you intend a different impression?” “No, I intend a different expression.” “You write on page 69 of the piano-vocal edition, that the trolls are the ‘frightening incarnation of human baseness.’ Where do you find this baseness today?” “Today? As it has always been: everywhere, below and above.” “How do you envision, for example, the costume of a Head Troll?” I was slowly growing furious at his intentional underhandedness and said, ice- cold, ‘Stick a fat supernumerary in general’s trousers, put a uniform shirt on him, and decorate him with a slew of medals and orders, then you have a perfect costume!” “Bravo Egk,” muted but clearly audible came from the corner where I saw [journalist and music critic Edwin] von der Nüll standing. The questioner was satisfied. Everyone thought the same, “His name is Hermann!” The press reported neutrally; the Angriff found my speach [sic] ironically and sarcastically flavored. That wasn’t too bad. No one who understood me could have risked acknowledging it. The thought alone was punishable. A priceless tactical advantage for subversives.163

163 Egk, Die Zeit, 300–02. “Trotzdem entkam ich der aufgestellten kleinen Pressemühle nicht, in der jedes Mißverständnis zwischen Kunstbetrachtern und Kunstschaffenden zermahlen werden sollte. Am Mittwoch, den 3.

Equating a Head Troll with “Hermann” was a serious transgression: based on the status and largess of the supernumerary, listeners took “Hermann” to be Hermann Göring. Göring held no fewer than twenty official posts from 1933 to 1945, including Prussian Minister-President, President of the Reichstag, Reich Aviation Minister, Commander of the Air Force, Reich Superintendent of Forestry, Reich Superintendent of Hunters, and President of the Reich

November, mußte ich meinen Auftritt im „Haus der deutschen Presse“ nachholen. Die Konferenz begann jedoch nicht mit dem Thema „Peer Gynt“-Oper, sondern mit Ausführungen über die aktuelle Entwicklung der Hausmusik. Sehr spannend war das nicht. Vor Beginn der Veranstaltung war der Saal wie elektrische geladen, vertrug aber das viele Reden über Hausmusik so schlecht wie ein Paukenfell den Platzregen. Viele gähnten verstohlen, manche offen. Ich rieb mit den Nasenrücken und mahlte mit den Kiefern. Als die Musikerzieher endgültig aufhören mußten zu reden, weil auf ihren Vortrag hin keine einzige kleine Frage kam, war die Reihe an mir. Ich war gut disponiert und sprach ohne Manuskript frei von der Leber weg. Die Spannung stieg wieder an. Ich erzählte: Warum, trotz Grieg, und einiges über das Wie und das Was. Dann kamen die Fragen. Da hatte ein Kunstbetrachter tatsächlich den Klavierauszug und selbst die Regie- Anweisungen gelesen. „Sie wollen die Trolle also nicht als Fabelwesen gelten lassen?“ „Nein.“ Das war ihm zu wenig: „Was mißfällt Ihnen an der traditionellen Darstellung der Trollwelt?“ „Das Gewürge und Gewühle, das sich üblicherweise in den Schauspielaufführungen des ‚Peer Gynt’ um die Füße des Helden wickelt.“ „Sie wollen also eine andere Impression?“ „Nein, ich will eine andere Expression.“ „Sie schreiben auf Seite 69 des Klavierauszuges, daß die Trolle die ‚erschreckende Verkörperung menschlicher Minderwertigkeit’ sind. Wo finden Sie diese Minderwertigkeit heute?“ „Heute? Genau wie immer: überall, unten und oben.“ „Wie sehen Sie zum Beispiel das Kostüm eines Obertrolls?“ Ich wurde langsam wütend über sein zielstrebige Hinderfotzigkeit und sagte eiskalt: „Stecken Sie einen fetten Statisten in Generalshosen, ziehen Sie ihm ein Netzhemd über und dekorieren sie das mit einer Menge Orden und Ehrenzeichen, dann haben Sie ein perfektes Kostüm!“ „Bravo Egk“ kam es gedämpft, aber deutlich vernehmbar aus der Eck, in der ich Herrn von der Nüll stehen sah. Der Frager war bedient. Alle dachten das Gleiche: „Hermann heesst [sic] er!“ Die Presse berichtete neutral, der „Angriff“ fand meinen speach [sic] ironisch und sarkastisch gewürzt. Das war nicht so schlimm. Niemand, der mich verstanden hatte, konnte es wage, das zuzugeben. Schon der Gedanke war strafbar. Ein unschätzbarer taktischer Vorteil für Subversive.”

Research Council.164 In his capacity as Prussian Minister-President, he exercised control over the theaters in Prussia, including those of Berlin. Apparently having recovered from his anger at the reporter’s attempt to entrap him, Egk finished the press conference by clarifying his definition of Volkstümlichkeit. Unlike the tuneful- melody definition Egk gave in context to Die Zaubergeige, his revised definition was “based on the assent of the listener.” It was not based on a “catchiness” of music effortlessly grasped, nor did it mean that a listener could “take part in musical events without any intellectual effort or inner cooperation with musical events.” Rather, true Volkstümlichkeit called for “inner engagement with the artistic event and willingness to allow oneself to be led.”165 This lexical repositioning pointed to a reorientation of Egk’s compositions away from the völkisch nature of Die Zaubergeige and Georgica and toward a more intellectually stimulating creation with the intention of leading its listeners to moral conclusions. Considering once again Egk’s 1934 letter to Ernst Krause, one can posit that Egk had not yet returned to a true-to-self compositional style with Die Zaubergeige or Georgica. These works were the continuation of an inauthentic music in a style Egk perceived as marketable but, more importantly, uncontroversial. Peer Gynt was the opposite. The 3 November 1939 press conference was an inelegant introduction of Egk’s Peer Gynt to the German press. Given the perceived Volkstümlichkeit of his Die Zaubergeige, Egk’s account of the sudden controversy around his next work might seem fanciful. In his book Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits, historian Michael Kater writes, Egk’s postwar remark that any of the head trolls could have been taken to be Hermann Göring, if a somewhat different costume had been imagined on them—a remark he claims to have made at a press conference before the dress rehearsal—is hardly credible.166 In fact, Egk’s remark is quite credible. Egk was present at a press conference prior to the dress rehearsal of Peer Gynt, having missed the first such conference due to illness. Both are reported

164 The German titles of Göring’s offices: Preußischer Ministerpräsident, Präsident des Reichstags, Reichsluftfahrtminister, Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, Reichsforstmeister, and Präsident des Reichsforschungsrats. 165 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 516, 3 November 1938. 166 Kater, Nazi Composers, 9.

in contemporary newspapers, as described earlier. The Angriff reported that Egk gave an “introduction to his new opera Peer Gynt flavored by ironic and sarcastic inflections.”167 Wilhelm Matthes reported on the 3 November press conference in the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, providing final confirmation: Self-awareness, Solveig, the fruit of awareness, not the “salvation,” but the return to her by his [Peer’s] own resolution, is the victory of the positive in the last act. The world of the trolls, of the sub-humans, takes on the role of adversary. It is the symbol of malice, stupidity, and flippancy. Additionally, these trolls are no fairy tale figures but material conceptions: profiteers, capitalists, and other criminals, caricatured with a cellular shirt, on which a wide decoration of medals gleams, deceivers who wish to anoint Peer Gynt with filth and feces as their emperor.168 The reference to the trolls not only in decorated military uniform, but also as real, not fairy-tale, figures corroborates Egk’s own account in Die Zeit wartet nicht. Immediately following the above citation, Kater writes further, “There was, after all, a reliable Nazi image one could draw on for the trolls, and that was—again after the model of Guldensack in Die Zaubergeige—the stereotype of the ugly, deformed Jew.”169 This statement requires nuance. The image of the troll was referred to by Matthes as an Untermensch, a sub- human. The same term was used by Walter Steinhauer in the Hamburger Anzeiger review of the premiere.170 While the term did apply to Jews, its compass was much broader. The term Untermensch was the “derisive term for Jews, Poles, and Russians declared to be racially and

167 Der Angriff 263, 3 November 1938. “Schließlich gab der junge 36jährige Komponist Werner Egk eine durch ironische und sarkastische Wendungen gewürzte Einführung in seine neue Oper „Peer Gynt“.” 168 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 263, 3 November 1938. “Selbsterkenntnis, Solveig, die Frucht der Erkenntnis, nicht die „Erlösung“, sondern die Rückkehr zu ihr aus eigener Entschließung, ist der Sieg des Positiven im letzten Akt. Die Welt der Trolle, der Untermenschen, übernimmt die Rolle des Gegenspielers. Sie ist das Symbol der Bosheit, Dummheit und Leichtfertigkeit. Diese Trolle sind also keine Märchengestalten, sondern reale Begriffe: Schieber, Kapitalisten und sonstige Verbrecher, karikiert mit einem Netzhemd, auf dem ein breiter Orden prangt, Scheinmenschen, die Peer Gynt mit Schmutz und Kot als Kaiser salben wollen.” 169 Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, 9. 170 Hamburger Anzeiger 276, 25 November 1938. “Das Reich der Trolle is das Reich der Untermenschen, der boshaften Schieber und leichtfertigen Kapitalisten.”

morally debased; and for Communists.”171 Egk described his trolls as the “frightening incarnation of human baseness.” Steinhauer defined the trolls as “ruthless merchants, democratic politicians, criminals, and prostitutes” that “emblematize the catastrophe of egoism and individualistic capitalism.”172 Alfred Burgatz quoted Egk’s stage directions for his Berliner Börsenzeitung description of the trolls as “a collection of social climbers, pedants, dullards, ruffians, sadists, and prostitutes, and gangsters of all sorts.”173 Egk’s description was much less politically-oriented than is that of Steinhauer. That said, Egk does include “dullards” (Beschränkte), a term that could also connote the feeble-minded or mentally-handicapped, a group targeted by National Socialist pogroms. The trolls were sub-human in their moral corruption and in their physical deformation, with their tails and grotesque faces. Steinhauer measures them sub-human by a National Socialist standard of politics and economics that accommodates the Nazi-touted dichotomy of Weimar versus National Socialist German life. There is no explicit link between villainy and Jewishness in the tale of Peer Gynt as there is in Die Zaubergeige; however, Jews and trolls would, in the Nazi mind, belong to the same sub- human genus and therefore exhibit similar physical, moral, and political turpitude. Peer Gynt opened to mixed reviews. Neither critics nor audience knew what to do with the trolls. Nor did critics know exactly how to reconcile the motley music accompanying the libretto. In reference to the first troll scene, critic Erich Roeder of Der Angriff declared, Words and ways reminiscent of Weill’s Dreigroschenoper. There is only one step from here to Egk’s beloved province: the music becomes a delirium of joy of the underworld spirits after the search for a troll-wife, is upper-Bavarian, sounds strongly of Oktoberfest. Then there’s a homicide-jamboree when Peer and the new beloved land in the troll hall on the back of a boar. As promised early on, jazz now dominates. In the Central American bar, “belly and apache dances” were accompanied again by music reminiscent of the Dreigroschenoper, and the only things missing were a “negro boxer” and

171 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Untermensch.” 172 Hamburger Anzeiger 276, 25 November 1938. “Rücksichtslose Kaufleute, demokratische Politiker, Verbrecher und Dirnen versinnbildlichen die Katastrophe des Egoismus und individualistischen Kapitalismus.” 173 Berliner Börsenzeitung 552, 25 November 1938. “Und wenn Egk diese Trollwelt als „eine Versammlung von Strebern, Pedanten, Beschränkten, Rohlingen, Sadisten und Gangsters aller Schattierung“ aufgefaßt wissen will, so muß man ihm zugestehen, daß er ihr orchestral eine Ausdeutung gegeben hat, die an Eindeutigkeit nichts zu wünschen übrig läßt….” Burgatz quotes from Egk’s stage directions in Act I, Tableau 2.

“juke-joint” rabble.174 Critic Paul Sackarndt, though, acknowledged that Egk’s music fit the drama. He explained, This music is explicit in each case and focused on the central point of the scene. It gives to the soul what is hers and to the mind what is hers. The musician can confidently avail himself of the crassest forms only when, as here, the portents conform to the idea. (Therein this opera fundamentally differs from Křenek’s psychologically-materially similarly mixed opera of the Weimar Republic.)175 Egk’s “mixed” style is detailed by Walter Steinhauer in the Hamburger Anzeiger: For this setting, Egk writes a music that characterizes individual spheres through stylistic echoes. The troll-hymn is a travestied chorale. The dance of the sub-humans, a wild cancan. Relatively errant skepticism expresses itself in a song à la Kurt Weill; the liberal merchants sing a foxtrot; a tango paints the carnal atmosphere of the American sailors’ pub. All these pieces are furnished with a Stravinsky-schooled rhythm with much timbral harshness, magnificently orchestrated by Egk. Everything is bold and aggressive.

174 Der Angriff, 25 November 1938. “Worte und Weisen gemahnen an Weills „Dreigroschenoper“. Nur ein Schritt ist von hier zu Egks beliebtem Gebiet: Die Musik wird zum Freudentaumel der Unterweltgeister, nach der Freite um das Trollweib, ist oberbayrisch, klingt stark nach Oktoberfest. Eine Mordsgaudi gibt es dann, wenn Peer und die neue Geliebte auf eines Ebers Rücken im Trollsaale landen. Frühzeitig angekündigt herrscht nun der Jazz. Den nächsten Teil läßt Egk in verständlicher Absicht statt in Afrika in Amerika spielen. Peer, steinreich geworden, träumt vom Regiment der Welt. Den unter näselnder Jazztrompetenbegleitung auftretenden Staatspräsidenten besticht er maßlos, um sein Gold ausführen zu können. Drei Kaufleute, Zechkumpane, machen indes seinen Dampfer los und entfliehen mit seinem Besitz. Mit dem letzten Geld geht er in eine Hafenkneipe. Bauch- und Apachentänze. Musik wieder à la „Dreigroschenoper“. Ein Negerboxer fehlt ebensowenig wie die wüste Kaschemmenkeilerei.” 175 Westfälische Landeszeitung 320, 25 November 1938. “Egk schließt keine Kompromisse und gibt sich lieber blasphemisch (Unterwelt-Choral!) als parodistisch á la „Dreigroschenoper“; diese Musik ist jeweils eindeutig und bestimmt auf den Kernpunkt der Szene gerichtet, sie gibt der Seele, was ihrer ist, und den Sinnen, was derer ist. Der Musiker kann sich getrost der krassesten Formen bedienen, — wenn nur, wie hier, die Vorzeichen der Meinung stimmen. (Darin unterscheidet sich diese Oper grundlegend von Kreneks psychologisch-materiell ähnlich gemischter Oper der Systemzeit.)”

Solveig’s music functions most problematically, because here the expression of feeling wanders into the realm of the sentimental.176 Such reviews could have proven problematic for Peer Gynt. By placing the opera in close proximity to the works of Kurt Weill, Ernst Křenek, and, again, Stravinsky, the critics approached labeling the opera “degenerate” and the composer a “cultural Bolshevist.” In fact, no two more damning composers than Weill and Křenek could have been named—these were, literally in Křenek’s case, the poster boys of the Düsseldorf Entartete Musik exhibition. Weill received top billing as a cultural Bolshevist for his singspiels Dreigroschenoper (1928) and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny, 1930), as well as for his Jewish heritage.177 Bertolt Brecht’s lyrics for Mahagonny, reproduced for the exhibition guidebook, could have served as a model for those of the trolls in Peer Gynt. Brecht penned the following creed of Mahagonny:

Erstens, vergeßt nicht, kommt das Fressen First, don’t forget, comes the gorging, Zweitens kommt die Liebe dran, Second, then, comes the love-making, Drittens das Boxen nicht vergessen, Third, don’t forget the boxing, Viertens Saufen, so lang man kann. Fourth, guzzling, as long as one can, Vor allem aber achtet scharf, Above all, pay careful heed, Daß man hier alles dürfen darf. That one may be permitted anything here. 178

176 Hamburger Anzeiger 276, 25 November 1938. “Zu dieser Handlung schriebt Egk eine Musik, die die einzelnen Sphären durch Stilanklänge charakterisiert. Die Troll-Hymne ist ein travestierter Choral. Der Tanz der Untermenschen ein wilder Cancan. Relative irrenden Skeptizismus äußert sich in einem Song á la Kurt Weill, die liberalen Kaufleute singen einen Foxtrott, die sinnliche Atmosphäre der amerikanischen Hafenschänke schildert ein Tango. Alle diese Stücke sind von Egk mit einer prägnanten, an Strawinsky geschulten Rhythmik ausgestattet mit vielen klangliche Härten, die glänzend instrumentiert wurden. Das alles ist schwungvoll und draufgängerisch. Am problematischsten wirkt die Musik um Solveig, denn hier gerät der Gefühlsausdruck in die Nähe des Sentimentalen.” 177 Hans Severus Ziegler, Entartete Musik: Eine Abrechnung (Düsseldorf: Völkischer Verlag, [1938]), 14. Facsimile in Dümling and Girth, Entartete Musik, 127–143. 178 Ziegler, Entartete Musik, 19.

In Act II, Tableau 3 of Peer Gynt, the trolls swear their oath, “I swear that I shall never do anything except that which suits me!” This is followed by the troll hymn:

Tu nur, was dich erfreut, Do only that which pleases you, jetzo und alle Zeit, Now and for ever, was es auch sei. And that it is to be. So will’s bei uns der Brauch, So may it be our custom, ärgert’s die andern auch, Though it offends others, wir leben frei! We live free!

In both Weill and Egk, the themes of libertinism and self-centeredness prevail. As for Křenek, Ziegler wrote, A people who almost hysterically jubilate at Jonny, which have long since struck it up, but at least, without instinct, watch it, have become so spiritually and mentally sick and so inwardly addlepated and unclean, that nothing can remain for the unendingly and perpetually stirring purity and simplicity and depth of feeling of the first bars of Der Freischütz overture.179 Jonny spielt auf (1927), Ernst Krenek’s opera about a jazz musician, was quite possibly the most denigrated icon of degenerate music. Ziegler claimed that “In Jonny spielt auf, Ernst Křenek propagandized race-defilement as the freedom of the ‘New World.’”180 Not only did the cover imagery of the score appear in the exhibit, an adaptation of it served as the cover of the exhibition guide (see Figure 2.2).181

179 Ibid., 12. “Ein Volk, das dem „Jonny“, der ihm schon lang aufspielte, nahezu hysterisch zujubelt, mindestens aber instinktlos zuschaut, ist seelisch und geistig so krank geworden und innerlich so wirr und unsauber, daß es für die unendliche und uns immer wieder erschütternde Reinheit und Schlichtheit und Gemütstiefe der ersten Takte der „Freischütz“-Ouvertüre gar nichts mehr übrig haben kann.” 180 Ibid., 11. “Ernst Krenek propagierte in „Jonny spielt auf“ die Rassenschande als die Freiheit der „Neuen Welt.“” 181 Ibid., p. 126 interleaf.

Figure 2.2. Comparison of cover designs for the first edition of Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf and Ziegler’s guide for the Entartete Kunst exhibition. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Krenek_Jonny-spielt-auf_Titel.jpg; http://danajohnhill.com/dana/2010/02/03/toward-entartete-musik/. Public domain.

The resemblance of the designs is striking, but there are a few changes that make Ziegler’s design conform more to the tenets of cultural Bolshevism. Ziegler’s jazz musician looks more apelike than human, and he sports an earring. These make the musician conform more to the National Socialist stereotypes of “primitive” or “sub-human” African races. The musician also wears a tuxedo and top hat instead of the more informal dress of the original. The dress denotes socio-economic supremacy, the class of intellectuals and Jews, confirmed by the change from the flower on the musician’s lapel to include the Star of David. According to Nazi dogma, it was this Jewish intellectual class that was directing cultural activity, as they had in the Weimar Era, away from a German ideal. Ziegler’s Křenekian poster child was the embodiment of cultural Bolshevism: primitive, non-Aryan, musically base, intellectual, and Jewish—a paradoxical amalgam. Egk’s music was likewise potentially musically Bolshevistic in its variety. But Peer Gynt was fundamentally different from Křenek’s Jonny. Peer Gynt was not an opera about jazz. In fact, Egk did not much care for jazz. In a November 1941 interview with composer Gottfried Rüdinger, Egk discussed his view of jazz, specifically jazz broadcast via

78 radio. Egk clearly credited the dissemination of jazz not to the “Novemberlings,” (Novemberlinge) the Weimar-era German people, but to the National Socialist Party, more particularly to the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. He noted that the fighting spirit of soldiers at the front was strengthened through “schnapps, women, and jazz,” and that pilots especially liked jazz. If the German radio stations were to stop broadcasting jazz, Egk claimed the soldiers would simply turn to foreign stations. Egk continued, “The masses long for jazz. The whole of north Germany is jazzified [verjazzt]. In Hamburg, juvenile jazz clubs that move from one tavern to another have formed and have put on nigger-dances [Niggertänze].” At Rüdinger’s prodding that the German people will be “dishonored and unnerved by the Jazz-pestilence [Jazzseuche],” Egk responded that “The German Volk are just a mass!” He characterized jazz as “base and impudent” and lamented that there was no viable folk music alternative to jazz. When reminded of the work of the Hitler Jugend (HJ), Band deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls, BDL), and Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy, KdF) organizations, Egk acceded that such programs could work against jazz. Polemic was to no avail.182

182 BA R 18/5032, 013782-784. “Werner Egk erklärte, die gegenwärtig propagierte Jazzmusik werde von maßgebender Stelle als „neuer deutscher Tanz“ bezeichnet. Diese Musik werde in nächster Zeit noch mehr forciert werden. Es sei anzunehmen, daß jede Gegenaktion unterbunden werde. Die Jazzmusik werde deshalb propagiert, weil sie „dessen“ Rhythmus habe, dem Zeitempfinden entspreche und weil keine andere Unterhaltungsmusik und kein anderer Tanz vorhanden seien, die zeitgemäß wären. Nicht die „Nobemberlinge“ [sic] propagierten die Jazzmusik, sondern die Partei, in erster Linie das Reichspropagandaministerium und der Rundfunk. Es gäbe aber einige hohe Persönlichkeiten, die nichts von [unlesbares Wort] wissen wollten, z.B. der Reichserziehungsminister und der Reichsinnenminister. Solange die Kunst dem Propagandaministerium unterstehe, sei an keine Änderung zu denken. Dem Heere würden zur Hebung des Angriffsgeistes Schnaps, Weiber und Jazz serviert. Besonders die Flieger verlangten nach jazz. Man habe Weiber schlimmster Sorte an die Front geschickt und es seien die gemeinsten Dinge vorgekommen. Auf Einspruch hoher militärischer Kommandostellen seien die Weiber verhaftet, abtransportiert und an anderer Stelle wieder eingesetzt worden. Wenn der deutsche Rundfunk nicht Jazz sende, so würden viele Soldaten Auslandsender einschalten. Die Masse verlange den Jazz. Ganz Norddeutschland sei verjazzt. In Hamburg hätten sich jugendliche Jazzklubs gebildet, die von einer Gaststätte zur anderen gezogen seien, und Niggertänze aufgeführt hätten. Auf meinen Vorhalt, daß das deutsche Volk durch die Jazzseuche entehrt und entnervt werde, erklärte Egk, das deutsche Volk sei nur eine Masse! (An den bezeichnenden Beinamen kann ich mich nicht mehr erinnern) Diese Masse solle durch den Jazz abgestumpft werden. Egk bezeichnet selbst den Jazz als gemein und frech, es fehlt aber das positive gute

In order to understand these comments, though, it is essential to understand Egk’s position in relation to popular music of the time. Egk was a composer of serious music (Ernste Musik or E-Musik) composer, not of “light music” (Unterhaltungsmusik or U-Musik), which included jazz. From 1940, Egk was an advocate for serious music composers, working to ensure they received appropriate royalties from performances of their music. At this time, though, light music was thought to be more beneficial to the men at the front than serious music.183 In prioritizing serious music, Egk was making a place for his own music. Jazz, as Unterhaltungsmusik, regardless of its official approval, competed against serious music and therefore against Egk’s own. Egk’s general dislike of jazz is confirmed in Peer Gynt. Those places at which Egk utilized jazz rhythms, the tango, the can-can, and the like were characterizations of the depravity of troll culture. He did not use perceived jazz elements as positive or even neutral characterizations. The real problem was that Egk utilized the “degenerate” material too well. Robert Oboussier reported in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung that, in development and intensity, Egk “placed the accent so strongly on the ‘negative’ side, that the ‘positive’ paled in comparison.”184 Critic Karl Ruppel echoed Oboussier, but respected Egk as true to himself: There is no doubt that Egk’s talent for this sharp musical wit, a mixture of cold irony and Oktoberfest vitality, is exceptional, so exceptional, that through it the weight of his Peer Gynt music is shifted clearly to the characterization of the “negative” element. In contrast, the lyricism that flows around the “positive” figure of Solveig is reserved and muted, which admittedly speaks for the absolute artistic honesty of Egk and his justifiable mistrust of the overblown tonally rhetorical lyricism of some so-called “moderate modernists.” (The round dances of his Olympic Festmusik, written under contract, for

Gegenbild. Der Rundfunk gebe sich allerdings auch zu wenig Mühe, nach guter Unterhaltungsmusik zu forschen und brächte deutsche Volksmusik meistens in schlechter Form heraus. Es fehle auch am guten deutschen Gesellschaftstanz. Außer dem Walzer sei nichts vorhanden und die Jügend [sic] wolle doch tanzen. Ich machte ihn auf die Volkstanzübungen von K.d.F., HJ, und BDM aufmerksam, an denen auch Militär teilnimmt und wies auf meine eigene Tätigkeit auf diesem Gebiete hin. Egk sagte, diese positiven Erscheinungen seien das einzige Mittel, dem Jazz entgegenzuwirken, wogegen eine Polemik nichts fruchte.” 183 Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, 13. 184 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 552, 25 November 1938. “Aber nach Ausbreitung und Intensität legt er den Akzent so sehr auf die „negative“ Seite, daß die „positive“ daneben verblaßt.”

which he received the Olympic gold medal, completely dispense with this type of lyricism.)185 Erwin Kroll’s review of the premiere highlights the negativity of Egk’s opera in a more negative tone: His music seizes us completely at those places where it concerns the trollish, the nether- human. The scenes of the troll-king and his daughter, above all those in the mountain hall and in the American sailors’ pub, are of a positively dastardly musical forcefulness and appear to invoke the shadows of Jonny and Mahagonny. Here, the rhythmician and tonal magician Egk engages with his utmost prowess. He knows how to make jazz, tango, bolero, waltz, galop, and cancan serve his infernal grotesqueness, and the maelstrom of his rhythm is matched by a hellishly-peppered orchestration. Beside such successful “evil” music, the “good,” descriptive of Solveig’s world, pales a bit.186 Friedrich Wagner was the most direct, coming very close to denouncing the music of Peer Gynt in the Steglitzer Anzeiger. Describing the scenes in the troll hall, Wagner wrote, Then the cow Kitty, led by the billy goat Kid, appears in the pleasurable dance-steps of two danseuses. The choir pitches in satanically with this, cheers, yowls, and the orchestra

185 Kölnische Zeitung (Reichsausgabe) 600/601, 27 November 1938. “Kein Zweifel, daß Egks Talent für diesen scharfen musikalischen Witz, ein Gemisch aus kalter Ironie und Oktoberfestvitalität, außerordentlich ist, so außerordentlich, daß dadurch auch das Gewicht seiner „Peer-Gynt“ Musik eindeutig auf die Charakterisierung des „negativen“ Elements verlagert wird. Die Lyrik, die sich um die „positive“ Gestalt der Solveig breitet, wird dagegen im Ausdruck merklich zurückgehalten und gedämpft, was allerdings für die unbedingte künstlerische Ehrlichkeit Egks und sein berechtigtes Mißtrauen gegen den verblasenen klangrhetorischen Lyrismus mancher sogenannter „gemäßigt Moderner“ spricht (auch die Reigen seiner im Auftrag geschriebenen „Olympische Festmusik“, die für die er die goldene Olympia-Medaille bekam, entbehren völlig dieser Art Lyrik.).” 186 Danziger Neueste Nachrichten 277, 26/27 November 1938. “Seine Musik packt uns unmittelbar überall dort, wo es sich um das Trollhafte, das Niedermenschliche handelt. So sind die Szenen des Trollkönigs und seiner Tochter, vor allem die im Bergsaal und in der amerikanischen Hafenschenke, von einer geradezu niederträchtigen musikalischen Eindringlichkeit und scheinen die Schatten „Jonnys“ und „Mahagonnys“ zu beschwören. Hier tritt und [sic] der Rhythmiker und Klangzauberer Egk mit seinem ganzen Können entgegen. Jazz, Tango, Boléro, Walzer, Galopp und Cancan weiß er seiner infernalischen Groteske dienstbar zu machen, und dem Wirbel seiner Rhythmen entspricht eine höllisch gepfefferte Instrumentation. Neben so gelungener „böser“ Musik verblaßt die „gute“, die Welt Solveigs erklärende, ein wenig.”

blares in true-to-style syncopated jazz rhythms that displace the spectator from the ambit of opera to the regions of a completely differently constituted art.187 A second drama unfolded around the opera in December 1938. According to Egk, the references to influences of Weill and Křenek in Peer Gynt carried in reviews of the opera were alarming, and both he and Tietjen were nervous. At the second performance, a civilian accompanied by a Labor Service leader protested the opera loudly and left the hall. On 17 December, Egk recollected, he was visited by a “pale man with glasses” who announced that he was a member of a “magisterial organization of cultural-politicians” that met daily to determine the “march route.” Egk was informed that The day after tomorrow, at the next performance of Peer Gynt, there will be a unit of SA [Sturmabteilung] personnel in plainclothes” to “organize a demonstration of a healthy sentiment of the Volk [gesunde Volksempfindung].” Unless you can prevent it, you’re done-for. I ask for your absolute discretion.188 Gesunde Volksempfindung was the evaluation of a given circumstance according to the standard of National Socialist Volksgemeinschaft as determined by the Führer.189 Egk remembered a 1934 performance of Alban Berg’s Five Pieces from Lulu for Concert Performance, an “undesirable” (unerwünscht) work, at which such a demonstration of gesunde Volksempfindung had been organized. The demonstration, it was reported, was prevented by three hundred secret police in plainclothes. Egk ran to Tietjen, who refused to act. “We stand imminently before a war,” he said to Egk, “that is lost before it is begun. You and I, we both will have a strong position after the war if they kick us out now.” The day before the performance, SA staff motorcycled through Berlin, calling off the demonstration. A couple of SA members who hadn’t heard tried to disrupt the performance but were quickly quelled.190

187 Steglitzer Anzeiger 325, 25 November 1938. “Dann erscheint die vom Ziegenbock Kid angeführte Kuh Kitty im vergnüglichen Tanzschritt zweier Balletteusen. Dazu stimmt der Chor satanische an, jauchzt, jault, und brüllt das Orchester in stilecht synkopierten Jazzrhythmen, die den Zuschauer aus dem Bereich der Oper in die Regionen einer ganz anders gearteten Kunst versetzen.” 188 Egk, Die Zeit, 308. The Sturmabteilung were the brownshirts, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party uniformed and armed stormtroopers. 189 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, 270–72. s.v. “Gesunde Volksempfindung.” 190 Egk, Die Zeit, 308–09.

Egk felt that the inevitable demise of both Peer Gynt and his career had come with the 31 January 1939 performance of the opera. Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels attended.191 Egk directed with a “cold wrath,” drowning out questionable lyrics with loud orchestra, and taking the troll hymn at such a “simian tempo” (Affentempo) that no word was discernible. After the performance, a heavy-hearted Egk went to Tietjen, who dumbfoundingly replied, “We’ve won man, we’ve won!” Shortly before the intermission, Hermann Göring had telephoned Tietjen and bellowed, “I order you to report to the Führer immediately, that I am sorry that he attended this shit!” Tietjen replied, “I’m sorry that you did not see the work.” Göring retorted, “None of my chamber singers are singing,” meaning his favorites. Tietjen answered, “The cast is first-rate.” Göring, enraged, replied “Carry out my order,” and after, “I have my reports!” Tietjen carried out the order and informed Hitler, who was incensed at Göring’s call, and screamed, “I do not need to ask him when I want to go to the Staatsoper. The lazy sack never gets up before 11:00. Tomorrow I will get him out of bed at 8:00!”192 According to Austrian composer Gottfried von Einem, Hitler called Egk to the Führer-box at intermission, where he

191 Program, Staatsoper, Berlin, 31 January 1939. BSB Ana 410. The program for the performance bears the note, in Egk’s hand, “Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels in attendance.” (In Anwesenheit Adolf Hitler und Josef Goebbels) 192 Egk, Die Zeit, 311–313. “Göring hatte ihm vor der pause von Karinhall aus angerufen. Kaum hatte er sich gemeldet, brüllte er: „Ich befehle Ihnen, dem Führer sofort mitzuteilen, daß ich bedaure, daß er in diesen Scheißdreck gegangen ist!“ Tietjen: „Ich bedaure, daß Sie sich das Stück nicht angesehen haben.“ Göring: „Keiner meiner Kammersänger singt.“ Gemeint waren wohl seine Lieblinge. Tietjen: „Die Besetzung ist erstklassig.“ Göring in höchster Wut: „Führen Sie endlich meinen Befehl aus.“ Und hinterher: „Ich habe meine Berichte!“ Damit hieb er den Hörer auf die Gabel. Er dachte wahrscheinlich an meinen Kostümvorschlag für den Obertroll, an den fetten Statisten, die Generalshosen, das Netzhemd und die Orden. Sicher hatte er „seine Berichte“. Auch in Karinhall gab es das Ohr des Dionysos. „Und Hitler?“ fragte ich beklommen. „Der war nur noch wütend über Görings Anruf: Ich brauche ihn nicht zu fragen, wenn ich in die Staatsoper gehen will, schrie er. Der faule Kerl steht nie vor 11 Uhr vormittags auf. Morgen hole ich ihn um acht Uhr früh aus dem Bett!“”

exclaimed, “Egk, I am pleased to make the acquaintance of a worthy successor to Richard Wagner!”193 This does not necessarily contravene the heavy-heartedness Egk reported in his memoirs—the salacious tango is part of the sixth tableau in the second act. The intermission took place after the first.194 Goebbels was also very positively impressed by Egk. In a practically loquacious diary entry, he reported, Evening with the Führer to the Staatsoper. Werner Egk Peer Gynt. We both go with strong suspicion. But that was quickly musicked away. Egk is a huge, original talent. Goes his own and willful ways. Piggybacks on no one and nothing. But he can make music. I am very enthusiastic and the Führer as well. A new discovery for us both. One must keep the name in mind. The boy is just 27 years old. And his music makes a very original, powerful impression. Too bad that he chose to compose Peer Gynt. He has it difficult up against Grieg. Nevertheless, he comes out on top.195 Not always. One month later, on 1 March, Goebbels and Hitler attended a rehearsal and struck up a conversation with theater personnel. Goebbels confided to his diary, “The Führer defended Werner Egk and his Peer Gynt. Without the intervention of the Führer, he would have been thrown under the bus.”196

193 Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, 10. 194 Program, Staatsoper, Berlin, 31 January 1939. BSB Ana 410. 195 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I:6, 246. “Abends mit dem Führer in der Staatsoper. Werner Egk „Peer Gynt“. Wir gehen beide mit starkem Argwohn hin. Aber der wieder bald wegmusiziert. Egk ist ein ganz starkes, originales Talent. Geht eigene und auch eigenwillige Wege. Knüpft an niemanden und nichts an. Aber der kann Musik machen. Ich bin ganz begeistert und der Führer auch. Eine Neuentdeckung für uns beide. Den Namen muß man sich merken. Der Junge ist erst 27 Jahre alt. Und seine Musik trägt ein ganz eigenes, starkes Gepräge. Schade, daß er gerade den „Peer Gynt“ zum Komponieren wählte. Er hat es dabei schwer gegen Grieg. Und trotzdem setzt er sich durch.” 196 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I:6, 272. “Noch etwas Parlaver mit den Theaterleuten. Der Führer verteidigt Werner Egk und seinen „Peer Gynt“. Der wäre ohne Eingreifen des Führers unter die Räder gekommen.”

Ultimately, though, Egk did come out on top: Peer Gynt was chosen as a featured work for the second Reichsmusiktage in Düsseldorf. Ironically, one year prior, that same festival had featured the opening of the Hans Severus Ziegler’s Entartete Musik exhibition, impugning Křenek and Weill, with whose works Egk’s opera was compared. Various clarifications of the troll imagery in the opera were offered, both by Egk and others attempting to reconcile the non- German elements of the work. Peer Gynt was well-received at the festival, and at its close on 21 May 1939, Josef Goebbels announced the second National Music Award. He bestowed on Werner Egk a composition contract for RM 10,000, one-half of his annual Staatsoper salary, for the composition of a new opera.197 Between 1939 and 1943 Peer Gynt opened in Darmstadt, Osnabrück, Preßburg (Bratislava), Halle, Prague, Essen, Turin (Italy), Dresden, and Breslau. On 4 October 1943, Peer Gynt premiered in Occupied Paris. Egk himself conducted performances of the opera in a French translation by Coeurroy, with Solange Schwarz and Serge Lifar dancing the ever- problematic tango.198 Within the Reich, Peer Gynt was performed until the closure of German theaters in 1944, and, as Egk relates, never ceased to be controversial. On 9 June 1944, three days after the allied invasion of Normandy, organized National Socialist students and uniformed soldiers demonstrated at the Gera performance of the opera, chanting “Cultural Bolshevism, Jew- Musik Out!”199 Considering Egk’s account of Peer Gynt, his next work was an unexpected one.

Die hohen Zeichen (1939)

Die hohen Zeichen (The Noble Symbols), replete with festival fanfares and organ music, was broadcast from Leipzig in observance of Adolf Hitler’s fiftieth birthday on 20 April 1939. Egk scored a tripartite Weihespiel by Josef Weinheber that began with soliloquies by the Speakers of Reich insignias: the crown, sword, scepter, and orb.200 The second portion of the play traced the symbols of the Reich as they wandered through history from the coronation of Charlemagne through a 1920 street demonstration with a “Red Orator” who wants to turn the artistic treasures of the Hapsburgs to money. The third portion was a poetic play on the

197 Bremer Nachrichten 139, 22 May 1939. 198 Pariser Zeitung 275, 5 October 1943. Generalanzeiger (Frankfurt am Main) 159, 7 October 1943. 199 Werner Egk, “Der Weg der „Peer Gynt“-Oper von Werner Egk”, 8 December 1965. BSB Ana 410. 200 I.e., the Speakers are characters, e.g. the Speaker of the Crown, the Speaker of the Sword, etc.

swastika. The whole “according to the wish of the composer,” was to close with “Fanfare- Variations on the Horst Wessel Song,” though it remains moot whether or not Egk composed the variations. The music to Die hohen Zeichen is nonextant, and the historical record is confoundingly silent.201 Egk’s next work was Joan von Zarissa, the discussion of which will be the focus of succeeding chapters. Around the time of the premiere of the dramatic dance-poem, a change occurred in Adolf Hitler’s perception of Egk. In March 1939, Hitler had defended Egk and his Peer Gynt. By late February 1940, Goebbels reported that “The Führer complained about Werner Egk, who always composes such absurd librettos. In general, good poets don’t stoop to writing librettos. Here the composer reaps great glory.”202

Music for the Film Jungens (1941)

Joan von Zarissa was followed by another work congruent with National Socialism. For the 1941 propaganda film Jungens (Youths), Egk composed a “March of the German Youths” (“Marsch der deutschen Jugend”) to a text by Hans Fritz Beckmann. The Hitler Jugend “on board the proud ship Großdeutschland (Greater Germany)” stand shoulder to shoulder as the march plays. Shortly after its composition, the march was recorded, played by the music corps of the Berlin Guard Infantry Regiment “Großdeutschland,” and broadcast in the Occupied Netherlands. All of these, according to historian Fred K. Prieberg, “sired a sustaining pay-off” for Egk.203 According to Egk, the film royalties were going to “stop a hole in his coin purse” ripped there by the contraction of his Staatsoper duties because of the war. Egk thought that the theme of fisher-boys on the Courland Spit hunting smugglers was harmless. It did not bother him much that they were to be outfitted in uniform at the end of the film. However, it did bother Egk that they were to sing a Hitler Jugend song. “Hitler Jugend songs,” Egk argued “were available in spades.” He would not have to write one, thus carefully sidestepping any moral crisis. In the end, Egk’s justification was unnecessary. Egk reported,

201 Braunmüller, “Aktiv im kulturellen Wiederaufbau,” 42–44. 202 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I:7, 319. “Der Führer beklagt sich über Werner Egk, der immer so abwegige Librettos komponiert. Gute Dichter geben sich im Allgemeinen für Librettos nicht her. Da erntet ja doch der Komponist den Hauptruhm.” 203 Fred K. Prieberg, Musik im NS-Statt (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1982; reprint Köln: Dittrich, 2000), 26–28.

At the end of filming, though, the use of real products of HJ-culture for this apolitical and ideologically ineffective film was forbidden. Tough luck! A quarter of a century later someone scratched the film music out of the dirt of the archives, and I advanced from cultural Bolshevist to Nazi. Career must be.204 Egk distilled the musical activities of twelve years into three words, “Karriere muß sein.” The one who scratched in the dirt of the archives appears to have been Fred Prieberg. Prieberg made a case against Egk in an article titled “The Case of Werner Egk: a Sad Example of a Sadly Compromised Generation” in Die Zeit of 25 April 1969, some twenty-eight years after Egk’s composition of the Jungens music.205 Egk’s vitriol is perhaps justified—after the controversy of Peer Gynt, the assertion that Jungens qualifies Egk as a Nazi composer reflects a complete reversal in the course of three years. Such sea changes in opinions of cultural figures, e.g. Richard Strauss, Paul Hindemith, or Rudolf von Laban, were certainly possible.206 Die hohen Zeichen further complicates the matter, and that complication is compounded by the international and potentially subversive nature of Joan von Zarissa. One explanation may be found by again examining Egk’s career trajectory. Though Peer Gynt was very successful, Egk

204 Egk, Die Zeit, 333–34. “Ich hatte dem Regisseur R. A. Stemmle die Musik für seinen Film “Jungens” zugesagt. Das Filmhonorar sollte das Loch in meinem Beutel stopfen, das die empfindliche, kriegsbedingte Verringerung meiner Staatsoperngage gerissen hatte. Das Thema was harmlos: „Fischerjungen von der Kurischen Nehrung jagen Schmuggler.“ Daß sie bei der Schlußapotheose für ihren Erfolg in HJ-Uniform ausgezeichnet wurden, störte mich wenig. Das war Milieu, sonst nichts. Daß sie dabei ein HJ-Lied singen sollten, freute mich nicht. Aber HJ-Lieder gab es in Massen. Ich würde keines schreiben müssen. Gegen Ende der Filmaufnahmen aber wurde die Verwendung echter Produkte der HJ-Kultur für diesen unpolitischen und weltanschaulich unwirksamen Film untersagt. Mein Pech. Ein Vierteljahrhundert später kratzte einer die Filmmusic aus dem Archivdreck, und ich avancierte vom Kulturbolschewisten zum Nazi. Karriere muß sein.” 205 Fred K. Prieberg, “Der Fall Werner Egk: Ein trauriges Beispiel für eine traurig kompromittierte Generation,” Die Zeit 17 (25 April 1969): 13. “Der Historiker vermißt allerdings die Musik zu dem nationalen Mysterienspiel Job der Deutsche" (1933), zu Weinhebers großdeutschem Weihespiel „Die hohen Zeichen“ (1939) und namentlich zu dem Propagandastreifen „Blaue Jungs“ (1941) mit dem schwungvoll−demagogischen „Marsch der deutschen Jugend“ und er rätselt, wie wohl ein überzeugter Anhänger Hitlers Regimetreue demonstrieren konnte, wenn schon ein Antifaschist sich so überzeugender Tarnung bediente.” 206 The reversal of opinion of Rudolf von Laban is discussed at length in Chapter 4.

lost significant political capital in the controversies surrounding the opera. Both Die hohen Zeichen and the music for Jungens would help to re-ingratiate Egk with National Socialist leaders who had since decided Egk’s libretti were “outlandish.”

Egk’s Appointment to the Reichsmusikkammer

On 7 June 1941 Egk was appointed Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber (Leiter der Fachschaft Komponisten der Reichsmusikkammer, RMK) by Dr. Josef Goebbels.207 From the early days of National Socialist ascension, Nazi ideologues sought to regulate German culture. The first to do so was Alfred Rosenberg, who organized the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (Fighting League for German Culture, KfdK) in February 1929. The KfdK, though, was not an official party organization and lacked support from either the capital Berlin or Munich, the seat of the Party, and Rosenberg found himself competing for cultural control of Germany. From among the contenders, including Göring, Goebbels emerged as victor. Goebbels had managed the propaganda of the NSDAP and since March 1933 had occupied a ministerial position as overseer of culture, and consequently, music. He received permission from Hitler to form the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, effectively establishing himself as dictator of culture and shunting aside Rosenberg. The Reich Music Chamber was officially formed on 1 November 1933, as part of the formation of the Reich Culture Chamber (Reichskulturkammer, RKK). Other chambers within the RKK were devoted to visual arts, theater, literature, journalism, radio, and later, film.208 Goebbels had become dissatisfied with the inactivity of the RKK less than a year after its formation and complained to his diary on 15 October 1934, “Reform of the R.K.K. More Nazis!”209 Two days later, he explained, “Presidents of the chambers of the RKK. More Nazis and with them, more activity.” Throughout 1935 and 1936, the chambers within the RKK underwent various

207 Egk, Terminkalender, BSB Ana 410. 208 Michael Kater, The Twisted Muse: Musicians and their Music in the Third Reich (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 14–22. Kater provides a succinct exposition of the struggle for control of culture in the New Germany. For a more expanded discussion, see Alan E. Steinweis, Art, Ideology, & Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 209 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I:3/1, 119.

reorganizations that ceded self-governance to the centralized control of Goebbels.210 This reorganization reflected the Gleichschaltung of Germany. Here, the cultural infrastructure was gleichgeschaltet, or organized according to the Führerprinzip, the pyramidal structure with the Führer and his agent Goebbels at the peak. Their dicta filtered down through the cultural bureaucracy to its members. The laws decreeing Gleichschaltung of German government infrastructure had been issued in March and April 1933, and governmental spheres were largely gleichgeschaltet by 1934, though another surge in such activities was necessary after the annexation of Austria in 1938.211 Membership in the RKK was required if cultural professionals were to be active within the Reich.212 Werner Egk was a member of the Reich Theater Chamber (Reichstheaterkammer, RTK) from 1936 to 1940. His appointment as Kapellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper made such membership obligatory, and from September 1936 through September 1940, Egk was Reich Theater Chamber member number 60187.213 By April 1936 the Reich Music Chamber was a highly organized structure. At its head was the Führer and immediately beneath him, Josef Goebbels, who controlled the RKK and its member chambers.214 The first president of the RMK was Richard Strauss, who had been appointed to that position by Goebbels. Strauss had three main goals as president: instituting the highest-quality training and performances to upgrade Germany’s musical culture; increasing

210 See Steinweis, Art, Ideology, & Economics, 51–59. 211 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des National-Sozialismus, s.vv. “Gleichschaltung,” “Führerprinzip,” “Führergrundsatz.” 212 Ibid., s.v. “Reichskulturkammer (RKK).” 213 StAM, Ka 339. In his Meldebogen, Egk lists his as “obligatory membership” (Zwangsmitglied). Egk provides his membership number in The U.S. Military Government of Germany (OMGUS) Fragebogen. 214 Findbuch Reichsmusikkammer R-56 II, BA. The administrative arm of the RMK was headed by the President and the Manager (Geschäftsführer) and was divided into eight departments: a General Department (Allgemeine Abteilung); Finance; Administration (Wirtschaft); Rights; General Questions of Culture; Propaganda; Statistics and Archive; and Foreign Affairs. The President and Manager oversaw six sections (Fachschaften) of professional musicians: Composers; Reich Musicians; Concert Affairs, Music Publishers; Choral Affairs and Folk Music; and Music and Instrument Dealers. Additionally the Staatliche genehmigte Gesellschaft zur Verwertung musikalischer Urheberrechte (State-approved Society for the Recovery of Musical Copyright) or “Stagma” was a member of the RMK at the Fachschaft level. Also under the management of the President and Manager were the many Landesleiter, the Regional Leaders who oversaw various geographically-organized administrations, organizations, and individual musicians.

profits for serious music composers versus those of light music, whom Strauss saw represented by operetta composer Franz Léhar, one of Hitler’s personal favorites; and extending copyright protection to benefit composers and their heirs. Strauss also voluntarily took on leadership of the Composers Section of the RMK. 215 The Official Memoranda of the Reich Chamber of Music reported in July 1935 that Strauss requested to be relieved of both duties because of his “age and his failing health,” whereupon Goebbels thanked him for his service and appointed Peter Raabe as President of the RMK and Paul Graener as Head of the Composers Section.216 The amicable parting was a fabrication: Strauss was forced to resign over his 1932 collaboration with and continued defense of Stefan Zweig, the Jewish librettist of Die schwiegsame Frau; his support of Paul Hindemith through his entanglements with the National Socialists in 1934 and 1935 stemming from Hitler’s personal dislike of the composer; his general autonomy; and his lack of interest in carrying out Goebbels’s goals for the RMK. But the nondescript, pliable, and lesser- known Raabe, the retired music director from Aachen, would do as directed. Raabe remained president of the RMK through 1945.217 The conservative Graener remained Head of the Composers Section of the RMK until July 1941, when he “requested to be released from his office for health concerns.” Goebbels reassigned him to the post of Vice-President of the RMK and appointed Egk in his stead.218 Egk had allowed his membership in the RKK to lapse from 1940, when he terminated his contract with the Berliner Staatsoper. From 1941 through the end

215 Kater, Twisted Muse, 18–20. 216 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 2, no. 21 (July 1935), 61. BA R 56-II. “Der Präsident der Reichsmusikkammer, Dr. Richard Strauß, hat den Präsidenten der Reichskulturkammer, Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels, gebeten, ihn mit Rücksicht auf sein Alter und seine angegriffene Gesundheit von seinen Aemtern als Präsident der Reichsmusikkammer und als Vorsitzender des Berufsstandes der deutschen Komponisten zu entbinden. Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels hat diesem Ersuchen stattgegeben und Dr. Richard Strauß in einem Schreiben seinen Dank für die geleistete Arbeit ausgesprochen. Gleichzeitig hat Dr. Goebbels den Generalmusikdirektor Prof. Dr. Peter Raabe zum Präsidenten der Reichsmusikkammer und den Komponisten Prof. e. h. Paul Graener zum Leiter des Berufsstandes der deutschen Komponisten ernannt.” 217 Kater, Twisted Muse, 19–22. 218 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 8, no. 7 (15 July 1941), 22. BA R 56-II.

of the war, Egk was the unpaid Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber and, despite his appointment, never became a member of the Chamber.219 After Egk’s official installation on 10 July 1941, Carl Orff wrote to Hans Bergese, the arranger of the piano-vocal scores of many of Egk’s works (including Joan von Zarissa) and observed, Egk’s entrance is of some importance for all of us who stand near him. Between us, Egk will understandably want to have as many colleagues as possible that he personally knows and esteems, and you can count yourself as such, so that he will not have to deal with the smallest opposition. Perhaps that is only a fairly large glimmer of hope, but I wanted to write you about it.220 The arcane last sentence is in response to Bergese’s recent assignment to a “vacation destination [Ferienaufenthalt] on the Western Front” thanks to the German war machine.221 Orff was ostensibly bittersweet at Egk’s appointment. He had written earlier in the same letter, He will receive the title of President first at the end of the year. With his approval he will, I imagine, only and of his own request be addressed as “Holy Father.” Refer to this in your letter, which you absolutely must write to him (best wishes, etc.). A first order of business for him would be that he has proposed on behalf of the chamber a work-vacation [Arbeitsurlaub]. Egk’s plans, which certainly give us both much on which to ruminate, are that he wants you for a very important position as his colleague in the chamber.222

219 StAM, Ka 339. Military Government of Germany Fragebogen. 220 Carl Orff to Hans Bergese, 15 July 1941. Orff Zentrum, Munich. “Soviel sage ich Ihnen nur heute schon, dass Sie mit der Verwirklichung dieser Pläne rechnen können und dass Egks Eintreten für uns alle, die wir ihm nahe stehen von einiger Bedeutung ist. Unter uns gesagt, will Egk begreiflicherweise möglichst viel Mitarbeiter, die er persönlich kennt und schätzt haben, da Sie sich denken können, dass er mit keiner kleinen Gegnerschaft zu rechnen hat. Vielleicht ist das alles für Sie nun schon ein ziemlich grosser Hoffnungsschimmer, den ich Ihnen doch schreiben wollte. Sie hören bestimmt bald mehr.” Orff states that Egk was officially appointed “the day before yesterday,” the Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer cited above gives the date as 10 July. 221 Bergese to Orff , undated [1940]. Orff Zentrum. 222 Orff to Bergese, 15 July 1941. Orff Zentrum. “Nun zum wichtigsten: Um diese abzuwarten, habe ich solange nicht geschrieben. Egk ist vorgestern offiziell als Leiter der Fachschaft Komponisten als Graeners Nachfolger in sein Amt eingeführt worden. Den Titel Präsident bekommt er erst Ende des Jahres. Mit seiner Zustimmung wird er auf meinen Vorschlag einfach und bescheiden nur als „Heiliger Vater“ angeredet. Berücksichtigen Sie dies auch in Ihrem Brief an ihn, den Sie ihm unbedingt schreiben müssen (Glückwunsch etc.). Eine erste Amtshandlung von ihm

Unfortunately for Bergese, Egk was not able to procure his release from military service, and Bergese became a clerk. In November 1941 Bergese lamented what, if any, help Egk could arrange. He wrote to Orff, “I don’t promise myself success; no one gets loose from this war machine.”223 This was true in Bergese’s case, and he wrote Orff from northwest Russia in March 1943, happy to be alive. In February 1944 he narrowly escaped the Russians in Estonia. In December he wished Orff a Merry Christmas while worrying about how his parents fared during the recent Allied offensive on Freiburg.224 What came of Egk’s help for which Orff and Bergese hoped? Unfortunately, the record is silent. Perhaps Egk did not pursue the matter, or perhaps Egk’s position was not influential enough to effect the extraction. Egk’s appointment as Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber sounds like a position of importance, but the title discloses little about what that position entailed. The March 1941 issue of Die Musik, however, reveals a great deal. The issue opened with an article by Peter Raabe titled “What the Reich Music Chamber Is Not,” followed by contributions from the sections for composers, soloists, orchestras, U-music, and music education. While this issue dates from several months before Egk was appointed, it is reasonable to infer that the Composers Section described in it remained essentially the same when Egk took office. At least it was the section he inherited. The composer and music critic Hugo Rasch, Deputy to the Head of the Composers Section drew selections from the Section’s mailbag as examples of the “many-sidedness” (Vielseitigkeit) of the Section’s work: Query of a composer about which regulations exist concerning the foundation of a self- publishing firm. Complaint about overdue invoices from a publisher. Query about the distribution of rental income from an operetta among the composer, librettist, and composer. Complaint from a composer who never received a composition sent on approval back from a conductor after four months. A librettist sends texts with the request that a composer take interest in scoring them or he sends poetry with a request to evaluate if they are suitable at all for scoring. Petition of a composer to change his

war, dass er für Sie von der Kammer aus einen Arbeitsurlaub beantragt hat. Sie werden davon hören. Unternehmen Sie nichts. Egks Pläne, die wir natürlich vielfach zusammen durchkauen geben dahin, dass er Sie an einer ganz wichtigen Stelle in der Kammer als seinen Mitarbeiter haben will.” 223 Bergese to Orff, 25 November 1941. Orff Zentrum. 224 Bergese to Orff, 16 February 1944 & 21 December 1944. Orff Zentrum.

contract of assignment [of copyright exploitation rights] to a usage contract [concerning usage of copyrighted material] with Stagma. Query of an inquisitive mind why there is the 2/4 bar inserted in the “Horst Wessel Song” (1941!). Query of a conductor if there are objections to the performance of a certain work. A marching band leader of the SA requests a list of objectionable music. Query of a pupil if there is money to be made by composing; he must decide on a career. Query about how the name “Dvořák” is to be pronounced. The request of an inheritrix for the assessment [Prüfung] of the complete musical bequest of her father. A lecturer requests suggestions of musical works for a school performance. Query about the pitch of the large bell of the Cologne cathedral. Complaints about a publisher who did not print a work by the due date and many more of the same. Innumerable are the requests for the promotion of compositions through performance opportunities or printing subvention. This avalanche landed atop the self-defined roles of the section: the approximately 1,000 annual consultations with musicians; the work of section lawyers regarding copyright and royalties; the Committee for the Assessment of Works (Werkprüfungsaussschuß) that determined the performance suitability of 825 works in 1940 and forwarded noteworthy works to the Committee for Employment Provision (Arbeitsbeschaffungsausschuß); the work of Section fiduciaries with Stagma; and the organization of annual composers’ conferences, chamber music evenings, and concerts of works of “field gray” composers (feldgraue Komponisten) conscripted for military service; and welfare programs for elderly composers and composers in need. 225 During his

225 Hugo Rasch, “Der deutsche Komponist und seine Standesvertretung,” Die Musik XXXIII, no. 6 (March 1941): 191–93. “Über die Vielseitigkeit der Fachschaftsarbeit möge der Posteingang eines einzigen Tagens Aufschluß geben: Anfrage eines Komponisten, welche Vorschriften für die Gründung eines Selbstverlages bestehen. Beschwerde über rückständige Abrechnungen eines Verlegers. Anfrage über Verteilung der Leihgebühr zwischen Komponist, Textdichter und Verleger bei einer Operette. Beschwerde eines Komponisten, weil er seit vier Monaten von einem Dirigenten die zur Ansicht gesandte Komposition nicht zurückerhält. Ein Textdichter sendet Texte mit der Bitte, einen Komponisten für die Vertonung zu interessieren oder er sendet Gedichte mit der Bitte um Beurteilung, ob sie sich überhaupt für eine Vertonung eignen. Antrag eines Komponisten auf Umwandlung seines Wahrnehmungsvertrages in einen Berechtinungsvertrag [sic] bei der Stagma. Anfrage eines Wißbegierigen, warum im Horst Wessel-Lied der Zweivierteltakt eingeschoben sei (1941!). Anfrage eines Dirigenten, ob gegen die Aufführung eines Werkes Bedenken bestehen. Ein Musikzugführer der SA. bittet um Zusendung einer Liste von unerwünschter Musik. Anfrage eines Schülers, ob mit Komponieren Geld zu verdienen sei; er müsse sich zu einem Beruf entschließen. Anfrage, wie der Name Dvořák ausgesprochen wird. Bitte einer Erbin um Prüfung des

tenure as Head of the Composers Section, Egk did not live in Berlin but commuted back and forth from Lochham by Munich for official duties when his physical presence was required. In addition to managing this bureaucratic hydra, Egk maintained a very active performing career, conducting or overseeing the production of his own musical works throughout greater Germany, Prague, and Paris. 226 Only four months after Egk took office, Rudolf Schmid issued a report to Reichsleiter (Reich Leader) Marin Bormann in which he included the above-referenced meeting with composer Gottfried Rüdinger that Schmid himself had orchestrated. Schmid felt that Goebbels had made an egregious error in appointing Egk and wrote to Bormann, After Egk’s predecessor Graener was sidelined, then we were all happy, and there was the greatest hope and expectation that a man would take the position who would represent the office in the spirit of the Movement and hundreds of thousands of listeners. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened. When I think on our Führer’s speech of 8 November [1940, the day before the commemoration of the Gefallenen der Bewegung], in which he said verbatim, “I have come to know these Jews as benefactors of the Great War [lit. “benefactors of the burning of the world”]. Indeed, one saw how they slowly poisoned the people the years prior through the misdirection of press, of radio, of film, theater, etc.” I am of the opinion, surely with most listeners, especially with the professionals like Prof. Rüdinger, [composer] Prof. [Franz] Dannehl and others, that the discussion with Werner Egk reveals precisely that which our Führer censured with those cited words. In this discussion, the highest positions are incriminated, and I am of the opinion that only the Führer himself can decide whether he holds this type of propaganda for true or false.

gesamten musikalischen Nachlasses ihres Vaters. Ein Studienrat bittet um Nennung von Musikstücken für eine Schulaufführung. Anfrage nach der Tonhöhe der großen Glocke des Kölner Domes. Beschwerde über einen Verleger, der ein Werk nicht fristgemäß druckt und noch viel dergleichen mehr. Zahllos die Bitten um Förderung durch Aufführungsmöglichkeiten oder Hilfe bei der Drucklegung von Kompositionen.” 226 Egk, Terminkalender, BSB Ana 410.

Schmid also requested the opinion of the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, on the matter.227 Whereas Graener had been a malleable tool with which Goebbels could institute his malreform of German culture, Egk did not appear so. In making a place for his music, Egk was willing to target even his boss Goebbels for propagating music that competed with his own. Here, Egk is reminiscent of his predecessor Richard Strauss, who, too headstrong for Goebbels to rein in, was forced to resign from the RMK.

Egk’s Work on Behalf of Composers’ Rights

As a composer of ernste Musik (E-music, “serious music”), Egk perpetually worked to ensure a place for his music and that of this contemporaries. Since the 1920s, though, composers of Unterhaltungsmusik (U-music, “light music”) had been contributing more to national music profits than had composers of serious music. By 1934, E-music composers had been granted the so-called Ernstes Drittel (serious third); that is, one-third of the national music profits were given to serious music composers. The profit generation from E-music; however, was less than one- third, and U-music composers chafed at their loss of income. Thinking the propagandistic value of U-music was greater than that of E-music, Goebbels began working to eliminate the serious third in 1939 and 1940. Goebbels made up for the removal of the serious third by subsidizing E- music composers with other funds not generated by music profits.228 On 28 February 1941 Josef Goebbels held a meeting with Richard Strauss, Paul Graener, and Werner Egk, the past, present, and future heads of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber. Goebbels reported that he

227 BA R 18/5032, 013782-784. “Nachdem der Vorgänger Egks, Paul Gräner, kaltgestellt wurde, haben wir uns alle schon gefreut und waren der besten Hoffnung und Erwartung, daß an diese Stelle ein Mann käme, der im Sinne der Bewegung und Hunderttausender von Hörern das Amt vertritt. Leider traf das Gegenteil ein. Wenn ich an die Rede unseres Führers vom 8. November denke, in der er wörtlich sagt, „Ich habe diese Juden als Weltbrandstifter kennengelernt. Man sah ja, wie sie in den Jahren vorher über dem Umweg von Presse, von Rundfunk, von Film, Theater usw. langsam die Völker vergiftet haben“, so bin ich mit gewiß den meisten Hörern, insbesondere mit den Fachleuten, wie Prof. Rüdinger, Prof. Dannehl usw., der Meinung, das die Aussprache mit Werner Egk gerade das sagt, was unser Führer mit angeführten Worten geißelt. In dieser Aussprache wird allerdings die höchste Stelle belastet und ich bin der Ansicht, daß nur der Führer selbst darüber entscheiden kann, ob er diese Art Propaganda für richtig oder falsch hält.” Bormann was Head of the Reich Chancellery after Rudolf Hess’s desertion in May 1941. 228 Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, 13, 251.

negotiated with the serious composers. Richard Strauss proved himself excessively senile and obstinate. Werner Egk is the most reasonable. Graener only wants money. I maintained my position: U-music receives that to which it is entitled; E-music will be subsidized. In the end they all accepted this. I paid Strauss a couple of kindnesses for his impertinent letters. He can’t leave letter-writing alone, and it has already brought him so much misfortune. But I’ll help him next time.229 From 1934 to 1935, Richard Strauss had secured a fifty-year composer copyright through his work with Stagma. From late 1941, after Egk’s appointment as Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Chamber Music, Egk worked closely with Stagma for the rights of serious music composers, traveling to Berlin for multiple meetings through late 1944.230 After the war Egk’s work for composers’ rights continued. In 1947 Egk became involved with the Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Society for Musical Performance and Mechanical Reproduction Rights, “GEMA”) and was the first German to be elected President of the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC), the international umbrella copyright organization, after World War II.231

Columbus (1942)

The final work of Egk’s career within the National Socialist period was a staged version of his 1932 radio play Columbus that premiered on 13 January 1942 at the Frankfurt Opera. The opera was still managed by “Red Hans” Meissner, under whom Die Zaubergeige had had its successful premiere. The work enjoyed several performances before the “slow death of the

229 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I:9, 165. “Mit den ernsten Komponisten verhandelt. Richard Strauß erweist sich als maßlos senil und eigensinnig. Werner Egk ist der Vernünftigste. Graener will nur Geld. Ich bleibe auf meinem Standpunkt verharren: die U Musik bekommt, was ihr zusteht, die E Musik wird vom Staat subventioniert. Zum Schluß nehmen alle das an. ich sage Strauß ein paar Liebenswürdigkeiten für seine frechen Briefe. Er kann das Briefeschreiben nicht lassen, und es hat ihm schon soviel Unglück eingebracht. Aber jetzt werde ich ihm beim nächsten Mal schon helfen.” Goebbels’s reference to letter writing stems from the Gestapo interception of a letter of 17 June 1935from Strauss to his Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig in which he stated he was “only playacting as RMK president to prevent the worst from happening.” The letter gave Goebbels, long suspicious of the independent Strauss, reason to demand his resignation (Kater, Twisted Muse, 19). 230 Egk, Terminkalender, BSB Ana 410. There is no calendar for the year 1945 in Egk’s Nachlass. In the 1946 calendar, Egk recollected various important events of 1945; however, Stagma activities did not figure among them. 231 “Werner Egk Centenary,” GEMA News 163 (June 2001): 40–43.

opera house began in a series of bombings starting 29 January 1944” and ended on 23 March, when a phosphorus bomb struck the auditorium.232 In July 1944 Egk traveled to Paris to record Columbus for broadcast, which was scheduled for 14 July 1944 between 11:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. the next day because of the power restrictions around the city.233

Finis (1944)

On 11 September 1944 Werner Egk traveled to Berlin for a Stagma meeting the following day. This was to be the last act of his career under National Socialism.234 Theaters had begun to close after Goebbels’s pronouncement of “Total War” in a speech of 18 February 1943, after the German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad.235 In March 1944 the Frankfurt Opera ceased to be. On 7 January 1945, the day he received the last letter from his only child Titus, now-soldier Werner Egk was drafted for the Volkssturm (Homeguard). Egk did not report for duty and fled instead, choosing not to be “mowed down and blown away,” as would be the case with the entirety of Egk’s assigned unit upon its disembarkation at Frankfurt an der Oder.236 Egk remained in the vicinity of his home in Lochham and greeted the American troops on 30 April 1945, the day Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Egk’s career—which had begun in film in the Weimar Era, grew with the New Germany into radio and sacramental plays, and reached a pinnacle in opera and New German Dance as National Socialist Germany reached its own—was now no more. And five months later, and for two-and-a-half years following, and indeed for decades, Egk would be called to account for it.

232 Egk, Die Zeit, 337–39. 233 Pariser Zeitung 171, 12 July 1944. 234 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 235 (Accessed 28 June 2011). 236 BSB Ana 410, Terminkalender. Egk, Die Zeit, 363.

CHAPTER THREE “WELCH EIN BILD FÜR EINE DON-JUAN-HANDLUNG!”1 In his autobiography Die Zeit wartet nicht Werner Egk devotes no fewer than twelve pages to Joan von Zarissa. A careful reading of this book, the most frequently cited source on the work, reveals significant inconsistencies with the score currently available from B. Schott’s Söhne publishers, the sole publisher associated with the work. The most obvious incongruity is Egk’s clear reference in Die Zeit wartet nicht to a spoken prologue and epilogue.2 In the scores of Joan von Zarissa presently available no such prologue or epilogue appears. Further research reveals that the Joan von Zarissa published today is not Egk’s original, nor is it the Joan von Zarissa that premiered in Berlin on 20 January 1940. This chapter traces the genealogy of Joan von Zarissa from Egk’s original conception of the work through its subsequent revision. Further, this investigation discusses Joan von Zarissa as it premiered at the Berliner Staatsoper (Unter den Linden), then already altered from Egk’s original conception, and explores the sources that inspired Egk to adapt the Don Juan story to fifteenth-century Burgundy.

The Scores of Joan von Zarissa

Eight scores of Joan von Zarissa, or arrangements from the work, are presently extant: 1. Egk’s pencil manuscript of Joan von Zarissa, dated 9 October 1939. This score is housed in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library) in Munich, Germany, under the signature Trésor Mus. Mss. 11890. The manuscript comprises sixteen scenes and four choruses on texts by French poet Chrales d’Orléans. It contains a heading for a Prolog, although the text is absent; a scene titled “The Homage” (No. 9, “Die Huldigung”), to be danced without music; and a closing “Rondeau-Finale” (No. 16). Egk also includes instructions for engraving and typesetting for the publisher. It appears that the original version and the original piano score (see following discussion) were created from this manuscript, though the texts of the Prolog and Epilog were finished sometime after the music was composed. The manuscript will be identified as the “manuscript.”

1 “What an image for a Don Juan setting!” Werner Egk, DZ, 321. 2 Egk, DZ, 321–323.

2. A full score of Joan von Zarissa published by B. Schott’s Söhne in Mainz, bearing a copyright date of 1939. The front matter and music of the score are printed, but scene titles and stage directions are pasted in the score from an outside source printed on paper lighter than that of the score. This version also comprises sixteen scenes and contains a Prolog and an Epilog. This score is presently unavailable from the publisher, but a copy is housed at the Stadtarchiv Donauwörth (City Archive of Donauwörth) in Donauwörth, Germany. This score will be identified as the “original version.”3 3. A piano-vocal reduction of Joan von Zarissa edited by Hans Bergese and published in 1940 by B. Schott’s Söhne. This reduction comprises sixteen scenes as found in the original version. This score is likewise unavailable from the publisher today, but a copy is housed in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. This score will be identified as the “original piano score.” 4. A full score available on a rental basis from B. Schott’s Söhne publishers in Mainz, Germany. This score bears no copyright date. According to the Schott website, the score dates from 1939/1940. The work comprises fourteen scenes and three choruses. This score will be identified as the “revised version.”4 5. A piano-vocal reduction of Joan von Zarissa prepared from the above source, edited by Hans Bergese, and published in 1940. This score will be identified as the “revised piano score.” 6. A Konzertsuite aus dem Ballett “Joan von Zarissa” (Concert Suite from the Ballet Joan von Zarissa) available on a rental basis from the publisher. The suite contains the d’Orléans choruses of the revised version; however, they are arranged for soprano and baritone duet with orchestral accompaniment.5 This score dates from 1940 and will be identified as the “concert suite.”

3 Requests for a full score with texts were made to Schott on the behalf of this author by Mr. Deniz Landgraf of the Stadtarchiv Donauwörth. Mr. Landgraf received a reply that no texts for Joan von Zarissa exist outside the three choruses contained in the revised version, the revised piano score, and the three separately published choruses. Deniz Landgraf, e-mail message to author, 2 November 2009. 4 (Accessed 2 May 2011). 5 (Accessed 2 May 2011). While the Schott website lists the suite as derived from the “dramatic dance-poem” (dramatische Tanzdichtung) Joan von Zarissa, the score itself reads “ballet” (Ballett).

7. A Tryptichon from Joan von Zarissa available on a rental basis from the publisher. This work is in three movements, titled “Isabeaus Klage,” Isabeaus Zorn,” and “Isabeaus Verführung,” corresponding to Nos. 6, 7, and 8 of the original version. This score is dated 1940 and was premiered by the Bayerische Rundfunk on 8 September 1941.6 8. A collection of Drei Französische Chöre aus dem Ballet “Joan von Zarissa” (Three French choruses from the ballet “Joan von Zarissa”), with German translations, published in 1940.

Joan von Zarissa: Egk’s Burgundian Don Juan Tragedy

After a short prelude the curtain opens to reveal an actor in period costume standing atop a “magnificent structure with different allegorical figures (Comedy, Tragedy, nymphs, satyrs, etc.).”7 This collection is located in front of a “backdrop depicting Odysseus lashed to the mast and surrounded by the Sirens in the form of great birds in the manner of an old French tapestry.” The actor speaks:

6 (Accessed 2 May 2011). Because of cost and the date of preparation and premiere of this excerpt (well after the premiere of the original Joan von Zarissa), I did not rent a perusal copy of the score. 7 Egk does not specify the nature of the figures. They were likely decorations, but they could have been actors portraying the figures.

100

Wie’s nur geschieht zum Zeichen seltnen As it only happens at signs of rare fortune Glücks Und ungewöhnlicher Begebenheit. And exceptional events. Ich weiß, daß viele diese Zeichen nicht I know that many of these signs were not Joans Geburt zuschreiben, daß man sagt, Ascribed to Joan’s birth, so one says, Selbst seine Herkunft wäre ungewiß, Even his ancestry would be unknown, Sein Stand nur angemaßt. Doch hört mich His class only presumed. Now listen: an: Sein Ursprung steckt im phrygischen His origins have root in the Phrygian race Geschlecht Des Paris, der die Helena geraubt, Of Paris, he who abducted Helen, Woraus sich leicht die feurige Natur Which readily portends the fiery nature Des spätgebornen Enkels deuten läßt. Of the late-born grandson. Er war sehr schön und kräftig, hoch He was very beautiful and strong, tall, gebaut, So licht sein Antlitz von vollkommner So clear his countenance of perfect form Form Und so begabt mit edler Eigenschaft, And so gifted with noble character, Daß rings [sic], erliegend seiner Wirkung That all around, defeated by the effect of Kraft, his force, Von brennender Begierde ward verzehrt, Were consumed by burning lust, Selbst wer sein Leben lang ihn nie gesehn. Even those who had never seen him in their whole lives. Man sagt, doch scheint uns dieses ungewiß, It is said, though this seems dubious to us, Er habe das Buch Smagorad gekannt, That he knew the book Smagorad, Das Buch, aus dem sich Adam Trost geholt The book in which Adam took solace In seiner Trauer um des Abel Tod. In his sorrow at the death of Abel.

8 Werner Egk, Joan von Zarissa, Partitur (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1939), [13]. Hereafter, “JvZ original version.”

101

Er habe auch den Teufel aufgesucht He supposedly also sought out the devil Im wilden Schottland und ihn ausgeforscht, In wild Scotland and questioned him thoroughly, Des Orten kund zu werden, wo der Schatz To find out about the place, where the treasure Des Antichrist geheim verborgen sei. Of the antichrist allegedly lay hidden in secret. So viel ist sicher, daß er ohne Furcht So much is certain, that without fear he Jedwedes Abenteuer kühn bestand. Boldly faced any adventure. Kein Wunder also, wenn er Liebe fand No wonder therefore, that when he found love Bei mancher Schönen, die ihn kaum In some beauties who hardly noticed him erblickt Und jäh von heißem Liebesweh And were abruptly melted by hot pain of zerschmolz, love, Die nichts und nichts vermochte über sich, That could not change anything about itself, Weil nie ein Feuer heißer als die Glut, Because a flame is never hotter than the ember Die unerbittlich sie versengt, gebrannt. That unrelenting burns, scorched. Verhüt es Gott, daß Ihr ihm darum God forbid, that one would defame him for schmäht! this.

Betrachtet dieses Bild des armen Herrn Contemplate this image of the poor lord Von Ithaka und wie er an dem Mast Of Ithaca and how he to the mast Des eignen Schiffes angebunden ist, Of his own ship is bound, Damit er blind nicht folge dem Gesang. Lest he blindly follow the song. Bedenkt, daß nur der stärksten Fessel Consider that only the strongest fetter of Zwang bondage Ein schlimmes Schicksal hat Ulyss erspart. Spared Ulysses a wicked fate. Habt Mitleid mit Joan, der ohne Arg, Have compassion on Joan who, without malice, Verachtend jede Vorsicht, jeden Schutz, Spurned every precaution, every safeguard, Der Sinne Zauber nimmer widerstand! Never resisted the charm of sense!

102

Doch wenn Ihr ungerührt, gerecht zu But when you, unmoved, appear to be just, scheinen, Hartherzig richten wollt die blinde Tat, Hardhearted, wish to judge the blind deeds, Dann geb ich Euch den wohlgemeinten Then I give you the well-intended advice: Rat: Vergeßt nicht Eure Sünden vor den seinen! Forget not your sins in the face of his! 8

The first tableau of Joan von Zarissa opens on the Burgundian court of the Iron Duke. He and the Duchess Isabeau are seated on a dais elevated above the stage. Grand staircases lead up from either side to a second, raised platform on which musicians and folk are gathered. The court is seated below, on the stage proper, to watch a reenactment of an ancestral duke’s triumph over the heathen, depicted as “beastly hairy savages.”9 The pageant concludes with a procession of captured Moorish women, the “Most Beautiful” of whom emerges from an enormous peacock and performs a dance. She begins innocently, and the others drape her with veils. As the Most Beautiful unveils herself at the end of the dance, that innocence is subsumed into her “salacious nakedness.” Lefou appears. He is a fool and the companion of Joan von Zarissa, the Don Juan figure. As the Most Beautiful and her companions exit the stage, Lefou rushes to follow. Prevented from doing so by a squire, he instead dances with a life-sized puppet that descends from above. As the puppet returns from whence it came, Lefou clings to it until he is unable to keep his grip and falls to the stage. He then unrolls a runner across the stage and points to the wings, announcing the arrival of his master. The fashionably attired Joan von Zarissa enters and greets the Iron Duke and Duchess Isabeau. Meanwhile, a tournament arena has been staked off in front of the pair. A strong, heavily armored knight goes to the arena and throws down his gauntlet. Joan, undaunted though outmatched, accepts the challenge. By confusing his enemy through quick feints, Joan triumphs. To honor his victory, Isabeau presents him with a flower from her dress, and the two begin an honor dance. Joan makes inappropriate advances toward the duchess, thereby angering the Iron Duke.

9 This summary is based on the original version except where otherwise noted. A transcription of the texts contained in all scores (scene titles, stage directions, prolog and epilog, and chorus texts) is included in Appendix A.

103

As this takes place on the stage proper, the maid Perette appears in the puppet’s costume on the upper platform; Lefou is behind her. He mimics his master’s actions, attempting to seduce her as Joan does Isabeau below. Both men seek to kiss their new acquaintances. Perette slaps Lefou, and the matter is finished. Below, something more serious transpires. The Iron Duke advances on Joan with sword drawn. They fight, and Joan slays the duke. In the ensuing tumult Joan and Lefou escape, as Isabeau collapses over her dead husband. At the end of this first tableau, an unseen choir sings the following from behind the drop:

C’est grant paine que de vivre en ce monde Living in this world gives great trouble, Encore esse plus paine de mourir And dying even greater pain. Si convient il en vivant mal souffrir As we live, we must suffer death Et au derrain de morte passer la bonde. And, in the end, pass along the road of death. L’aucune fois joye ou plaisir abonde. If at times joy and pleasure abound, On ne les peut longuement retenir. They cannot be kept for long. C’est grant paine que de vivre en ce monde Living in this world gives great trouble, Encore esse plus paine de mourir. And dying even greater pain. Pour ce je vueil comme un fol qu’on me And so, I am willing to have my head tonde shaved like a madman if, Le plus pense quoy que voye avenir Whatever I see coming, I think about anything Qu’a vivre bien et bonne fin querir! Except living virtuously and seeking a good end. Las! Il n’est rien que Soussy ne confonde Alas! There is nothing that Care does not overwhelm. C’est grant paine que de vivre en ce monde. Living in this world gives great trouble, Encore esse plus paine de mourir. And dying even greater pain.10

10 Werner Egk, Joan von Zarissa, Klavierauszug (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1940), 105 ff. Hereafter “JvZ revised piano score.” Translation in John Fox, The Lyric Poetry of Charles d’Orléans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 33, alt.

104

The choir takes on a role similar to that of the chorus in Greek tragedy. It responds to the drama of the ballet, moralizing on the larger themes of virtue and life. Though the music is Egk’s, the text is not. It is a rondeau by fifteenth-century French poet Charles d’Orléans (1394–1465). Joan von Zarissa features four such poetic additions. Egk sets to music three rondeaux by d’Orléans as interludes to be sung by a ten-voice choir and an additional rondeau as the “Rondeau-Finale.”11 D’Orléans was more than a poet: he was nephew to King Charles VI of France; he was the Duke of Orléans; and he was father to future King Louis XII of France.12 Egk finished composing Joan von Zarissa in the early months of World War II. For the choruses in it, he selected poetry written by another man who was himself engulfed by war. Charles d’Orléans was captured by the English at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415, during the Hundred Years War. 13 During his comfortable imprisonment in England over the next twenty-five years, d’Orléans became smitten with an English lady, referred to only as Beauté. He wrote the chanson “C’est grant paine,” among eighty-eight others, for her.14 The chansons were intended to be sung, as various manuscripts include space for musical notation, which was never added.15 Egk’s fascination with the French may be traced to sometime before 1922, when he passed his Abitur examination at the end of his Gymnasium studies.16 His education was grounded in Classical and Romantic “poetry, philosophy, rhetoric, and mythology.”17 It is reasonable to assume that during his studies he was introduced to the poetry of Charles d’Orléans.

11 D’Orléans’s poems are all rondeaux, in their form, and chansons, in that they are lyric poetry with French texts. Egk refers to the four rondeaux as “Chanson I,” “Chanson II,” “Rondeau,” and “Rondeau-Finale” respectively. For clarity, the following discussion utilizes Egk’s labels for the choral movements. 12 David A. Fein, Charles d’Orléans (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), “Chronology” [v–vi]. 13 John Fox, The Lyric Poetry of Charles d’Orléans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 9. 14 Ibid., 75. 15 Ibid., viii. 16 The Abitur is a cumulative examination given at the end of university preparatory studies at the Gymnasium. Gymnasium roughly corresponds to the U.S. high school; however, only students tracked for university studies are matriculated at the Gymnasium, while other students are directed toward trade-oriented schools (Realschule and Hauptschule). 17 Andrew McCredie, “Werner Egks Frankophilia,” in Werner Egk, eine universelle Begabung: Komponist, Schriftsteller, Interpret und Zeichner: Beiträge zum 1. Werner-Egk-Symposium Donauwörth, 12.–14. November 1999 (Donauwörth: Stadt Donauwörth, 2004), 36–37.

105

After this choral interlude the curtain opens to reveal a space resembling a dimly-lit cathedral. As Isabeau prays for her dead spouse, Joan enters. Isabeau, enraged, attempts to strangle him. She is unable to do so and collapses, her strength totally spent. As the stage lightens in a great “light-crescendo” Joan sets Isabeau upright and removes her mourning robes. Professing his love Joan envelops Isabeau in his arms despite her feeble protestations. The curtain falls, and an unseen choir sings the following chanson from behind the drop:

D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance, From where comes this sun of pleasure, qui ainsi m’es bluyst les yeulx? That so astounds my eyes? Beaulté, doulceur et encore mieulx Beauty, sweetness, and even better Y sont a trop grant habondance. Are here in too great a measure. Soudainement louyst par semblance Suddenly lit up as if comme un esclair venant des cieulx. From a lightning bolt coming from on high. D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance, From where comes this sun of pleasure, qui ainsi m’es bluyst les yeulx? That so astounds my eyes? Il fait perdre la contenance It makes all men lose their composure A toutes gens, jeunes et vielz ; All men, young and old; N’il n’est eclipse, se m’aist Dieux, There is not an eclipse, so help me God, Qui de l’obscurir ait puissance ; That has the power to obscure it: Beaulte, Doulceur et encore mieulx! Beauty, sweetness, and even better! Y sont a trop grant habondance. Are here in too great a measure. D’ont vient ce souleil From where comes this sun Ah! Ah!18

Like the previous chanson, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance” was also written for Beauté while d’Orléans was imprisoned in England.19 And again the choir functions as a Greek chorus. The chanson is written from a male point of view and reflects Joan’s grandiloquent pledge of

18 Egk, JvZ revised piano score, 113 ff. Translation by Sarah Spence in The French Chansons of Charles d’Orléans (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1986), 117. 19 Fein, Charles d’Orléans, 75.

106

love for Isabeau. In the next tableau Joan’s love for Isabeau is consumed by his lust for Florence, a lady in waiting. The choir’s praise of love, then, is unfounded—Joan’s love for Isabeau is false. At the opening of the third tableau Egk includes a scene titled “The Homage.”20 In this scene, Joan and Isabeau sit on two thrones before the court. Its members file past and bow in homage, “though with visible reluctance,” to the duchess and the usurper in a scene played without music. 21 In the first musical scene of the tableau, Lefou interrupts a large public dance: after Perette refuses to dance with him, he seeks out two kitchen maids with whom to dance and kid. Having seen enough, Joan orders the maids to be escorted from the hall. The court finishes its dance and directs its attention toward a theatrical pantomime on the upper platform, now an improvised stage. A large monster refuses an offering of fruits and artichokes given him by several old townsfolk. The distraught folk bring a more fitting sacrifice, a young virgin, and tie her to a tree trunk. The creature prepares to stab the virgin, when a young knight appears and slays the fire- breathing fiend. The curtain closes, and the actors resume their places in the court. Florence, who portrayed the virgin, and the unnamed actor who portrayed the young knight begin to dance to the accompaniment of a solo flute. Joan cuts in. He dances with Florence, enraging the court by his breach of etiquette. The court, especially Isabeau, try to persuade Joan to quit his game. The duchess orders her men-at-arms to avenge her, and Lefou dispatches Joan’s men. As the two groups advance on each other Joan whisks away Florence behind his own lines, and Isabeau collapses and is carried away by her attendants. Joan’s men rout their opponents, and the stage empties. Timidly, Lefou emerges, as does Perette. She lashes out at the fool as the curtain falls. The unseen choir sings, again from behind the drop, a rondeau by Charles d’Orléans:

Vous y fiez vous Do you put your trust En mondain espoir? in this world? S'il scet decevoir If it disappoints you, Demandez à tous! Ask everyone!

20 The following discussion is based on the original version. 21 JvZ, original version, 123.

107

La, la, la … La, la, la … Son attrait est doulx Its lure is sweet Pour gens mieulx avoir And it gets the better of people. Vous y fiez vous Do you put your trust en Mondain espoir? in this world? La, la, la … La, la, la … De joye, ou courroux, Whether of joy or anger, Soing, ou nonchaloir, Care or nonchalance— Veult, à son vouloir, The world speaks to you Tenir les deux boux. Out of both sides of its mouth. Vous y fiez vous? Do you put your trust?22

“Vous y fiez vous?” was written after d’Orléans’s return to France in 1440, a period in which his poetry is marked by themes of satire, self-reflection, and melancholy.23 Nonchalance, a key element in the rondeau, was a central concept for d’Orléans, one that was tied to “emotional apathy [and] depression” and used in many of his poems.24 In Egk’s rondeau the woodwinds double the female voice parts; the strings, the male. The men repeat the text “Demandez à tous!” (Ask everyone!) five times over the course of ten measures. To this entreaty, Egk adds a string of 165 “la-la-las” not present in the original d’Orléans rondeau. Similarly, the choir asks three times if its hearers place their trust in a deceptive world. After the second statement, another 165 la-la-las dissipate the tension of the interrogation. The final iteration is left as an open-ended question to the audience. The reference to a world that “speaks to you out of both sides of its mouth” is particularly vivid in the context of the National Socialist regime, infamous for its propaganda and doublespeak.25 More reflective of the plot, the change from the refulgence of the preceding chanson reflects the continuing descent from frivolity to tragedy that begins in the third tableau and

22 Egk, JvZ, revised piano score, 131 ff. Translation by Brigite Riskowski, et al. in the program for the Ninth International Chamber Choir Competition Marktoberdorf (2005), 50, alt. 23 Fein, Charles d’Orléans, 118–129. 24 Sarah Spence, The French Chansons of Charles d’Orléans, 238. 25 The theme of subversion is treated in much greater detail in Chapter 8.

108

culminates at the end of the fourth. At the opening of the final tableau, Lefou seeks to cheer up a melancholy Joan with drink and a game of dice. Joan loses repeatedly. Drunk and broke, he decides to wager Florence. Again he loses and brutally flings Florence to the fool, who dances lustily. In despair, Florence plunges a dagger in her heart and collapses, dead. Lefou slowly drags the corpse away. As Joan remains alone below, two masked, shrouded female forms appear at the rear of the upper platform, carrying between them a grey cloth, which extends to the floor. The figures allow the cloth to fall, revealing Joan’s Likeness. Joan’s Likeness dances with the women, joining with each in turn. After again lifting the cloth, the shrouded figures reveal their faces, those of Florence and Isabeau. There is no ambiguity about Florence’s being dead. She had plunged a dagger in her heart moments before. Her accompaniment by Isabeau means that the duchess is also dead, though this is not specified in the stage directions. We may assume that Isabeau dies at the end of the Love Dance in the third tableau, when she collapses and is carried out by her attendants. This conclusion is corroborated by the plot synopsis in the Berlin program, which provides more detail regarding the conflict at the end of the “Love-Dance” scene (No. 12). The following description takes up the action as the young virgin is tied to the tree trunk as an offering to the beast: A monster presses upon a virgin shackled to a tree stump. A young hero rushes at the monster in order to free her. As the two fight, Joan unexpectedly springs to the shackled maiden, the beautiful lady-in-waiting Florence, with whom he has become infatuated, and frees her. General confusion of the court. Isabeau’s intermediaries succeed in settling this gross breach of etiquette. But during the following dance, Joan once again snatches away the maiden from the hero. As Lefou drags his opponent from the hall, he [Joan] begins a love-dance with her [Florence]. In vain, Isabeau seeks to end Joan’s frivolous game. Finally, she calls for her men to avenge the dishonor inflicted upon her. As Joan, protected by his men, finally carries the maiden from the hall, Isabeau, out of despair, takes poison. Battle erupts between the men of the duchess and those of Joan.26

26 Program, Staatstheater Berlin – Staatsoper, 23 January 1940, 13r. BSB Ana 410. “Ein Untier bedrängt einen an einem Baumstumpf gefesselte Jungfrau. Ein junger Held stürzt sich, um sie zu befreien, auf das Untier. Während beide kämpfen, springt unvermutet Joan, der an dem Mädchen, der schönen Hofdame Florence, sich entzündet hat,

109

Isabeau, like Florence, is dead. These are their specters, their apparitions. The spectral Florence and Isabeau again allow the cloth to glide to the floor, revealing the figure of the Iron Duke, who holds an executioner’s sword. The duke lets the sword ceremoniously fall in the direction of Joan. Joan collapses, lifeless. Afterward, Lefou again enters, accompanied by an orchestral version of the previous rondeau, its short la-la-la figures reinforcing the staccato musical passages that characterize him as the fool. Seeing his lord dead, he starts to flee, but he then returns to the body. He takes his lord’s rapier, girds himself with it, and absconds. The stage darkens. As light again fills the stage, the speaker, in the same allegorical context as the prologue, speaks the epilogue:

Weh ihm, den jäh ein grausames Gesetz Woe to him, who is suddenly held hostage by Durch der Vergeltung harte Geisel traf! a savage law of severe retribution! Er ward in seiner Jugend schönster Kraft He was in his youth of most beautiful strength Zu früh zerstört und aufgelöst zu Staub, Too early undone and returned to dust, Verschlungen von den Flammen, die er Devoured by the flames, which he himself, selbst, Unkundig der Gefahr, arglos genährt. Ignorant of the danger, carelessly fed. Mit trüber Klage, kummervollem Blick With a turbid dirge, grieving glance Vermag ich zu betrachten nur sein Los I am able to regard only his lot Und könnte wohl verstehn, wenn der und And could well understand when everyone der Bedenkend das Geschick, das jenen traf, Contemplating the fate that met him, Die Freude meidend um die Qual zu fliehn, Would shun joy to flee misery,

auf die Gefesselte zu und befreit sie. Allgemeine Verwirrung der Hofgesellschaft. Isabeaus Dazwischentreten gelingt es, diese grobe Verletzung der Etikette beizulegen. Doch bei dem nachfolgenden Tanz entreißt Joan aufs Neue dem Helden das Mädchen. Er beginnt, während Lefou den Gegner aus dem Saal drängt, mit ihr einen Liebestanz. Vergebens sucht Isabeau das frivole Spiel Joans zu beenden. Schließlich ruft sie ihre Mannen herbei, um den ihr zugefügten Schimpf zu rächen. Als Joan, von den Seinen geschützt, schließlich das Mädchen aus dem Saal trägt, nimmt Isabeau in der Verzweiflung Gift. Es kommt zum Kampf zwischen den Mannen der Herzogin und denen Joans.” Elsewhere in the program, the monster is identified as a Löwe, a lion. See Figure 6.5.

110

Beschließen würde nimmermehr sein Herz Would resolve never again Der Liebe je zu öffnen um in einem To open his heart to love, at once Das Sehnen zu ersticken, das in uns, To suffocate the longing that lives in us Solang wir leben, lebt und die Gefahr As long as we live and the danger Die uns, so lang wir sind, in ihm bedroht! That threatens us as long as we are! Doch endete die Zeit schon vor der Zeit However, time ended before the time Den Toren, die sich ohne Grund und Not Of the fools, they who without cause or distress Zu Tode quälten um den Tod zu fliehn! Tortured themselves to death to flee from death! Nicht ist’s die Liebe ja, die Unheil bringt, Nay, it is not love that brings calamity, Nur der Betörung Sporn, und edle Glut! Only the bewitchment of infatuation, and noble embers! Drum meidet stets die ungestüme Gier, Thus shun always the impetuous lust, Den bösen Zäuber [sic] der Sirenen stets, The evil charm of the Sirens ever, Doch flieht die heilige Bezauberung, However, the holy enchantment does not flee, Die segenspendende, der Liebe nicht! The blessing-bestowing, of love! In ihrem Feuer glüht der ewige Schmied In her fire the eternal smith makes Sein Eisen seit dem Anbeginn der Zeit His iron glow since the dawn of time Und trennt das spröde Erz in ihrer Glut And separates the rough ore in its flame Zu trüber Schlacke und zu reinem Gold. Into dull slag and into pure gold. Nur wenn auch unsre Brust ihr Glanz Only when her luster glows within our breast durchglüht Und ihre helle Flamme und durchsprüht, And her bright flame and sparkles through, Wenn Sinn und Seele ganz sich ihr When sense and soul give themselves ergeben, totally to her, Kann unser Sein zum Leben sich erheben! Can our being arise to life!

27 Egk, JvZ, original version, [251].

111

Verscheucht deshalb mit uns Melancholie Therefore shun melancholy with us, Und Gram und Trauer um Vergangenes, And grief and sadness at what is past, Das keine Klage mehr entreißen kann That no lament can longer pluck Dem dunklen Grund der Zeit und seht mit From the dark ground of time and watch uns with us Dem Spiel für eine frohe Spanne zu, The play for a happy time, Das neu in jedem Augenblick beginnt, That begins anew in each moment, Dem Spiel, in dem auch, wer verliert, The play, in which also, he who loses, gewinnt, wins, In dem sich stets erneuert alles Leben In which all life renews itself Und Fordern Schenken heißt und Nehmen And demanding is called gifting Geben. and taking, giving.27

The speaker functions as the choir did between the individual tableaus. In a pitying tone, he encapsulates the moral of the entire work: true love conquers impetuous lust. The figure of Odysseus is finally explained: lust is the “evil magic of the Sirens.” After forging a lesson on true love, the epilogue abruptly becomes a happy benediction, though one with a rather arcane conclusion. After the epilogue, the entire forces of Joan von Zarissa unite in the “Rondeau-Finale.” The choir, to this point dispatched behind the backdrop, is posted on the stage, along with the stage trumpets, formerly the backstage trumpets. The entire troupe, in period costume, dances for the “most exuberant joy of life and the triumph of love.”28 Whereas its message in the earlier interludes had been symbolic, the choir’s address in the rondeau-finale is explicit. The choir sings,

28 Werner Egk, Joan von Zarissa, Klavierauszug (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1939), 128. Hereafter, “JvZ original piano score.” “Der Singchor und die acht Bühnentrompeten sind sichtbar auf der Bühne aufgestellt. Das gesamte Ballettkorps, im Stil der Zeit modisch gekleidet, führt diesen Tanz aus, der die überschäumendste Lebensfreude und den Triumph der Liebe symbolisiert. ” This descriptive text is absent in the original version. One expects the description to be pasted in at the head of the scene, as are the titles and stage directions of the remainder of the original version; however, it is not. The title “Rondeau-Finale” is written in Latin cursive (as opposed to Sütterlin script) in ink at the top of the printed page.

112

Allez-vous-en, allez, allez ! Go away, go, go! Soussy, Soing et Merencolie ! Worry, Care, and Melancholy! me cuidez-vous toute, ma vie Will you burn me all of my life, Gouverner, comme fait avez ? Governing, as you have been? Je vous prometz que non ferez ; I promise you will not; Raison aura sur vous maistrie : Reason has triumphed over you: Allez-vous-en, allez, allez ! Go away, go, go! Soussy, Soing et Merencolie ! Worry, Care, and Melancholy! Se jamais plus vous retournez, That you would never again return, Avecques vostre compaignie, Along with your company, je pri à Dieu qu’il vous maudie I pray to God that he curse you et ce par qui vous reviendrez ! And that by which you return! Allez-vous-en, allez, allez ! Go away, go, go!29

And so the tragic tale of Joan von Zarissa is dissolved into effervescent joy. This dissolution is the only function of the rondeau-finale, since the drama is finished by this point. Joan is already undone, and the choir does not comment on the foregoing drama as it had before. It offers no moral lesson but instead shoos away any residual sadness lingering from the preceding tragedy. The spoken portions of Joan von Zarissa were very important to Egk. In a letter to Heinz Tietjen, Generalintendant of the Preußische Staatstheater and producer of Joan von Zarissa, Egk wrote, a very important and as yet unresolved question is the casting of the actor for the Prolog and Epilog. It concerns not only finding someone who can speak both these portions perfectly, it must be someone who can make a gestalt of the Speaker. I imagine the speaker to be a commanding, wily, ancient fellow of massive proportions (costume: like that of the fool in the piece, but with faded colors) and hope that we can perhaps get someone of Jannings’s type for the role.30

29 Ibid., 132 ff. 30Egk to Tietjen, 19 December 1939, BSB Ana 410. “Eine sehr wichtige und noch ungeklärte Frage ist die Besetzung des Schauspielers für den Prolog und Epilog. Es handelt sich nicht darum jemanden zu finden der diese beiden Stücke nur vollendet spricht, es muss jemand sein der auch eine Gestalt aus dem Sprecher machen kann. Ich

113

Egk’s reference to “Jannings” is to the six-foot-tall, rather corpulent Swiss actor Emil Jannings (1884–1950). Jannings co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in Der blaue Engel (1930, her first role). He was also the first non-American to win an Academy Award for best actor for The Way of All Flesh (1927) and The Last Command (1928).31 Fritz Hofbauer (1884–1968), who ended up playing the Speaker, was an Austrian actor and director active from the 1910s through the 1960s, also of large frame.32 Egk reinforced the importance of the spoken portions of the work in an interview with the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger on 13 January 1940. To the assertion that the ballet was “exceptionally tragic stuff,” Egk responded, But with a reconciliatory finale! I have chosen a new form that in the end also brings a resolution to the dissonance. After the overture, an actor speaks the prologue introducing the plot, otherwise the observers always would have to read in their programs what was intended by the ballet.… A spoken epilogue brings the final resolution: the hero must be undone on account of his own wickedness, but an absolute tragedy of love should not be shown, only the downfall of destructive love. The good, real, great love culminates in a victorious finale, in which I have utilized all media, choir, orchestra, and ballet, to a harmonious conclusion.33

stelle mir den Sprecher als einen überlegenen, schlauen, uralten Burschen von gewaltigen Ausmassen vor (Kostüm, wie das des Narren im Stück, aber mit verblassten Farben) und hoffe, dass man vielleicht jemanden vom Typ Jannings dafür bekommen kann.” 31 The Internet Movie Database, (Accessed 25 November 2009). Jennings received a single Oscar for both films, a common practice at the time. 32 The Internet Movie Database, < http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0388649/> (Accessed 25 November 2009). Pictures, while not included at the above address, are available on the internet. 33 Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, 13 January 1940. “„…Für ein Ballett also ein ungewöhnlich tragischer Stoff.“ „Aber mit versöhnlichem Ausklang! Ich habe eine neuartige Form gewählt, die auch zum Schluß eine Auflösung der Dissonanz bringt. Nach der Ouvertüre spricht ein Schauspieler einen Prolog, der in die Handlung einführt, denn sonst müßte der Zuschauer immer im Programm nachlesen, was wohl in dem Ballett gemeint ist.… Ein gesprochener Epilog bringt die versöhnliche Lösung: der Held mußte an seiner eigenen Schlechtigkeit zugrunde gehen; aber nicht eine Tragödie der Liebe schlechthin sollte gezeigt werden, sondern nur der Untergang der zerstörenden Liebe. Die gute, echte, große Liebe klingt in einem sieghaften Finale aus, in dem ich alle Mittel, Chor, Orchester und Ballett, zum harmonischen Ende eingesetzt habe.“ ”

114

Egk clearly conceived of Joan von Zarissa as more than a ballet. That genre, already stretched by Egk’s addition of choral interludes, is extended even farther by the utilization of the spoken prologue and epilogue. Notice that Egk subtitles the work a dramatische Tanzdichtung, a dramatic dance-poem, instead of “ballet.”34 The work approaches a Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk featuring poetry (spoken and/or sung), gesture and dance, and music. All of these forces, including choir, are represented in the rondeau-finale.

Differences between the Original and Revised Versions of Joan von Zarissa

Despite the importance Egk placed on the spoken portions and rondeau-finale of Joan von Zarissa, these elements would not endure. In an advertisement for its publication of Joan von Zarissa, B. Schott’s Söhne detailed all sixteen scenes of the ballet as in the original version. But the firm noted that the ballet “may be concluded before the Epilog, if the visible placement of the choir in the finale causes too many difficulties.”35 In the manuscript under the title “Rondeau-Finale,” Egk wrote “definitiv gestrichen” (definitively cut; lit., “definitely stricken”) in a large box with an arrow up to the title.36 It is unclear when exactly Egk made the determination to cut the rondeau-finale and under what circumstances, but the decision was made by at least the end of 1940. Within a year of the premiere of Joan von Zarissa, the revised score was published, with substantial changes. These changes can be traced by comparing the tables of contents of the two versions (see Figures 3.1 and 3.2).

34 Further discussion of the genre of Joan von Zarissa is reserved for Chapter 4. 35 BSB Ana 410. “Es kann auch vor dem Epilog abschließen, wenn die sichtbare Aufstellung des Chores im Finale Schwierigkeiten macht. ” Emphasis in original. 36 This is written on what appears to be a separate title page for the rondeau-finale. The fourth tableau ends on page 298 (folio recto). The verso side is blank and unnumbered. The following unnumbered page (298a, recto) contains the above text. The music of the rondeau-finale begins on the verso face, numbered page 299. No indication of the Epilog is contained in the manuscript, though Egk may have intended it to fill these two blank pages.

115

Figure 3.1. Joan von Zarissa, original version, table of contents.

The table of contents of the revised version is an adaptation of that of the original version (see Figure 3.2).

116

Figure 3.2. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, table of contents.

The notation of the revised table of contents is inconsistent. The titles of tableaus, characters, scenes, and choral interludes are printed in the serif font of the original, while the page numbers are typed in a sans serif font. The latter are also often skewed, unlike the former. The numerals of Scenes 1 through 8 are printed in the same font as the scene titles; however, the numeral of Scene 9 and the second digits of numerals for Scenes 10 through 14 are written in

117 manuscript. Additionally, a large gap separates the titles “Vorspiel” (Prelude) and “Erstes Bild” (First Tableau). This space was previously occupied by the title “Prolog.” Finally, the titles and participants of the epilogue and rondeau finale are absent in the revised version. When the two versions are compared side by side, the differences between them become readily apparent:

Joan von Zarissa, Original Version Joan von Zarissa, Revised Version Prelude Prelude Prologue -- First Tableau First Tableau No. 1. Procession No. 1. Procession No. 2. Entrance and Dance of the No. 2. Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women Captured Moorish Women No. 3. Dance of the Fool No. 3. Dance of the Fool No. 4. The Duel No. 4. The Duel No. 5. The Honor Dance No. 5. The Honor Dance Chanson I, “C’est grant paine” Chanson I, “C’est grant paine” Second Tableau Second Tableau No. 6. Isabeau’s Lament No. 6. Isabeau’s Lament No. 7. Isabeau’s Rage No. 7. Isabeau’s Rage No. 8. The Seduction of Isabeau No. 8. The Seduction of Isabeau Chanson II, “D’ont vient ce souleil Chanson II, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance” de plaisance” Third Tableau Third Tableau No. 9. The Homage (no music) -- No. 10. The Opening Dance No. 9. The Opening Dance No. 11. Pantomime No. 10. Pantomime No. 12. The Love-Dance No. 11. The Love-Dance No. 13. Perette’s Wrath No. 12. Perette’s Wrath Rondeau, “Vous y fiez vous?” Rondeau, “Vous y fiez vous?” Fourth Tableau Fourth Tableau No. 14. Wine and Dice Game No. 13. Wine and Dice Game No. 15. The Apparitions No. 14. The Apparitions Epilogue -- Finale -- No. 16. Rondeau-Finale -- “Allez-vous-en, allez, allez!”

Figure 3.3. Comparison of the original and revised versions of Joan von Zarissa.37

The prologue was cut from the work, as was No. 9, “The Homage.” Additionally, two separate performance options were provided for the remaining choral interludes. The epilogue, and rondeau-finale were likewise cut, and the ballet ended with scene no. 14, “The Apparitions.”

37 From this point onward, scene number citations will reference the original version.

118

For each choral interlude in the revised version table of contents (see Figure 3.2), two separate page numbers are given. The first is for a run-in chorus, i.e., a chorus whose music appears at the appropriate place within the score, with a reduced scoring for soprano and baritone with orchestral accompaniment. The second is for a ten-voice a cappella version found at the end of the score. In his stage directions, Egk makes no provision for a reduced scoring. The alternate page numbers correspond to another change, found in the cast of characters printed on page 2 of the score (see Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, cast of characters.

119

There is a variance in notation in the line for the participating vocalists. “Ein Singchor” (lit., “A sing-choir”) is printed in the same serif font as the remainder of the cast of characters, while the alternative, “oder Sopran und Bariton” (or soprano and baritone) is a later addition written in manuscript.38 The run-in choral interludes in the revised version are later arrangements with reduced scoring for ease of performance. The final scene of the revised version of Joan von Zarissa (No. 14, “The Apparitions”), was also changed from the original version. As Joan stands alone on the stage, a Vision confronts him with his past deeds. After apparitions of Joan’s opening dance with Isabeau and the honor dance fade away, the image of the slain Iron Duke appears. The duke strikes Joan dead. The drama concludes to the sound of the Dies irae, a quotation of the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” for orchestra, and the sound of bells backstage. In this scene the score of the revised version differs markedly from that of the original version. In the first thirteen scenes titles and stage directions have been inserted into the score from another source. As may be seen in Figure 3.5, the texts are printed on paper darker than that on which the score is printed. They are cut irregularly and pasted into the score, and the composite score was reproduced by a diazo printing process, making some texts difficult to read due to lack of contrast between the text and the paper on which it was printed.39

38 Egk’s use of the term Singchor may strike some as interesting. The term Singchor differentiates this ensemble from a movement choir (Bewegungschor), also in vogue in Germany at this time. Olympische Jugend, the mass choreography pageant for the 1936 Olympics, for which Egk and Carl Orff composed the score, constitutes a good example of the latter. For additional discussion of Bewegungschor, please see Chapter 4 of this dissertation. 39 On page 20, adhesive tape holds the stage direction in place. In other places within the score, tape is not visible.

120

Figure 3.5. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, p. 210, lower portion.

The style of the score for No. 14 “The Apparitions” is quite different in the revised version, as can be seen in Figure 3.6.

121

Figure 3.6. Joan von Zarissa, revised version, p. 212, top system.

Here, the title and stage directions are copied directly in the score. The manuscript style also differs from that which comes before. Dynamic markings are written in a heavier style. In those markings requiring successive fortes, the f s touch only at their crossbars. In the previous manuscript style, the tips and tails of successive f s touch, as well. Additionally, the 7 used in rehearsal number 172 is crossed. These changes reveal more than a different copyist. Additional investigation of this portion of the score shows it to be a composite of various sources. The manuscript style previously described and shown in Figure 3.6 continues through page 226, the point at which the Iron Duke slays Joan. Page 227 returns to the previous notation 122

style with pasted stage directions and lighter, connected dynamic markings; however, it features other disparities, which show it to be of altogether different origin than the rest of the revised version. Page 227 contains only three bars of music with a substantial right-hand margin. The musical material includes a statement of the Dies irae by eight backstage trumpets, followed by an orchestral quotation of the previous choral interlude, the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” Most surprising, an ad libitum organ part appears. Organ is not included in the disposition of the orchestra at the beginning of the work (page [4]). The lighter style continues through page 233, where the score abruptly breaks off, leaving the lower right quadrant of the page blank. This portion of the page was originally printed with staff lines, as they extend slightly beyond the last barline before the blank portion. The lower right quadrant appears to have been cut away from the page. The next page contains the last five bars of the score, with a substantial left-hand margin. These bars originate from another source. The one rehearsal mark on the page is letter “F,” the only such letter rehearsal mark in the score outside the choruses. According to the established sequence of numerical rehearsal marks, rehearsal “F” should read rehearsal “186.” Finally, five empty staves marked “Fr. St.” and five marked “M. St.” appear. These are the choir parts: Fr[auen] St[immen] (Women’s Voices) and M[änner] St[immen] (Men’s Voices). But in the revised version the choir has no part in the final scene. The perplexing “Apparitions” scene of the revised version is largely explained by examining the score to the concert suite score. The disposition of the orchestra included in the concert suite clearly allows for an ad libitum organ (Orgel) part, as can be seen in Figure 3.7.

123

Figure 3.7. Joan von Zarissa, concert suite, disposition of the orchestra.

Additionally, the music on pages 227 through 230 in the revised version corresponds exactly to that on pages 98 through 101 in the concert suite. The revised version, however, features rehearsal marks appropriate to itself and pasted-in stage directions. It therefore appears that pages 227 through 230 of the revised version are not original to the score but are reproduced from the concert suite.

124

The last five bars of the work present something of a quandary. The revised version page 234 corresponds musically to the concert suite page 105, and in both scores the gap to the right of the clefs is present. In the concert suite the vocal staves are boxed and marked through with cross-hatching (see Figure 3.8).

Figure 3.8. Joan von Zarissa, concert suite, p. 105.

125

These bars are not crossed out in the revised version. Page 234 of the revised version, then, does not come from the concert suite; otherwise it, too, would bear the cross-hatching. Nor does the concert suite page 105 come from the revised version page 234, because the concert suite bears no rehearsal mark on page 105. The presence of the “F” rehearsal mark in the revised version points to the appended ten-voice choruses in the same score as the origin of the material; however, the last five bars of “Vous y fiez vous?” in the revised version contain only twenty staves, instead of thirty-one.40 Additionally, the dynamic is marked fortissimo in the concert suite, while it is an unmarked continuation of a pianissimo dynamic with a decrescendo hairpin to pianississimo in the revised version. Page 234 of the revised version, then, does not come from the choruses bearing letter rehearsal marks appended to the revised version either. Turning again to the concert suite another inconsistency in the copy is discernible. The page number digits differ: the 1 and 0 are written in one manuscript style, the 5 in another. Page 105 of the concert suite is not original to the concert suite, but instead comes from yet another source. That unidentified source provided the last five bars of both the revised version and the concert suite.41

Egk’s Joan von Zarissa, as Premiered in Berlin

The program folder for the Berlin premiere and first performances of Joan von Zarissa provides vivid context for the Berlin performances of Joan von Zarissa. According to the program, the prologue, epilogue, and rondo-finale were to be performed (see Figure 3.9).

40 The staves for the following are absent: oboe, B-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, horns (2 staves), trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, and tam-tam. 41 It is likely, based on the orchestration of these last five bars, that there existed an intermediary concert suite, with vocal sections scored for a ten-voice chorus.

126

Figure 3.9. Program for the Berlin premiere of Joan von Zarissa. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Nachlass Werner Egk, Ana 410. Reproduced by permission.

But the original version of the ballet was not what was heard by the audience in Berlin, despite its description as such in the program. In Karl H. Ruppel’s lengthy review of the premiere of Joan von Zarissa for the Kölnische Zeitung, he noted, The baroque theater-ideas of the peacock, out of which emerges the Most Beautiful of the Captured Moorish Women; of the puppet, with whom the fool Lefou dances his unfulfilled longing-for-love dance; of the monster, which instead of fruits and artichokes demands a virgin; and the knight, against whom chimney-fire blasts, were cut. Also severely reduced was the rondo-finale [sic], the joy-dance of love after Joan’s demise.

127

Apart from the ravishing music that it contained, it seems, for reasons of inner proportion as well as the formal composition in its entire dimension and in its entire scale, that the incorporated tonal palette of the choir is important. This finale is, so to speak, a danced cantata, which must work as an apotheosis of life and of love with dazzling elan, of the play that “begins anew in each moment.”42 Two of the most spectacular images from the first tableau, the peacock and the puppet, were not included. The Berlin program clearly identified both a lion and a hero in the “pantomime of the third tableau,” and Ruppel stated that these were cut.43 This would result in a greatly altered pantomime, one with neither protagonist nor antagonist. Ruppel also noted that the rondeau- finale was reduced, but to what extent, he did not say. Music critic Dr. Fritz Brust provides more information pertaining to the curtailed rondeau-finale. He reported, An epilogue articulates the moral (“always shun impetuous lust, the evil charm of the Sirens”) and commends love as the “holy enchantment.” Then follows a rondeau-finale with choir, in the performance changed so that the vocal parts were taken over by the orchestra, and a formal, absolutely necessary grand dance number.44 While Egk specifically intended the choir to take part in the rondeau-finale, this did not happen. The explicit message carried in “Allez-vous-en, allez, allez!” was not present. Instead, the tragedy of the drama was dissipated by a dance spectacle.

42 Die Kölnische Zeitung, 25 January 1940. “Die barocken Theatereinfälle des Pfaus, dem die schönste der gefangenen Maurinnen entsteigt, der Puppe, mit der der Narr Lefou seine unerfüllte Liebensehnsucht tanzt, des Ungeheuers, das statt Früchten und Artischoken eine Jungfrau begehrt, und dem Ritter, der es bekämpft, aus einem Rohr Feuer entgegenbläst, waren gestrichen. Stark reduziert war auch das Rondo-Finale, der Freudentanz des Lebens nach dem Untergang Joans. Abgesehen von der hinreißenden Musik, die es enthält, scheint es und auch aus Gründen der inneren Proportionen ebenso wie der formalen Komposition in seiner ganzen Ausdehnung und in seinem ganzen großen, den Chor einbeziehenden Klangumfang notwendig. Dieses Finale ist sozusagen eine getanzte Kantate, die mit einem umwerfenden Elan wie eine Apotheose des Lebens und der Liebe wirken muß, des Spiels, ‚das neu in jedem Augenblick beginnt’.” 43 See Figure 6.5. The monster was depicted as a lion at the premiere. When the knight stabs the lion, fire shoots out of the latter. Ruppel’s “knight” is the Held (hero) of the program. 44 Fritz Brust, „’Joan von Zarissa’ von Werner Egk,“ Schlesische Zeitung, Breslau, 23 January 1940. “Ein Epilog spricht die Moral aus („Meidet stets die ungestüme Gier, den bösen Zauber der Sirenen“) und empfiehlt die Liebe als „heilige Bezauberung“. Dann folgt noch ein Rondo-Finale mit Chor, in der Aufführung so geändert, daß die Gesangsstimmen ins Orchester genommen wurden, und eine formal unbedingt nötige große Tanznummer.”

128

In fact the rondeau-finale of Joan von Zarissa would not be performed until almost a year after the ballet’s premiere in Berlin. The ballet premiered in Hamburg on 5 December 1940, and a review of the event in the Stuttgarter Neues Tageblatt opened, Werner Egk’s Joan von Zarissa premiered in Berlin—though with substantial deletions. Only now in the Hamburg premiere has it been hazarded to have the epilogue, a rondeau, sung and danced: with resounding success.…45 The reporter errs in stating that the “epilogue, a rondeau” was sung and danced. This is a conflation of the epilogue and the rondeau-finale. The point remains, the rondeau-finale was present. Though the reporter refers to an epilog, the conflation makes it unclear whether or not the epilog was recited. Intervening performances in Halle in April and May 1940 included neither the epilogue nor the rondeau-finale.46 The Berlin premiere program booklet also featured extra-musical context for the premiere of Joan von Zarissa. Inserted in the pages of the program was the flyer shown in Figure 3.10.

45 Stuttgarter Neues Tageblatt, 13 December 1940. “Werner Egks „Joan von Zarissa“ ist in Berlin uraufgeführt worden—doch mit wesentlichen Streichungen. Erst in der Hamburger Uraufführung hat man jetzt gewagt, den Epilog, ein Rondeau, tanzen und singen zu lassen: mit durchschlagendem Erfolg.” 46 Program and reviews contained in BSB Ana 410.

129

Figure 3.10. Joan von Zarissa premiere program insert (Left: front. Right: reverse). Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Nachlass Werner Egk, Ana 410. Reproduced by permission.

On the front side are instructions for evacuation in case of air raid. The instructions are as follows: In case of air raid warning, keep calm! The interruption of the performance will be announced from the stage with due notice. Quietly leave the auditorium, gather your belongings from the coat check, and find your way to the air raid shelter as indicated by the air raid marshals. Your air raid shelter is Room I in the University (See sketch on reverse). After the all-clear is given by the air raid marshals, enough time will be allowed for location of places before the continuation of the performance. The performance will continue from the point at which it was interrupted. On the reverse, a small sketch depicted the Staatsoper building footprint with arrows toward Humboldt University (then Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität) across Unter den Linden.

130

Going to the opera or anywhere else in 1940 Berlin could be a dangerous outing. As the war continued, such evacuation plans become more common. Instead of program inserts, evacuation instructions were more often printed at the bottom of many programs. For the South German premiere of Joan von Zarissa by the Württembergische Staatstheater (Stuttgart) on 27 February 1941, the following instruction was not included as an insert, but was printed in the booklet, beneath the program itself: Attention Air Raid Warning! In case of air raid warning, the performance will be interrupted with due notice. Guests have to find their way immediately to air raid shelters indicated by posters. The direction of the marshal is an unconditional order to be carried out. If the air raid warning occurs during intermission, the same will be announced by the marshal. The coat check remains closed during the air raid warning. Leaving the building is forbidden, as is smoking in the shelters.47 The Germans were by this time taking air raids more seriously than at the Joan von Zarissa premiere—attendees were not allowed to retrieve their belongings from the coat check, and shelters were indicated by more permanent placards, not by personnel. This is especially true for northern German cities vulnerable to air raids from England. A New-Year-commemorative performance of Joan von Zarissa was scheduled for 6 January 1941 at the Hamburgische Staatsoper. The north German city of Hamburg housed one of Germany’s principal naval bases.48 The performance was cancelled due to the “major offensive by the English air force on neighboring Wilhelmshaven on 2 January 1941.” The Hamburg concert was scheduled for 3:00 p.m., reflecting another change in cultural life in Germany. Events that normally occurred at night were moved to earlier in the day. Potential opera-goers were “in their own interest, strongly urged to observe closely the new start times of performances in the Hamburg

47 Program, Staatstheater Berlin, 20 January 1940. BSB Ana 410. “Achtung Fliegeralarm! Bei Fliegeralarm wird die Vorstellung rechtzeitig unterbrochen. Die Besucher haben unverzüglich die durch Plakat bezeichneten Luftschutzräume aufzusuchen. Den Anweisung der Ordner ist unbedingt Folge zu leisten. Kommt in der Pause Fliegeralarm, so wird derselbe durch die Ordner bekanntgegeben. Die Garderobe bleibt während des Fliegeralarms geschlossen. Das Verlassen des Hauses ist verboten, ebenso das Rauchen in den Schützräumen.” 48 William Schirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 752. The other two were located in Wilhelmshaven (approximately seventy-seven miles west) and Kiel (approximately sixty miles north).

131

Staatsoper.” 49 Apparently, the change made it possible to observe nighttime blackouts in cities targeted for aerial bombardment.50

Egk’s Inspiration for Joan von Zarissa

One important question remains unanswered: why adapt the Don Juan saga to fifteenth- century France in the first place? In Die Zeit wartet nicht, first published in 1973, Egk cites several sources for his inspiration to do so. He felt Don Juan to be a “primary European cultural element” (ein europäischer Urstoff). As such, it transcended national and cultural boundaries. This was not necessarily advantageous for a composer working in National-Socialist Germany. A lack of distinct Germanness, however that was measured, could brand the work as kultur- bolschewistisch, “culturally Bolshevistic.” Such works were designated “degenerate” and excluded from the repertoire of Reich theaters. Nevertheless, Egk chose this cosmopolitan material for his drama, and Joan von Zarissa was a success.

The Artwork of Jean Fouquet

Egk was further inspired by the artwork of French painter Jean Fouquet (1420–1481), about whom little is known. Fouquet was a native of Tours. He traveled to Italy between 1443 and 1447, when he painted a portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. In 1461, he returned to France and became court painter to Louis XI.51 Several of Fouquet’s works particularly inspired Egk:

49 Das Programm der Hamburgischen Staatsoper 1940–41 7. BSB Ana 410. The following is written in pencil on the program cover: “abgesagt wegen Grossangriff der englischen Luftwaffe auf das benachbarte Wilhelmshaven am 2.1.41” Regarding concert times, the following appeared in the August, 1940 program of the Hamburgische Staatsoper, “Die Besucher der Hamburgischen Staatsoper werden im eigenen Interesse dringend gebeten, die neuen Anfangszeiten der Aufführungen in der Hamburgischen Staatsoper genau zu beachten….” Similar early start times, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., are given in programs from December 1940 through February 1941. 50 Observation of blackouts may explain early start times; however, a 5:30 p.m. performance would still begin after dark in the winter. Earlier performances would not extend as late into the blackout period, though. 51 Le Comte Paul Durrieu, (Membre de l’Institut de France Conservateur honoraire au Musée de Louvre), Le Boccace de Munich: Reproduction des 91 Miniatures de célèbre manuscrit de la Bibliothèque royale de Munich. Étude historique et critique et explication détaillé des planches, 2 vols. (Munich: Jacques Rosenthal, 1909), 1:44– 45.

132

La Vierge et l’Enfant entourés de séraphins et de chérubins. Egk was impressed by Fouquet’s painting La Vierge et l’Enfant entourés de séraphins et de chérubins, which he saw in Antwerp in 1935 (see Figure 3.11).52 Egk cited Germain Bazin’s art book Fouquet, part of the series Les trésors de la peinture française, in which the painter is described as follows: Fouquet saw war and peace; he knew how men murdered others, how man dealt blows, and how man parried them. He penetrated the organic unity of this monstrous entity, formed of a thousand fates, knotted together, inextricably tied… By him, the invisible was led back to the dimensions of the visible world. With him the angels are choir boys, and the Blessed Virgin bears the traits of the mistress of the king.… 53

52 Egk, DZ, 320. 53 Ibid., 320–321. Egk translated Bazin into German for DZ. “„Genau wie Germain Bazin Fouquet in “Les trésors de la peinture française” beschrieb, genauso habe ich ihn verstanden: ‚Fouquet hat den Krieg und den Frieden gesehen, er weiß, wie sich Männer töten, wie man Schläge austeilt und wie man sie pariert. Er durchdringt die organische Einheit dieses monströsen Daseins, geformt von tausend Schicksalen, die in einander verknäult, unlösbar verbunden sind… Das Unsichtbare wird bei ihm auf die Dimensionen der sichtbaren Welt zurückgeführt. Bei ihm sind die Engel Chorknaben, und die Heilige Jungfrau trägt die Züge der Maitresse des Königs…’” The original text is in Germain Bazin, Fouquet of the series Les trésors de la peinture française (Geneva: Editions d’art Albert Skira, 1942): [2, 3]. “Fouquet a vu la guerre et la paix, il sait comment les hommes se tuent ; comment on porte les coups et comment on les pare ; il perçoit l’unité organique de cet être monstrueux, formé de mille destins enchevêtrés qu’est une mêlée.… … L’invisible est ramené par lui aux dimensions du monde visible. Chez lui les anges sont des enfants de choeur, la Vierge a les traits de la maîtresse du roi… [Egk ends his quote here, but Bazin continues] et les personnes de la Trinité sont des diacres célébrant la liturgie…. ”

133

Figure 3.11. Jean Fouquet, La Vierge et l’Enfant entourés de séraphins et de chérubins. Tempera on panel. 94.5 x 85.5 cm. c. 1452–55. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. Public domain.

134

In Die Zeit wartet nicht Egk quoted Bazin, and in so doing, conveyed his own reading of Fouquet’s work. However, Bazin could not have influenced Egk during the compositional process, as his book was published in 1942, over two years after Egk completed the score to Joan von Zarissa. The Illuminations of the Codex gallicus 6. In addition to La Vierge et l’Enfant, Egk credits Fouquet’s illuminations in the Codex gallicus 6, a Trésor I manuscript in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.54 Codex gallicus 6 is known colloquially as the Münchner Boccaccio (the Munich Boccaccio). The codex contains a French translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s De Casibus virorum illustrium prepared by Laurent Premierfait as Des Cas des nobles hommes et femmes (Accounts of Noble Men and Women). The volume dates from 1458, when it was received at the port of Paris by Laurens Gyrard, Controller-General of Finances to Charles VII, King of France. The Boccaccio arrived in Munich sometime before 1628, when it was included in an inventory of Elector Maximilian the Great’s objets d’art and curiosities.55 Des Cas consists of nine books preceded by a prologue in which Boccaccio dedicated the tome to his Florentine patron Mainardo di Cavalcanti. Within Des Cas, Boccaccio uses the lives of noble men and women to teach moral lessons. These models are both sacred and secular, historical and contemporary. They include the Biblical figures Adam and Eve; Nimrod, the son of Cush, grandson of Noah by Ham and founder of the Babylonian Empire; King Saul; and Samson. They also include the secular historical characters Cadmus, the founder of Thebes; Agamemnon; Dido, the Queen of Carthage; Hannibal; and others. From among his contemporaries, Boccaccio includes the Knights Templar and Filippa the Catanese, a washerwoman-aristocrat, whom he knew personally at the court in Naples. In terms of the lessons taught, Adam and Eve serve to show the wages of disobedience, while the story of Samson warns of the perfidy of women.56 More germane to the discussion of Egk, Codex gallicus 6 contains ninety-one miniatures of various sizes painted by Jean Fouquet: eighty small miniatures, one at the beginning of each chapter (i.e., story of noble man or woman); nine larger miniatures, one at the beginning of each book; one even larger miniature depicting Laurent Premierfait’s presentation of his French Des

54 A Trésor I manuscript is one of the most prized acquisitions of the Staatsbiliothek. 55 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, 1:5–6, 15. 56 Ibid., 1:20.

135

Cas to Jean, Duke of Berry (1340–1416); and the largest, on folio 2 verso, reproduced as Figure 3.12.

Figure 3.12. Codex gallicus 6, folio 2v. Parchment. 34 x 28 cm. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6. Reproduced by permission. 136

This miniature depicts Le Lit de justice (The Bed of Justice), the solemn assembly of 10 October 1458, at which Charles VII presided. The king pronounced Jean II, Duke of Alençon guilty of treason for conspiring with the English against the French. Charles VII sits on a dais at the top of the painting, flanked by two pairs of winged stags holding emblems of the crown. To the right of the king are dukes of France, members of parliament, and members of the king’s household. To his left are officials of the church and government. Two people in the assembly are of particular note. The short man all in black, seated third from left in the top row to the king’s right is Charles d’Orléans, the poet whose texts Egk used for his ballet. In addition to the poet, there is a curious figure in the crowd at the lower right of the miniature. He does not at all regard the solemn assembly, but instead stares out at the viewer. This is Jean Fouquet, the painter of the miniature and Egk’s muse, in self-portrait.57 Similarly in La Vierge, one cherub is unmistakably staring directly at the onlooker.58 Here again is Fouquet, perhaps not in portrait, but in gesture. Fouquet’s miniatures for the Codex gallicus 6 are replete with minute details concerning the stories they illustrate. Typical of the style, they are often divided into quadrants or by foreground and background. Discrete areas depict separate events pertinent to the accounts, and the division of the space of the miniature accommodates concurrent narrative threads, though the events depicted did not happen simultaneously. In some of his miniatures, Fouquet allows for variants of a single tale or of multiple tales within one miniature. For example, folio 210v is decorated with the miniature reproduced as Figure 3.13.

57 Ibid., 1:51–55 58 Cf. Figure 3.11.

137

Figure 3.13. Codex gallicus 6, folio 210v. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6. Reproduced by permission.

This miniature illustrates the tales of three queens named Cleopatra. On the right, Cleopatra the mother of Antiochus Gryphus of Syria drinks poison as her son commanded. In the center, Tryphaena orders the hands of her sister Cleopatra to be severed to free her from the statue to which she clings for refuge from her husband Antiochus Gryphus, the son of the Cleopatra depicted at the right. On the left, Cleopatra the widow of Ptolemy Physcon of Egypt is put to death by her son Ptolemy Alexander, with whom she reigned. The three fields of the miniature are separated by the foreground columns and the invisible planes they create with those of the background. As does Boccaccio’s tale, this miniature conflates the three stories. They are visually separated only by the permeable columnar planes that allow interconnectedness, something especially important to the stories and illustrations of the center and right panels. Fouquet’s miniatures are more than simple illustrations. They are narrative in themselves, bridging time and space to offer visual renderings of Boccaccio’s tales through their multiplicity-in-unity. This attribute finds its way into Joan von Zarissa in Egk’s division of the performance space into various planes, as will be discussed.

138

The Feast of the Pheasant

In Die Zeit wartet nicht Egk credits another source for his conception of Joan von Zarissa: a description of a “banquet of the Duke of Burgundy in the year 1453.” Egk quotes, “In the middle of the hall, near the side wall, on a high pillar was the picture of a naked woman who had long hair that, behind, enshrouded her to her loins; and on her head was a resplendent hat. She was, to conceal that which is seemly to conceal, covered with a sheet, as if with a window lattice, on which Greek letters were written in several places. On another pillar, wide as a jousting barrier, a living lion was tied with an iron chain, as guard and defense for this picture; and on a tablet on his pillar was written in golden letters: Do not touch my lady.” What an image for a Don Juan setting!59 Egk does not credit his source. Based on proximity, it might appear that he is continuing to quote Germain Bazin here, as he had on the previous page. Bazin’s text, though, contains no such language. Instead, Egk is quoting from an unidentified source describing the Feast of the Pheasant, a grand banquet given by Philip the Good of Burgundy (1396–1467) on 17 February 1453/4 in Lille. The description Egk cites comes from the Memoires of Olivier de La Marche, one of the banquet organizers. 60 The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek houses a copy of the fourth edition of de

59 Egk, DZ, 321 “‘Inmitten des Saals, nahe der Seitenwand, war auf einem hohen Pfeiler das Bild einer nackten Frau, die langes Haar hatte, das sie hinten bis zu den Lenden einhüllte; und auf ihrem Kopf war ein prächtiger Hut. Sie war, um das zu verbergen, was zu verbergen sich ziemt, mit einem Tuch bedeckt, wie mit einem herabgelassenen Fenstergitter, worauf an mehreren Stellen in griechischen Buchstaben geschrieben war. An einem anderen Pfeiler, der breit war wie eine Turnierhürde, war mit eiserner Kette ein lebendiger Löwe gebunden, als Schutz und Verteidigung dieses Frauenbildes; und auf einem Schild an seinem Pfeiler war in goldenen Buchstaben geschrieben: Rührt meine Dame nicht an.’ Welch ein Bild für eine Don-Juan-Handlung!” 60 La Marche, Olivier de, Les Memoires. Fourth Edition, (Lovain: Everaerdt de Witte, 1645): 419. “Ainsi comme au milieu de la longuer de la sale, assez pres de la paroy, à l’opposite de la longe table avoit un haut pillier, sur quoy avoit une image de femme nuë : qui les cheveux avoit si-longs, qu’ilz la couvroyent par derriere, iusques aux reins : & sur son chef avoit un chapeau tres-riche : & estoit envelopée, ainsi que pour musser ou il apartenoit, d’une serviette, à maniere de volet bien delié, escritte en plusieurs lieux, de lettres Gregeoises : & gettoit cest image, par la mammelle droicte, ypocras, autant que le souper dura : & aupres d’elle avoit un autre pillier large, en manier d’un

139

La Marche’s memoirs along with Codex gallicus 6. In this 1645 publication, years in which various events occurred are included as marginal notes. La Marche dates the Feast of the Pheasant as 1453, but most modern sources date the banquet as 1454. At this time in France, the new year (civil year) began on the Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March according to the Anno Domini calendar system introduced by Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470 – c. 544). The practice continued until 1564, when the beginning of the civil year was made to coincide with that of the historical year, on 1 January.61 This may explain Egk’s apparent mistake regarding the date. Egk cites the civil year, 1453, as does La Marche. Olivier de La Marche and Mathieu d’Escouchy (de Coussy) provide the two most detailed chronicles of the fete. In very similar words, d’Escouchy describes the dual columns with woman and live lion. He also includes the motto Egk adapts, “Ne touchez à ma dame.”62 The Feast of the Pheasant was a pro-war propaganda event meant to promote a crusade against the Turks who had taken Constantinople in 1453. Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and his knights took an oath on a live, bejeweled pheasant to deliver the Church (however, the crusade never materialized). In addition to a live lion, the banquet featured an elephant, a trick horse, a camel, a ship, a windmill, reenactments from the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece,

hourd : surquoy estoit ataché, à une chaisne de fer, un Lyon vif, en signe d’estre garde, & deffence de cest image : & contre son pillier estoit escrit, en lettres d’or en un targe, Ne touchez à ma Damme…. ” 61 Mike Spathaky, Old Style and New Style Dates and the change to the Gregorian Calendar: A summary for genealogists, (Accessed 10 December 2009). The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary is regarded as the first event in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, about which the Anno Domini system is oriented. 62 Mathieu d’Escouchy, Chroniques. Volumes 10 and 11 of Collection des chroniques nationales Françaises by J. A. Buchon, new ed. (Paris: Verdière Libraire and J. Carez, 1826): 11:98–99. “… Environ le milieu de la longueur de la salle, assez près da la paroy, à la pointe de la longue table, estoit dressé un haut pillier sur lequel estoit eslevée la statue d’une image de femme nue, excepté que se blonds cheveux la couvroient par derrière jusques aux reins ; et sur son chef elle portoit un très riche chapeau ; et estoit enveloppée, comme pour mucer (cacher) ce qu’il appartenoit, d’une serviette en manière de viole bien délié, et escrite en plusieurs lieux de lettres grégeoises violettes, en for gentille façon ; et jettoit icelle image, par la mamelle dextre, de l’hypocras tant que le souper dura. Auprès d’elle, en tirant contre le buffet, il y avoit un autre pillier, non pas si eslevé que celuy qui soustenoit la susdite image, mais qui estoit un peu plus large, en manière d’un hourt (échaffand), sur lequel estoit attaché, à une chaisne de fer, un fort beau lion tout vif, en signe d’estre le gardien et le deffenseur d’icelle image ; et contre son pilier estoit escrit, en une targe de lettres d’or : Ne touchez à ma dame. ”

140

and music. Organ music and motets by Guillaume Dufay emanated from a model church large enough to accommodate a small organ and choir. The sacred music, representing the sacred nature of a crusade, was juxtaposed with secular music. The secular music comprised instrumental music and chansons of Gilles Binchois by musicians from within a large pie or pastry, representing the secular nature of the crusade. The Church was depicted as a grieving lady, both in the painting under the guard of the lion and as a corporeal banquet participant. Through poetry, she beseeched the assembled knights to crusade on her behalf and pledged to bless them with both renown and spiritual benefit if they helped.63 The Feast of the Pheasant, therefore, provided Egk with the idea to set the stage as a “huge emblem with the figures of a naked woman and a lion, who in his paws held a plaque with the inscription, ‘Ne touchez pas ma Dame.’”64

Influences of Fouquet and The Feast of the Pheasant in Joan von Zarissa

While Egk cited specific details from the Feast of the Pheasant that find their way into Joan von Zarissa, he did not explain how Fouquet’s painting and miniatures influenced the work. Egk’s stage directions at the beginning of the first tableau, the “Banquet of the Iron Duke,” illustrate his overall concept of the setting: A mighty double stair leads up from the left and the right to a second platform above center stage. Above right and left, at the confluence of the stairs, two pillared pedestals bear far larger-than-life figures, one with only a veiled woman and one a gigantic lion facing her, who in his raised paws carries a tablet with the inscription: “Do not touch my lady.” The background is filled by a coat-of-arms; over it waves a banner with the words “Dieu et Foi [God and Faith].” The entire set has the effect of a huge emblem, wherein the great steps should be sensed as an ornamental base for the coat-of- arms and the figures, its flanking bearers. In the middle of the stage directly under the second platform between the two ascending stairs sit the Iron Duke and Isabeau, the

63 Arjo Vanderjagt, “The Princely Culture of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy” in Princes and Princely Culture 1450– 1650, eds. Martin Gosman, Alasdair MacDonald, Arjo Vanderjagt. Volume 1. (Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2003): 60–61. See also Agathe Lafortune-Martel, Fête noble en Bourgogne au XVe Siècle. Le banquet du Faisan (1454): Aspects poltiiques, sociaux et culturels, (Montreal: Bellarmin and Paris: Vrin, 1984); La Marche, Olivier de, Les Memoires; and Mathieu D’Escouchy, Chroniques. 64 Egk, DZ, 321.

141

Duchess, with their court. On the upper platform, musicians and folk; in the space below, the entourage.65 The influence of the Feast of the Pheasant is unmistakable. There are the two pillars; the woman shrouded, not with her own hair, but with a veil; the lion; and the motto, which Egk translates into German, “Berühre meine Dame nicht.” The influences of the Codex gallicus 6 are there as well. The double stairs Egk mentions yield an overall lozenge shape to the set, just as the benches to either side of Charles VII create a similar design in Fouquet’s Codex folio 2v miniature. Egk’s use of multiple tiers is also foreshadowed by the miniature. In Egk’s rendering, the tiers, from top to bottom, may be designated musicians and folk; duke and duchess; and entourage. In Fouquet’s painting, they are occupied by king, court, and crowd. Egk merely moved the Feast of the Pheasant motto from the lion’s pillar to the lion’s paws. This creates an image similar to that of the large winged stags on either side of Fouquet’s miniature. There are two pairs, mirroring the large figures of woman and lion, and in their hooves they hold emblems as Egk’s lion holds the motto. Egk never states whether or not he knew that Charles d’Orléans was featured in Fouquet’s miniature; however, his presence provides another link with Joan von Zarissa. The influence of La Vierge on the ballet is rather more difficult to establish, although two of the most obvious commonalities are color and period dress. Outside these, the gossamer veil of the Virgin deserves note. The use of veils figures prominently in Joan von Zarissa: from the opening set, to the veils draped on the Most Beautiful of the Captured Moorish Women, to Isabeau’s mourning veils, which Joan removes as he seduces the duchess. In the final scene of

65 Egk, JvZ, original version, 14. “Eine mächtige Doppeltreppe führt im Mittelgrund der Bühne von rechts und von links auf eine zweite Spielfläche. Rechts und links oben, bei der Einmündung der Treppe, tragen zwei säulenförmige Sockel die weit überlebensgroßen Figuren einer nur mit einem Schleier verhüllten Frau und eines ihr zugewandten riesigen Löwen, der in seinen erhobenen Pranken eine Tafel mit der Inschrift: „Berühre meine Dame nicht“ trägt. Den Hintergrund füllt ein Wappen aus, über dem ein Spruchband mit den Worten „Dieu et Foi“ schwebt Die ganze Szene wirkt wie ein riesiges Emblem, wobei die große Treppe als ornamentale Basis des Wappens und die Figuren als dessen flankierende Träger empfunden werden sollen. In der Mitte der Bühne unmittelbar unter der zweiten Spielfläche zwischen den beiden Treppenaufgängen sitzen der Eiserne Herzog und Isabeau, die Herzogin, mit ihrem Hofstaat. Auf der oberen Spielfläche Spielleute und Volk, im unteren Raum Gefolge.”

142

the original ballet, the shrouded characters Isabeau and Florence hold the veil that reveals Joan’s fate.

Collaboration with Josef Fenneker

At the beginning of May 1939 Egk began collaborating with Josef Fenneker on the set design for Joan von Zarissa. Josef Fenneker was born in 1895 and was trained by painter and lithographer Emil Orlik. From 1918 Fenneker was known for his film posters and oils; and from the mid-1920s, for his artwork for various periodicals.66 Fenneker’s theater career began with his set design and portraits of various characters for the Preußische Staatstheater’s production of Shakespeare’s Othello in 1932.67 From 1935 to 1938 he worked primarily for the Duisburg Oper; from 1939, for various Berlin theaters; and thereafter, for theaters in various large European cities. By the end of his career, Fenneker had designed some one hundred sixty productions and a handful more for which he designed only costumes or theater posters. After Joan von Zarissa, Fenneker designed seven additional productions of Egk works before 1954. These included two later productions of Joan von Zarissa, for the Vienna Staatsoper in 1942 and for the Frankfurt am Main Städtische Bühnen in 1953. Fenneker died in 1956, two years after designing the last of his productions of Egk’s works, the opera Peer Gynt.68 According to Egk, Fenneker was enthusiastic about basing the colors of the Joan von Zarissa production on those of Fouquet and the stage design on the idea of “emblem,” or heraldic device.69 In a letter of 5 June 1939 to Josef Fenneker, Egk relayed the discovery of a “treasure” key to understanding the visual elements of Joan von Zarissa. He wrote, Dear Mr. Fenneker,

66 Harald Buhlan, “Josef Fenneker (1895–1956),” Unser Bocholt: Zeitschrift für Kultur und Heimatpflege 42, no 4 (1991), ed. Verein für Heimatpflege Bocholt e.V., 8. 67 Ibid., 13. Fenneker’s first theater work was for Hermann Haller’s 1928 revue Schön und Schick, but his work in this production was limited. 68 Ibid., 39–42. Fenneker designed productions of Egk’s Joan von Zarissa (Vienna, 1942; Frankfurt am Main, 1953); Circe (Berlin, 1948); Abraxas (Berlin, 1949; Stockholm, 1951); Columbus: Bericht und Bildnis (Berlin, 1951); and Peer Gynt (Berlin, 1954). 69 Egk, DZ, 324. “Mit dem Bühnenbildner Josef Fenneker sprach ich zum ersten Mal Anfang mai und begeisterte ihn durch die Vorstellung, die Farben auf Fouquet zu stellen und das Bild auf „Emblem“.”

143

I have just now discovered a true treasure for our work, that is also surely to be found in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, possibly even in the library of the Staatsoper: Iconographie de l’art profan au moyen-age et la Renaissane par Raimond van Marle. La Haye, Martinus Nijhoff 1932 (Publisher) In this book you will easily find generally everything that has come down to us from the time. Reproductions of tapestries, drawings, paintings, sculptures, etc. Also illustrations of grandiosity [Prunk] and carriages [Triumphwagen], in short anything you could want. I think it quite important that you see this work; I am very glad that I found it. Incidentally, I have looked at the Codex Gallicus VI in the Munich Staatsbibliothek and am convinced that one can’t even begin to gain a true perception of its colors from any reproduction. Perhaps you can yet come to Munich before beginning work. If you wish, I can also write to the management [Generalintendanz] that it would be necessary that we meet now and again after the production of the first sketches. Please write regarding this. Most sincerely yours, [Werner Egk]70

70 Egk letter to Josef Fenneker, 5 June 1939, BSB Ana 410. Lieber Herr Fenneker! [Written in pencil:] Berlin Eben habe ich für unsere Arbeit einen wahren Schatz entdeckt, der sicher auch in der Berliner Staatsbibliothek, möglicherweise sogar in der Bibliothek der Staatsoper zu finden ist: Iconographie de l’art profane au moyen-age et a la Renaissance par Raimond van Marle. La Haye, Martinus Nijhoff 1932. (Verlag) Sie finden in diesem Buch einfach alles was uns aus der Zeit überhaupt erhalten ist, Reproduktionen von Gobelins, Zeichnungen, Bildern, Plastiken etc. Auch Abbildungen von Prunk und Triumphwagen, kurz was Sie überhaupt wollen. Ich halte es für wirklich wesentlich, dass Sie dieses Werk ansehen, ich freue mich sehr, dass ich es gefunden habe. Übrigens habe ich den Codex Gallicus VI in der Münchner Staatsbibliothek angesehen und mich überzeugt, dass man von keiner Reproduktion auch nur annähernd eine richtige Farbvorstellung bekommen kann. Vielleicht können Sie doch noch vor Beginn der Arbeit nach München kommen. Wenn Sie wollen schreibe ich auch an die Generalintendanz, dass es notwendig wäre, dass wir uns jetzt und nochmals nach Anfertigung der ersten Skizzen besprechen. Bitte schreiben Sie mir darüber. Herzlichst Ihr:

144

It remains uncertain whether Fenneker obtained van Marle’s Iconographie; however, he did travel to Munich to look at the Codex gallicus 6. In the Josef Fenneker bequest at the Stadtmuseum Bocholt, two sheets of letterhead from the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten (Four Seasons Hotel) in Munich are covered, front and back, with sketches Fenneker made from the illuminations in Codex gallicus 6. On other sheets, Fenneker outlined more of Fouquet’s illuminations, making a total of nine sketches. These are reproduced, along with the original Codex gallicus 6 miniatures, in the following figures.

Figure 3.14. Codex gallicus 6, folio 56r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4908v. Reproduced by permission.

The miniature reproduced as Figure 3.14 depicts the death of Dido, founder and first queen of Carthage, according to two different traditions, one of death by self-immolation, the other, by her own sword.71 The handwritten notes in Fenneker’s sketch are references to the colors of the

The tome to which Egk refers is Raimond van Marle, Iconographie de l’art profane au Moyen-Age et a la Renaissance et la décoration des demeures, La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff. Vol. 1: La vie quotidienne. Avec 4 planches en héliotypie et 523 illustrations, 1931. Vol. 2: Allégories et symboles. Avec 6 planches en héliotypie et 524 illustrations, 1932. Egk’s statement also reinforces the importance of color mentioned previously in conjunction with La Vierge. 71 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:67.

145

original. At the upper left, for example, Fenneker’s handwriting read “blauer Himmel,” blue sky. He also makes note of the gold at the top of the tower and the gray stone of the base of the tower.72

Figure 3.15. Codex gallicus 6, folio 60r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4908v. Reproduced by permission.

The right panel of another miniature (see Figure 3.15) depicts the self-indulgent king of Assyria Sardanapalus, in the midst of his female courtiers. (Notice that the lady to the king’s left holds her hand in a suggestive, perhaps even possessive, position between the king’s legs.) The background in the upper left quadrant of the miniature depicts Sardanpalus’s death. To avoid capture by his enemies, Sardanpalus immolates himself atop his worldly belongings.73 This miniature gives an impression of the decadence of court culture often cited in descriptions of Joan von Zarissa.

72 Unfortunately, Fenneker’s handwriting is very difficult to decipher. His note of the gold at the top of the tower includes additional information, “mit [blau?]” (with [blue?]), as does his note of the gray (grau); however, these additional glosses are practically illegible. 73 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:68–69.

146

Figure 3.16. Codex gallicus 6, folio 64r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4908r. Reproduced by permission.

In the miniature reproduced in Figure 3.16 Fouquet juxtaposes the stories of three kings: Sennacherib of Assyria, Amaziah of Judah, and Uzziah of Judah. In the lower left quadrant, Sennacherib is murdered in the temple by his two sons. In the background, Amaziah is murdered in a public square. In the right half of the miniature, King Uzziah, offers incense to the Lord, a ritual reserved for priests only. For his transgression, Uzziah was struck with leprosy.74 As was the case with the gossamer veils of the Blessed Virgin Mary in La vierge, Fouquet captures the translucence of the rising incense in this miniature.

74 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:69.

147

Figure 3.17. Codex gallicus 6, folio 68r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4908r. Reproduced by permission.

Another miniature (see Figure 3.17) depicts the story of Astyages, the last king of the Median Empire. The right half of the miniature depicts Mandane, daughter of Astyages, having given birth to Cyrus. Astyages was warned in dreams that Cyrus would overthrow him and ordered him to be killed. Harpagus takes the newborn to Mitradates, whose wife raised Cyrus as her own. The lower left quadrant showcases a dog suckling young Cyrus alongside a reflective pool and defending him against a peasant who wishes to recapture the boy. In the background, Astyages exacts revenge on Harpagus for not killing Cyrus, feeding Harpagus the flesh of Harpagus’s own son.75

75 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:70–71.

148

Figure 3.18. Codex gallicus 6, folio 86r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4910v. Reproduced by permission.

On the left side of this miniature (see Figure 3.18), Tullia, wife of Roman emperor Lucius Tanquinius Superbus, or “Tarquin the Proud,” rides her chariot over the body of her father, murdered by her and her husband and left in a Roman street. On the right, Lucretia commits suicide after her rape by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Tullia and Tarquin the Proud. Lucretia’s rape and suicide led to the overthrow of the Roman monarchy in 510 BCE.76 Fenneker seems unconcerned with the story illustrated by this miniature, since he omits all of the people in his sketch. He does, however, carefully reproduce Fouquet’s architecture, with the exception of the misplacement of the castle in the upper right of the miniature relative to the outline of the miniature itself. Fenneker would mimic this miniature in his reproduction of a city seen from a window in his set design for Joan von Zarissa.

76 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:74.

149

Figure 3.19. Codex gallicus 6, folio 98r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4910v. Reproduced by permission.

The miniature reproduced in Figure 3.19 illustrates the story of Xerxes, king of Persia (r. 485– 465 BCE). Two onlookers in the lower central portion of the miniature gaze on Leonides, king of Sparta, surprising Xerxes’s camp during the night in the Pass of Thermopylae. Xerxes, highlighted in gold, exits the battle to the left of the miniature. In the background, the onlookers see the naval Battle of Salamis “on another coast,” during which the Persian fleet was decimated. Within the Corinthian-columned edifice to the right of the miniature, we see the murder of Xerxes by his own captain of the guard Artabanus, fifteen years later.77 The style of the ships in the background would later serve as a model for Fenneker’s design of the Odyssean drop scene for the set of Joan von Zarissa.

77 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:75.

150

Figure 3.20. Codex gallicus 6, folio 115v and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4909v. Reproduced by permission.

In another miniature (see Figure 3.20), Fouquet depicts the gruesome death of Hanno the Great of Carthage. The Carthaginians stripped Hanno, beat him with clubs, lacerated him, and broke his legs before finally beheading him. Here Fouquet juxtaposes a sea populated with ships, described by Durrieu as “a very French aspect,” with a building featuring a sphere-capped dome, revealing Fouquet’s research of eastern architecture.78 As with the miniature on folio 86r (see Figure 3.18), the city scene in the background of this miniature would serve as Fenneker’s inspiration for the set design for Joan von Zarissa.

78 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:77. According to Durrieu, Hanno the Great was put to death in 350 BCE.

151

Figure 3.21. Codex gallicus 6, folio 123r and Fenneker’s sketch of the same. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex gallicus 6; Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4909v. Reproduced by permission.

The miniature reproduced in Figure 3.21 depicts the siege of Rome by the Gauls, during which Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, highlighted in gold, was awakened by the honking of sacred geese. He rushed to the walls of the citadel atop the Capitol and turned back the first attackers. In the background to the left, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus is thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, subjected to a shameful death after he was condemned for trying to usurp power. Here again, Fenneker seems more concerned with architecture than the narrative illustrated and sketches the people only as rough shapes. Durrieu explains that Fouquet errs in having the Tiber flow around the base of the Capitol; however, Premierfait’s text specifies that both that the Gauls and Marcus Manlius Capitolinus ended up in the Tiber.79 Again the vista encompassing the city would find itself into Joan von Zarissa.

79 Durrieu, Le Boccace de Munich, I:78.

152

Figure 3.22. Fenneker’s sketch of Codex gallicus 6, folio 2v. Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4911. Reproduced by permission.

153

Fenneker sketched only the basic elements of Codex gallicus 6 folio 2v; however, he captured the salient features of the Fouquet miniature: the lozenge design, the winged stags and shield, the general outlines of the costumes, and the canopied dais on which Charles sits (see Figure 3.22). In the upper left corner of the drawing, Fenneker includes the border that surrounds the whole of the miniature. He also includes two other features not present in this miniature. The column at the upper right of the sketch either occurs elsewhere in the codex or was newly created by Fenneker. The decorative filigree at the bottom left of the sketch is the border that frames the text of the codex. Through the work of Josef Fenneker, the artwork of Fouquet finds its way into Joan von Zarissa. Alongside Codex gallicus 6, Fenneker had Egk’s stage directions, his distillation of the Feast of the Pheasant. While he was sketching his copies of the illuminations of the Codex gallicus 6, Fenneker was formulating the set design for Joan von Zarissa. The sketch shown in Figure 3.23 is found on the same Four Seasons Hotel letterhead referenced earlier. The upper portion of the sketch represents a frontal view. The lower portion is a view from above. A small scale diagram is found within the lozenge of the lower diagram.

154

Figure 3.23. An initial sketch for Joan von Zarissa by Fenneker. Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4941v. Reproduced by permission.

155

The amalgam of Egk’s directions, the artwork of Jean Fouquet, and Raimond van Marle’s Iconographie, which will be discussed, led Fenneker ultimately to the following stage design for Joan von Zarissa (see Figure 3.24)

156

157

Figure 3.24. Fenneker’s rendering of the stage design for Joan von Zarissa. Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß, 89/4901. Reproduced by permission. The lozenge design of Codex gallicus 6 folio 2v is the central construction in Fenneker’s sketch. It cordons off two thrones at the back of the space created by the stairs and upper platform. Isabeau stands on the right stair, gazing up at Egk’s heraldic emblem, which features the lion, lady, and coat of arms. One change is evident in Fenneker’s sketch: the motto Egk specifies in the original piano score. Fenneker changes the motto from “Dieu et Foi” (God and Faith) to “Dieu et Feu,” “God and Ardor.” Fenneker’s design for the Odyssean drop scene (see Figure 3.25) is similarly fashioned and complements the stage design.

158

. oduced by permission. Joan von Zarissa -Nachlaß, 89/4903. Repr r ng of the drop scene for Bocholt, Stadtmuseum Fenneke Figure 3.25. Fenneker’s renderi

159

The figures of the sirens mimic the figure of the lady of the emblem. The design of Odysseus’s ship parallels those of Codex gallicus 6 folio 98r.

Raimond van Marle’s Iconographie de l’art profane au moyen-age et a la Renaissance

In his letter to Fenneker, Egk described what a “treasure” van Marle’s Iconographie was, a compendium of images and information from the time in which Egk set Joan von Zarissa.80 While it remains unclear whether Fenneker consulted the work, Egk certainly did. Though he does not credit specific images from van Marle as inspiration for Joan von Zarissa, several images in Iconographie find their way into his work. At the outset of the Dance of Captured Moorish Women in the first tableau, Egk specifies two vivid images: “beastly hairy savages” and a large peacock out of which the Most Beautiful steps. Van Marle’s Iconographie contains the image of a “Savage Man” (Figure 3.26):

Figure 3.26. Van Marle, Fig. 179, Savage man. Van Marle, Iconographie 1:191. Public domain.

80 Egk to Fenneker, 5 June 1939. See above.

160

This is not van Marle’s only image of such a personage; three similar depictions appear in the “Nature” portion of the first volume. As in this drawing, the savages are covered in hair from head to toe. The latter image, the peacock, also features prominently in van Marle’s collections of forest images, along with fantastic creatures including chimeras, unicorns, leopards, bears, and dragons. Egk draws inspiration from this inventory for the antagonist in the Pantomime of the third tableau, a fire-breathing monster variously depicted as a lion or dragon.81 Egk incorporates another dimension that figures prominently in Iconographie, that of allegory. The entire second volume of van Marle’s work is dedicated to allegorical figures ranging from philosophical allegories (e.g., virtues and vices) to scientific allegories (e.g., the elements), to political and social allegories (e.g., personifications of lands or cities), to love, to death. Such allegories also figure prominently in the Prolog and Epilog of Joan von Zarissa; Egk sets the speaker in the midst of them. The image of death, specifically that of “Death triumphant,” which van Marle includes, appears to serve as impetus for Egk’s treatment of the original “Apparitions” scene (see Figure 3.27).

81 The Berlin program clearly states this creature is a lion. In Paris, the creature was a dragon.

161

Figure 3.27. Van Marle, Fig. 416, Death triumphant. Van Marle, Iconographie, 2:382. Public domain.

Here, the figure of Death Triumphant, to whom the Iron Duke is analogous, is flanked by two smaller skeletons, parallels of the dead Florence and Isabeau. The three stand on a raised platform and a king, to whom the usurper “Duke” Joan is equivalent, is at their feet, along with other nobles. Above all waves a furling banner. This banner is akin to the grey cloth of the “Apparitions” scene, which Isabeau and Florence lower to reveal the Iron Duke, Death triumphant over Joan. In addition to these sources, oblique references point to two other influences on Egk. In the 12-Uhr Blatt of 19 January 1940, an anonymous writer explained, Egk discovered the decisive impetus for this work that relocates the Don Juan material to the troubadour age of the 15th century in front of the picture of the Madonna by Fouquet at a visiting exhibition in Antwerp. He traveled home to Munich, deeply influenced by the vitality and shocking colorfulness of this painting. He found only two old codices

162

that were splendidly illustrated by Fouquet, one in the Breslau University library and the Codex gallicus VI in the Munich Staatsbibliothek. The Staatsoper has just allowed the release of a special publication in which the matter, contents, and origin of the Ballet Joan von Zarissa will be reported in detail.82 While the Breslau codex and the Staatsoper special publication might illuminate Egk’s motivation for his reworking of the Don Juan story, neither has been located at this time.

Werner Egk’s Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona

One other precursor to Joan von Zarissa bears examination as an influence on the ballet—Egk’s own earlier setting of the Don Juan saga, his 1932 Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona.83 The Dies irae features prominently in the final scene of Ritter Don Juan, just as it does in the final scene of the revised version of Joan von Zarissa, the revised version. In Ritter Don Juan, the choir sings the chant to comment on the action as Don Pedro announces to Don Juan, “Prepare to die!” An excerpt is provided in Example 3.1:

82 Das 12 Uhr-Blatt, Berlin 17, 19 January 1940. “Den entscheidenden Anstoß zu dieser Arbeit, die den Don-Juan- Stoff in die Troubadourzeit des 15. Jahrhunderts verlegt, empfing Egk bei einem Gastspiel in Antwerpen vor dem Bilde einer Madonna von Fouquet. Er fuhr heim nach München, von der Lebenskraft und prallen Farbigkeit dieses Bildes tief beeindruckt, und forschte nach weiteren Bildern Fouquets. Er fand nur zwei alte Codices, die von Fouquet prachtvoll illustriert waren: einen in der Breslauer Universitätsbibliothek und den Codex Gallicus VI in der Münchener Staatsbibliothek. Die Staatsoper hat soeben ein illustriertes Sonderheft erscheinen lassen, in dem über Stoff, Inhalt und Entstehung des Balletts „Joan von Zarissa“ eingehend berichtet wird.” Breslau is present-day Wrocław, Poland; then, part of the German Reich. 83 For a discussion of the plot of this work, please see Chapter 2.

163

Example 3.1. Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan Aus Barcelona (1932), Finale. (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Trésor Mus. Mss. 11907.)

164

The outside-observer perspective of the choir is the same in Joan von Zarissa. The text it sings is not part of the libretto, but it offers insight into and interpretation of the action, as does the chorus in Greek tragedy. Egk did not leave Ritter Don Juan a total tragedy. He included a sort of epilogue, though not as developed as the one that concludes Joan von Zarissa. As the Spirit of Don Pedro drags Don Juan off to Hell, Kaspar is elated to realize, Slow down a bit! Is today already looking up? Ah! Aha, this wasn’t bad! Such a catastrophe! Now the demons have left with my lord, and I didn’t go with the corpse. But this is not a total tragedy, because now I’ve profited. I now have all the money! Now I can properly wet my dry gullet! Musicians, strike up!84 Kaspar and the choir join together for a finale that is accompanied by English horn, brass, timpani, and organ. Like the Triumph of True Love finale in Joan von Zarissa, this finale also dispels the somber mood of what just preceded it. Kaspar and the choir alternate, singing the following text four times:

Jetz is aus, jetz is aus, jetz is aus, Now it’s done, now it’s done, now it’s done, Der Kasperl geht nach Haus. Kasperl is going home. Das Bett is a scho gmacht, The bed is already made, Gutnacht, Gutnacht, Gutnacht! Good night, good night, good night!85

The tragedy of his master’s fate is forgotten as Kaspar settles into a warm bed, at least a little bit inebriated. When composing Joan von Zarissa, Egk returned to his earlier iteration of the Don Juan saga, Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona for inspiration. Or at least, some of the elements introduced in the earlier work find their way into the later one. Ritter Don Juan is an adaptation of the story to a foreign setting and culture, from cultured Seville to a rustic south

84 Ibid. Text portion, 7. “Langsam a wengerl! Ist heut schon der Aufwärtstag? Ah! Aha, des war nit schlecht! A so a Malör! Jetzt sind die Teufel mit meinem Herrn abgefahren und i bin net amal mit der Leich gangn. Aber das ist noch alleweil einen Hetz, weil i jetzt profitiert hab. Das ganze Geld hab jetzt i! Jetzt kann ich meine trockene Gurgel ordentlich nass machen. Musikanten, spielts auf!” 85 BSB, Trésor Mus. Mss. 11907, 22 ff.

165

German forest. In Joan von Zarissa, the Don Juan figure is transported to a fifteenth-century Burgundian court. Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona ends with an jaunty choral finale that dissolves the foregoing tragedy, as does the original Joan von Zarissa. Like the revised Joan von Zarissa, the Dies irae features prominently in the finale. These are elements of the earlier work that are clearly identifiable in the later Joan von Zarissa. The only necessary qualification concerns the use of the Dies irae. In Die Zeit wartet nicht Egk identifies the chant as an important element in the dichotomous nature of the ballet: Joan’s undoing, the end of an insatiable anarchic existence by the sardonically contrition- imbued visions, with the sound of the Dies irae and bell peals is Christian, just as his origins are heathen.86 The Dies irae does not appear in the original version, but rather only in the revised version.

86 Egk, DZ, 323. “Joans Untergang, das Ende einer unersättlich zügellosen Existenz mit den von Reue bitter getränkten Vision, mit DIES IRAE-Klängen und Glockengeläute ist christlich, wie sein Ursprung heidnisch ist.”

166

CHAPTER FOUR

THE GENRE OF JOAN VON ZARISSA

While knowing the genesis of Joan von Zarissa helps to explain Werner Egk’s inspiration and models for the work, it does not clarify exactly what kind of work Joan von Zarissa is. Despite the predominance of dance, the work is not a ballet; instead, Joan von Zarissa is an example of New German Dance, a species of modern dance that increasingly grew in importance from the Weimar Era through the National Socialist period. New German Dance as championed by Rudolf von Laban was itself an extension of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, and Joan von Zarissa can likewise be viewed as such. In creating a work of New German Dance, Werner Egk invoked historical German models, thereby currying favor with those in power and practically ensuring the success of Joan von Zarissa, despite the tumultuous milieu in which dance found itself in the New Germany.

Joan von Zarissa as New German Dance

Egk labeled Joan von Zarissa a dramatische Tanzdichtung, a “dramatic dance-poem.” The work comprises dance, spoken and sung texts, and music. Joan von Zarissa was not conceived of as a classical ballet, nor was it received as such at its performances within the Reich. In his review for the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, Josef Rufer distinguished Joan von Zarissa from the works with which it premiered, a Ballet-Suite to the music of Max Reger and F. H. Heddenhausen’s Tanz ums Dorf (Dance around the Village). In the Reger work, “classical dance reigned,” with its point-work, pirouettes, and “historical armory of devices.” Tanz ums Dorf was, on the other hand, a rustic grotesque dance characterized by a “bawdy coquettish play” of two waitresses and the innkeeper. Egk’s Joan von Zarissa was different. Rufer explained, Egk’s dramatic dance poem absolutely required the employment of all registers of ultimate theater-dance: ceremonial exhibition dances with their pictorial unity, closed soloist-type dance numbers of distinct character and (analogous to the function of arioso and recitative in opera) broadly played-out pantomimic scenes—resulting in contrasts, in

167

which Tietjen, as producer and director of the whole, coordinated and dramatically interpreted the plastically carved atmosphere of the work.1 The dance of Joan von Zarissa, then, was different from classical ballet. Rufer clearly distinguished between the Reger work where “classical dance reigned” and Joan von Zarissa, the ultimate in “theater dance.” It was instead representative of New German Dance, alternately known as Ausdruckstanz, or modern “expressive dance.”2 New German Dance was an attempt to develop a dance that exemplified the Weltanschauung of the New Germany and was capable of fostering Volksgemeinschaft. Rufer’s other reference, to a rustic dance, marks the third well- known dance type in National Socialist Germany, folkdance. In the realm of art dance, or dance for the theater, folkdance played little part. Ballet and New German Dance were the polar types, and the latter had sought to supplant the former for some time. New German Dance and ballet had been competing with one another since the early twentieth century. The work of the Ballets russes and Ballet suédois reinvigorated ballet from within in the 1910s. From the eighteenth century, France had dominated ballet. This did not prevent its dissemination to Germany. In fact, Germany was quite a logical place for ballet to

1 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 19, 22 January 1940. “Zuerst, in Regers „Ballett-Suite“, regierte der klassische Ballett-Tanz. Ob Reger mit seiner Bezeichnung wirklich an Fußspitzentriller, Pirouetten und das übrige artistische Rüstzeug dieser Tanzgattung gedacht hat, bleibe dahingestellt. Jedenfalls versuchte Lizzie Maudrik die historisch gegebenen choreographische Ballettformeln dem vielfältig wechselnden Charakter dieser – wohl tänzerischen, aber nicht eigentlich tanzbaren – Musik soweit als nur möglich anzupassen. Die Damen Michaelis, Schink, die Herren Jahnke und Blank waren ihr dabei, neben dem übrigen Ensemble, wesentliche Helfer. Der „Tanz ums Dorf“ führte dann in die völlig andersartige Sphäre des hier vom bäuerlichen Milieu bestimmten Grotesktanzes. Die via comica von Ilse Meudtner, das derbkokette Spiel zweier Kellnerinnen (Golli Caspar, Manon Ehrfur) mit dem Wirt (Michael Piel) und das zärtliche Liebespaar (Regina Gallo, Rolf Jahnke) seien als charakterische Beispiele herausgegriffen. Egks dramatische Tanzdichtung schließlich verlangte den Einsaß aller Register des Theatertanzes schlechthin: feierlich schreitende Schautänze mit ihrer bildhaften Gebundenheit, geschlossene Tänze solistischer Art von ausgeprägtem Charakter und (der Funktion von Arioso und Rezitativo in der Oper entsprechend) breit ausgespielte pantomimische Szenen – das ergab Kontraste, die Tietjen als Inszenierender und Spielleiter des Ganzen plastisch herausarbeitete Atmosphäre des Werkes abstimmte und dramatisch auswertete.” Emphasis in original. 2 This should not be confused with anything expressionistic, exemplified in a National Socialistic context by the work of Arnold Schönberg in music and art, Wassily Kandinsky in art. The National Socialist regime found such works distasteful and condemned them as entartete, “degenerate.” See Chapter 2.

168

find an audience. In the eighteenth century, French court culture invaded Prussia. Frederick the Great’s plans for Sanssoucci include notes in French, and French was the language of the Prussian court. The concept of a unified German identity did not emerge until 1871, after the defeat of the French by a unified German force in the Franco-Prussian war. By the early twentieth century, German ballet had organized itself into a network of schools founded on systematic training according to classic movements and principles. Enter modern dance. At the turn of the twentieth century, American Isadora Duncan had moved to Europe and declared the liberation of the human body, with its natural groundedness, contrary to the balletic illusion of lightness. In Weimar Era Germany, Rudolf von Laban and his pupil Mary Wigman had done the same. Laban and Wigman would become the two contenders for leadership of the German modern dance movement, and their primary foci would serve as the labels of their dance schools: “New German” versus “Absolute.” Because modern dance did not enjoy the educational infrastructure that ballet did, initial attempts to organize modern dance were fruitless. Egk’s associations with modern dance date from 1935 and 1936 and his work for the Berlin Olympics. In tracing the trajectory of dance in Germany from 1933 through 1936, numerous persons arise who would come to have close associations not only with Werner Egk but more specifically with Joan von Zarissa itself. Chief among them, at least for a while, was Rudolf von Laban, who through the skillful negotiation of National Socialist bureaucracy readied himself to usher New German Dance onto the global stage of the 1936 Olympics. Before he could do this, however, the caprice of Hitler himself ended Laban’s career in Germany. Egk’s Joan von Zarissa is rooted in this tumultuous time, when Egk made the acquaintance of various persons associated with New German Dance. Joan von Zarissa appeared after New German Dance had in essence danced its last. By 1941 the work of Laban would be all but undone and dramatic dance outlawed completely by Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda Josef Goebbels. Despite this tumult, or perhaps thanks to it, Joan von Zarissa triumphed inside and outside Germany. The tangle of competing dance movements, National Socialist bureaucracy, and the caprice of key National Socialists, from desk clerks to the Führer himself, created a framework that initially supported Egk’s efforts, later nearly undid them completely, and ultimately anointed Joan von Zarissa as a quintessential German dance work.

169

Modern Dance in National Socialist Germany

Historical Antecedents

Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman were not the only German proponents of the revolution in dance proclaimed by Isadora Duncan. In Weimar era Germany, numerous experiments in modern dance took place. The Russian-born dancer Lilian Karina, a student of Victor Gsovsky, the Ballet Master of the Berliner Staatsoper, enumerates various different schools. Among the first was the early twentieth-century System of Applied Aesthetics of Frenchman François Delsarte. This system became immensely popular in America and returned to Europe via Delsarte’s protégé Steele McKaye and dancer Ted Shawn. There, it influenced Isadora Duncan. Also important were Rudolf Steiner’s artistic movement system, Eurhythmie and Emile-Jaques Dalcroze’s similarly-named system of translating music into movement, Eurhythmics.3 These systems sought a liberation of the artistic movement of the body outside the carefully prescribed system of ballet. Similar efforts were made by the schools of Bess Mensendieck, Hedwig Kallmayer, Gustav Joachim Fischer, and Jutta Klamt, as well as the noted schools of Carl Orff and Dorothea Günther in Berlin and Munich.4 In the liberal atmosphere of 1920s Germany, the New German Dance movement asserted itself as the “true ‘art-dance’” free from the “drill or acrobatic exercise” of ballet. During a 1928 Dancer-Congress (Tänzerkongress) in Essen, three representatives of New German Dance, Rudolf von Laban, Mary Wigman, and Kurt Jooss, the founder of the Folkwang School in Essen, comprised a radical triumvirate of dance. Wigman’s exposition on “absolute dance,” that governed by movement only and not intended for the theater, was the most radical. Laban put forward the “choric artwork” (das chorische Kunstwerk), a Wagnerian concept based on community dance wherein the dance celebrated the ideals and spirit of the community from which the dancers came. This dance would come to bridge the gap between art and society and ultimately occur in dance temples specially designed for to this communal activity. Both Wigman and Laban sought the liberation of dance from professionals in the theater; dance was to

3 Lilian Karina and Marion Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, trans. Jonathan Steinberg (New York, Berghahn Books, 2003): 14. Dalcroze is described by Karina as an important school, but she gives credit for developing eurhythmics to Steiner. 4 Ibid.

170

be a natural activity of everyman. Kurt Jooss advocated a via media, a Dance Theater (Tanztheater) large enough to encompass Wigman’s absolute dance, but that retained the institution of the theater, “a historically-grown organization” with, not against, which it was necessary to work.5

Dance under National Socialism

In the years after the Essen conference and during the rise of National Socialism, the uniquely German aspects of New German Dance became the primary focus of the discussion of the reinvention of dance in Germany.6 Ballet displayed an international character, an amalgam of a century of French, Italian, and Russian contributions to the art. From 1929, Mary Wigman attacked ballet in a volley of articles culminating in her book The German Art of Dance (Deutsche Tanzkunst), an opening charge that Gustav Joachim Fischer Klamt and others later joined. Ballet, they argued, emerged from “the Latin and romance cultural traditions and was therefore un-German and antithetical to the German character.”7 When the New Germany awoke on 30 January 1933, it required its own dance, not that of France, nor of an international conglomeration.8 In 1934, Dorothee Günther called for greater unity of music and dance in the pages of Die Musik, a publication of the National Socialist Cultural Community (National- Sozialistische Kulturgemeinde), headed by Alfred Rosenberg. Rosenberg jockeyed with Josef Goebbels for position as cultural leader of the New Germany in the early days of the regime. In the course of her article, Günther contextualized French dance in Germany, both culturally and chronologically, pointing out that With the invasion of French forms [in the eighteenth century], the German dance convention, along with the German language, disappeared from society and peasant

5 Ibid., 89–90. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., 95. 8 The term “New Germany” refers to the Germany of 30 January 1933, when Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor, paving the way for the National Socialist takeover of power. The verb in this statement comes from the slogan Deutschland erwache!, “Germany, awake!” The slogan originated as a refrain in Dietrich Eckhart’s poem “Feuerjo,” later known as the “Sturmlied,” made public during the first Reichsparteitag (annual party-day for the NSDAP) on January 26, 1923. This slogan was also emblazoned on SA standards. For additional information, see Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Deutschland erwache!”

171

circles. The stage cultivated only ballet; old German exhibition dance was discounted as old-fashioned or even unrefined and coarse. So the German dance became ever rarer; today it is to be found only in very specific forms as a folkdance in a few districts. A few trade guild dances preserve themselves only like a reliquary, and the societal dance forms or exhibition dance forms are altogether forgotten and lost. The French dance style will never live in the proper sense in German people. In the eyes of the creators [(Urhebervolkes)] of these dances, these forms will always be danced poorly by us in society as on stage. Great art-dancers of this style have not arisen from the Germans. But when a people [(Volk)] for 150 years have cultivated an art of dance that contravenes its character, that does not lie within its type, it is no wonder that that people act in an un-dance-like manner and the capability for dance as well as the natural sense of movement expires. When we wish to find the dance-like person among the Germans, we must seek him in an epoch in which he danced in a style appropriate to him.9 Günther makes a clear delineation between “the French dance style,” more properly international ballet, and German folkdance, a dance innate to the German people. New German Dance would be the new incarnation of a truly German dance.

9 Dorothee Günther, “Brauchen wir eine stärkere Einheit von Musik und Tanz?” Die Musik 27, no. 2 (November 1934): 95–100. “Mit dem Einbruch französischer Formen schwand mit der deutschen Sprache auch die deutsche Tanzsitte aus Gesellschafts- und Bürgerkreisen. Die Bühne pflegte nur Ballett, alter deutscher Schautanz galt als altmodisch oder gar für unfein und grob. So wurde der deutsche Tanz immer seltener; er ist heute nur noch in ganz bestimmten Formen in einigen Landstrichen als Volkstanz zu finden. Wenige Zunfttänze erheilten sich nur wie eine Reliquie, und die Gesellschaftstanzformen oder Schautanzformen sind gänzlich vergessen und untergegangen. Der französische Tanzstil wurde nie im eigentlichen Sinne lebendig im deutschen Menschen. Diese Formen wurden in der Gesellschaft wie auf der Bühne, in den Augen des Urhebervolkes dieser Tänze, von uns immer schlecht getanzt. Große Kunsttänzer dieses Stils sind aus den Deutschen nicht hervorgegangen. Wenn ein Volk aber etwa 150 Jahre eine Tanzkunst pflegt, die seinem Wesen widerspricht, die seinem Typ nicht liegt, ist es kein Wunder, wenn das Volk untänzerisch wirkt und das Tanzvermögen sowie das natürliche Bewegungsgefühl erlischt. Wenn wir den tänzerischen Menschen im Deutschen wiederfinden wollen, müssen wir ihn in einer Epoche suchen, da er noch in einer ihm entsprechenden Art tanzte.”

172

After the National Socialist assumption of power, the discussion of dance as German underwent a tectonic shift. As opposed to the German-International dichotomy Günther argued, the distinction became one of German versus Jewish. With the promulgation of the Arierparagraph (“Aryan Paragraph’) of 7 April 1933, just over two months after Hitler was elected Chancellor, the exclusion of Jews from all arenas of work and public life began. All persons were required to submit Ariernachweise or Nachweise arischer Abstammung, proof of their Aryan lineage. Many within the dance community embraced New German Dance, making places for themselves within the cultural life of the nation, often enjoying the positions recently vacated by Jewish and part-Jewish dancers. In a celebration of the sudden importance of New German Dance as a vehicle of racial and national pride, many dance schools in Germany rushed to embrace the racist philosophy of National Socialism. Dance historian Marion Kant refers to this behavior as “self-Nazification,” where the dance community, though not required to do so by the state or Reich Culture Chamber “fell over themselves in proving what enthusiastic Nazis they had all become.”10 Whether or not the dancers had indeed embraced the tenets of National Socialism is a moot point. In ostensibly doing so, or professing to have done so, they could make places for their art within the strictures of National Socialism. Gustav-Joachim Fischer-Klamt is exemplary of this self-Nazification. Writing in 1939, he stated, The exclusion of foreign-race [(fremdrassig)] elements (of Jewish dancers as well as Jewish “critics”) is to be regarded as one of the substantive successes [of National Socialist cultural politics]. In the process, the elimination of Jewish critics, who influenced the whole of public opinion, was by far of greater import. He [the Jewish critic] controlled, that is to say, the entire German dance; exercised influence in association leadership; set up measures of value and took care to put down that which is characteristic of the German Volk as substandard; against which the foreign-race rejoiced in a more-than-benevolent care. The second fundamental success, Fischer-Klamt explained, was the “rescue of the whole dance movement from the hegemony of individualistic trends.” He continued,

10 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 91.

173

These two counterfoils—abolition of the Jewish domination in the area of dance, elimination of the liberal dynasties with their claims to power—are the two forward engagements of the National Socialistic order. As long as each holds to his own ideology, no uniformity of dance activity is to be accomplished. Those who do not persist in the old ideology must be won over for the challenge of the großdeutsche dance concept! We do not wish to battle against the people, but the ideology. This is the third great challenge of the newly-gained platform. It is a concern of the National Socialist cultural leadership to win over the proponents of foreign ideologies to the großdeutsch dance concept. We do not wish to quash this or that dance form. That is not possible. We wish to see, however, that the representatives of the separate forms recognize that they themselves are tied in old historical bonds, formed in foreign ideology; that they must see it their duty to develop a German dance proceeding from the National Socialist Weltanschauung and give to their dance this order, this face, this efficacy that expresses the Weltanschauung. 11

11 [Gustav-Joachim] Fischer-Klamt. “Die großdeutsche Tanzidee.” Die Musik XXXI, no. 10 (July 1939): 649–53. “Als einer der wesentlichen Erfolge ist die Ausschaltung des fremdrassigen Elementes (sowohl der jüdischen Tänzer als auch der jüdischen „Kritiker“) anzusehen. Dabei war die Beseitigung des jüdische Kritikers, der die ganze öffentliche Meinung prägte, von weitaus größerer Bedeutung. Er kontrollierte nämlich das gesamte deutsche Tanzwesen, nahm in die Verbandführungen Einfluß, stellte Wertmaßstäbe auf und trug dafür Sorge, dem deutschen Volk Arteigenes als minderwertig hinzustellen, wogegen Fremdrassiges sich einer mehr als wohlwollenden Pflege erfreute. Diese Maßnahme war nun die erste Voraussetzung zu einer arteigenen Tanzentwicklung. Der zweite große Erfolg nationalsozialistischer Kulturpolitik war die Befreiung der gesamten Tanzbewegung von der Vormachtstellung der individualistischen Richtungen. Diese zwei Abschnitte – Beseitigung der jüdischen Vorherrschaft auf dem Gebiet des Tanzes, Beseitigung der liberalen Dynastien mit ihren Machtansprüchen – sind die beiden großen Vorpostensgefechte nationalsozialistischer Ordnung. Solange jeder in seine Ideologie denkt, ist keine Einheitlichkeit des Tanzgeschehens zu erreichen. Diejenigen, die in der alten Ideologie nicht verharren, müssen für die Aufgabe des großdeutschen Tanzgedankens gewonnen werden! Wir wollen ja nicht den Menschen bekämpfen, sondern die Ideologie. Dies ist die dritte große Aufgabe von der neugewonnenen Plattform aus. Es handelt sich für die nationalsozialistische Kulturführung darum, die Träger der fremden Ideologien für die großdeutsche Tanzidee zu gewinnen. Wir wollen nicht diese oder jene Tanzart vernichten. Das ist nicht möglich. Wir wollen aber erreichen, daß die Vertreter der

174

In order to understand Fischer-Klamt’s appeal to German unity, it is helpful to bear several things in mind. The German dance world in 1939 was a tempestuous one. From the time of the Weimar Republic, various dance schools had been vying for control, those of Wigman and Laban primary among them. To these must be added the schools netted by the annexation of Austria in 1938, which explains Fischer-Klamt’s repeated reference to großdeutsch, “greater- German.” The word Großdeutschland (Greater Germany) would come to represent not only Germany but all the land acquired through the nation’s ascent in the first years of World War II.

Leaders of Modern Dance in National Socialist Germany

Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt and Otto von Keudell

From August 1933 Dr. Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt, the future dramaturge of the Olympic pageant Olympische Jugend, served as advisor to the Promi in matters of dance, owing to his “great expertise,” and was asked to “contribute to the urgent and necessary clarification of outstanding dance questions.”12 Niedecken-Gebhardt was also a friend of Mary Wigman, placing his expertise firmly in the camp of Wigman’s absolute dance variant of New German Dance. Though Niedecken-Gebhardt was involved in the early stages of designing German Dance, Reich Ministry of Interior Ministerial Councilor Otto von Keudell was more responsible for calculating the future trajectory of New German Dance. Otto Von Keudell was born in Rome in 1887 and made his way to Germany by 1925, when he joined the right-wing Deutschnationale Volkspartei (the German National People’s Party). Von Keudell belonged to the group known as “Those Fallen in March” (Märzgefallenen), opportunists that joined the NSDAP after the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933 and election of 5 March 1933, in which the NSDAP garnered enough power to pave their way for takeover.13 Two weeks after his conversion to Nazism, Von Keudell was transferred to

einzelnen Arten anerkennen, daß sie selbst als in alter geschichtlicher Bindung verankert, in fremder Ideologie entwickelt, zur Aufgabe der Entwicklung eines deutschen Tanzes aus der nationalsozialistischen Weltanschauung heraus hinfinden müssen und daraus ihrem Tanz diese Ordnung, dieses Gesicht, diese Wirksamkeit geben, die der Weltanschauung entspricht.” 12 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 94. 13 Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Märzgefallenen”. The term stems from the March Revolution of 1848 in which Berlin citizens, in an effort to have a more democratic Prussia join a united Germany, engaged in street battles with Prussian troops, leading to the death of many of their number.

175

the Promi “at the express and urgent request of the minister himself, Dr. Joseph Goebbels.”14 Von Keudell embraced his new position as well as New German Dance, “accepting without reservation the superiority of Ausdruckstanz and Laban’s theories and the practices of Laban and Wigman.”15 On 9 January 1934 Von Keudell made a case for the support and development of German art dance in a departmental note. In his argument, Von Keudell pointed to Rudolf von Laban as the founder of a “modern form of artistic dance in Germany, which has grown out of German preconditions.” The dance consisted of individual, group, and choral (another nod to Laban) activities of the Nietzschean “‘moving and dancing German man.’” According to Keudell, this man uses the medium of his body trained to be his instrument and draws such works from the depths of German emotional and spiritual life, and which can stand side-by-side with most of the worthiest works of art of other artistic areas and in the shaping of the festive and ceremonial in the life rhythms of the Third Reich which have an especially comprehensive role to play.16 Keudell outlined the struggle of New German Dance, “just at this moment being rejected unjustly and not by the public but by some members of the clique of theater dance enthusiasts (ballet).” Von Keudell rejoiced that “slowly but surely the dance creations of German art dance are beginning to overcome the all-too-stylized and soulless figures of ballet dancing in the great and culturally important dance groups in theaters,” but lamented that because of its opposition by ballet, New German Dance faced ruin. He exhorted the Ministry to aid “the four model schools of German art dance (Wigman, Palucca, Laban, and Günther).”17 The more important impact of this statement is that Von Keudell, a senior representative of the Promi chosen by Dr. Joseph Goebbels himself, here defined German art dance as

14 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 97. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 199–203. In Karina and Kant’s book, source documents (translated into English) are included, largely complete, in the Documentary Appendix. The primary note to which I refer is included as a supporting document to Document 5, housed in the Bundesarchiv, 50.01, 237. The larger document pertains to the establishment of a Reich Dance Week from 9 to 16 December 1934. Because of the centrality of the 9 January 1934 note, it is included in its entirety in Appendix B. 17 Ibid.

176

embodying the German spirit; as antithetical to ballet; as embodied by the work of Mary Wigman, Gret Palucca, Rudolf von Laban, and Dorothea Günther; and as that New German Dance specifically founded and championed by Rudolf von Laban since 1900. In a supplement to this note, Von Keudell added the names of dancers Harald Kreutzberg, Alice Uhlen, and her partner Freiherr Alexander von Swaine to the list of important people in New German Dance. Further, Von Keudell credited New German Dance with conquering “all European and extra European culturally advanced states (e.g., America and Japan)” and posited that “German art dance, which has advertised German culture in triumphal march abroad (e.g., America and Japan) could make German cultural propaganda à la Furtwängler with corresponding support.” He then outlined various measures by which that could be made possible. With subsidy by the Promi, Von Keudell envisioned New German Dance culminating in “propaganda for Germany’s cultural mission and development in Germany, in tours abroad, and above all at the Olympic Games in 1936.”18 In his 1934 survey Von Keudell delineated the camps of New German Dance, but he favored Rudolf von Laban. He neglected the American antecedents of New German Dance, namely Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, in favor of declaring Laban its founder since “about 1900.” Von Keudell was fond of Laban and his work, so the latter became the primary beneficiary of that bureaucratic benevolence. The relationship between Von Keudell and Laban is exemplary of the tangle of National Socialist bureaucracy and those who worked within it and under it: the arbitrariness and personal clout involved in elevating a leader; the reliance on individuals within the National Socialist regime for support, funding, and protection; and the caprice of higher-ranking individuals through which careers could be created or destroyed. These factors all contributed to the meteoric career of Rudolf von Laban, the “Father of New German Dance.”19

Rudolf von Laban

Rudolf von Laban was born Rudolf Laban in 1879 in Bratislava, then a provincial capital in declining Austria-Hungary. His father was an Austro-Hungarian general and acquired the aristocratic “von” in 1897. Laban’s early life is difficult to recount, as Laban often sought to

18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 97.

177

obscure his family lineage. As “Father of New German Dance,” it is remarkable that Laban himself was simply not German. His mother, she claimed, was born in Vienna, and Laban claimed that his father was descended from French Huguenots. Rudolf von Laban was trained at the Vienna Theresianische Militärakademie from 1898 to 1900, fulfilling his father’s wish that he become an officer. Laban refused to report for duty in the Great War. After the collapse of the Hapsburg Monarchy, he was stateless. Laban could have claimed himself Czecho-Slovak or Hungarian; however, Laban made the decision to be German. His military background may have engendered his love for mass-movement choirs, armies of dancers on parade. Germany gave him cultural and physical space to carry out his work within a new atmosphere that embraced New German Dance as innately German, though its champion was anything but.20 From 1931 to 1934 Rudolf von Laban was Director of Ballet at the Berliner Staatsoper. His tenure was not successful. Laban had a poor relationship with Generalintendant Heinz Tietjen and was unpopular as a result of the sweeping changes he made in the ballet program. Laban dismissed Balletmaster Victor Gsovsky because he was more inclined to ballet than to New German Dance. 21 He dismissed soloists, and the management repealed their contractual status. Finally, Laban favored barefoot dancing, which is incompatible with point technique. Luckily, Lizzie Maudrik, the future choreographer of Joan von Zarissa, had “given traditional point dancing a new modern actuality” at the Staatsoper and was allowed to stay.22 Her connection with ballet would be an asset to the Staatsoper after Laban left to direct his own dance organizations and activities. In 1934 and 1935 Laban directed two successful German Dance Festivals, the first of which was apparently the one identified by von Keudell in his 1934 memorandum. The festivals featured soloists selected by Laban on his various tours throughout Germany. They included Mary Wigman, Dorothee Günther, Gret Palucca, and Laban himself. They also included Ilse Meudtner, who danced in the premiere of Joan von Zarissa. By 1936, Laban had created the

20 Ibid., 98–100. Though Rudolf von Laban’s last name is properly “von Laban,” he is more commonly referred to simply as “Laban,” as is the case in the English translation of his 1935 autobiography, A Life for the Dance, trans. Lisa Ullmann (New York: Macdonald and Evans Limited, 1975). 21 Victor Gsovsky was husband to Tatiana (Tatjana) Gsovsky, who choreographed Joan von Zarissa in Munich in 1944, and in Munich and Buenos Aires in 1950. 22 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 14–15.

178

German Dance Theater, formulated and implemented national standards for dance competence, and established his Master Workshops as the central institution for training in and the development of dance.23 The German Dance theater was founded in 1934 and was modeled on Bayreuth and the cozy relationship it had enjoyed with the political leadership of the Wilhelmine Germany. Dance Examinations integrated both ballet and New German Dance, though the former was relegated to the position of historical dance, while Laban’s dance theories formed the core curriculum. As a marker of this asymmetrical relationship, all French ballet terms were replaced by the equivalent German, of course, the default language for New German Dance.24 In August 1935 Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels visited one of Laban’s summer dance courses. The operation met with his approval, and he wrote in his diaries, “Afternoon, Rangsdorf Dance School. Very entertaining. Laban does his thing well.”25 It is telling that Goebbels refers to the dance as entertaining as opposed to enlightening or something more substantive. The following year, Goebbels used the descriptor “intellectual” and trumpeted the end of Laban’s career. The Master Workshops opened in May 1936, with Laban as their Director. The workshops comprised two working groups, one for German dance and one for ballet. Lizzie Maudrik agreed to direct the ballet section for Laban, and Gret Palucca was placed in charge of the dance section. Through the creation and direction of these institutions, Rudolf von Laban established himself as the undisputed leader of modern dance in Germany. Mary Wigman, Laban’s former pupil, had been vying for leadership alongside Laban in these years; however, once Laban had consolidated his control, Wigman was relegated to second-tier institutions.26 The appointment of Gret Palucca as head of the ballet section of the Master Workshops is rather surprising, because Palucca was half Jewish. According to an early 1937 memorandum regarding the removal of Jewish personnel from the Reich Theater Chamber (Entjudung, lit. “de- Jewification”), Palucca had been given special dispensation to dance publicly despite her lineage, though she was forbidden to accept new pupils after 1936. Palucca’s fate appears to have been sealed by a terse parenthetical comment in the memorandum: “On the 31st of March 1939, the

23 Ibid., 105, 117. 24 Ibid., 116–17. 25 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I, 3/I, 281 (23 August 1935). “Nachm. Rangsdorf Tanzschule. Sehr unterhaltend. Laban macht seine Sache gut.” 26 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 112–13.

179

closure of the school will be effected, since pupils who will still be in dance instruction, will take their final examinations in that month.”27 Regardless of special dispensation, Palucca’s career had a terminal date of 31 March 1939. At this time, it was questionable whether or not she would last even that long. In the autumn of 1935 Palucca and her pupil Marianne Vogelsang danced for Hitler, Goebbels, Hermann Göring, and a small group of Schutzstaffel (SS) officers. In November 1935, Hitler, Goebbels, and Göring viewed a documentary film featuring Palucca and Vogelsang. Hitler found Palucca’s work too intellectual, which he disliked in dance, either ballet or New German Dance.28 This does not mean that Hitler disliked New German Dance: he was a fan of Leni Riefenstahl’s dance by the sea in the film Der heilige Berg (The Sacred Mountain, 1926).29 A transcription of a 1942 conversation elucidates Hitler’s view of Palucca’s work, along with that of Lizzie Maudrik, the Balletmaster of the Berliner Staatsoper and the director of the ballet division of Laban’s Master Workshops: Thank God [Hitler] had inspected the State Opera beforehand— that was danced philosophy; the ballet mistress [Maudrik] was a highly intellectual woman. Even more than her Ausdrucks (expressive) art the stuff Palucca did offended him. That was truly awful hopping around with distorted jumps, no aesthetic dance at all. Goebbels had dumped it on him, he had insisted so energetically and eventually persuaded him with all sorts of lively hand-waving to see the performance.30 Given the earlier comment concerning Palucca, Hitler’s dislike of the intellectual and philosophical in dance appears to have remained consistent in the seven years from 1935 to 1942.

27 Berlin Document Center, RKK:0002/03 trans. in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 262. The memorandum is undated and is written in response to a letter dated 27 February 1937. 28 Karina and Kant, 120. 29 Riefenstahl’s own account in the documentary The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, dir. Ray Müller, Omegafilm GmbH and Nomadfilms S.P.R.I., 1993. Riefenstahl, the director of Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will) and Olympia, began her career as a dancer and actress in the mid-1920s, with guest engagements as a dancer by 1924. 30 Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1942, notated by Henry Picker, 25 March 1942. Quoted in Lilian Karina and Marion Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 120. This material is absent in the German second edition of the book, Tanz unterm Hakenkreuz: eine Dokumentation, 2. Auflage (Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 1999).

180

The case of Gret Palucca is indicative of the caprice and the selective applicability of laws under the Nazi regime. Ostensibly, if the Führer did not care for Palucca, the National Socialists did not care for Palucca, in accordance with the Führerprinzip, the pyramidal system of organization with Hitler at the apex. As Germany’s dictator, Hitler’s personal decisions, and not only these, but his asides, murmurings, banter, and even jokes carried some weight of law. In the lower ranks of the organization, leaders of same rank but differing opinions or goals could emerge, such as Josef Goebbels and Alfred von Rosenberg in the struggle for control of Reich culture. Such battles could continue until they caught the attention of a bureaucrat at a higher level, either by a direct request for clarification or by roundabout hearsay. The supervisor would then intercede and decide the outcome and future direction of the matter in question. If the matter was not resolved, or if it went unnoticed by higher-ranking officials, conflict and confusion could continue indefinitely. While the Führerprinzip appeared to embody the Wilhelmine German value of Disziplin, the resulting bureaucracy was at best cumbersome and could be utterly ineffective. So long as artists had support, advocacy, and protection within the bureaucracy, they were allowed space to work. Without a bureaucratic support network, however, as was the case of Gret Palucca and the later career of Rudolf von Laban, an artist was subject to the whims of those in power. The displeasure of one powerful person could end that artist’s career. In the summer of 1936 Rudolf von Laban was at the zenith of his career and was poised to take the world stage: He was responsible for the organization of the dance program for the 1936 Olympics, Hitler’s platform from which to exhibit the strengths of the New Germany to the world. Additionally, Laban was designer and choreographer of the opening ceremony of the Nazi-classical Dietrich Eckart Theater.31 For what was to be the artistic pinnacle of the opening ceremonies, Laban created a “great ‘dedicatory act,’” Vom Tauwind und der neuen Freude (Of the Warm Wind and the New Joy). A preliminary iteration of the work titled The German Destiny had been approved through Otto von Keudell in the Promi in October 1935. Arrangements were made for some one thousand dancers to take part. 32 On 21 June 1936 Goebbels attended a rehearsal of Vom Tauwind und der neuen Freude and noted in his diary,

31 The term “Nazi-classical” refers to the style of neo-classic architecture Hitler favored for state buildings. 32 Ibid., 118–19.

181

Dietrich Eckart Stage. Dance-piece rehearsal: freely adapted from Nietzsche, a poor, affected, contrived thing. I am prohibiting much of it. Everything is so intellectual. I don’t like it. Goes around in our clothes and has nothing to do with us.33 Goebbels, having miscalculated Hitler’s reaction to Palucca in 1935, may have sought to avoid disappointing the Führer a second time. Since the 1936 Olympics were to be the showcase of the New Germany and its Führer, no such risk could be taken. Goebbels excised portions, and then the whole, of Laban’s magnum opus.34 Goebbels objected to the perceived “intellectualism” of Vom Tauwind und neuen Freude. “Intellectualism” was keyword and favorite target of National Socialists and dated from the National Socialist takeover of power in January 1933. In a celebratory speech for the occasion, Josef Goebbels pronounced, “German men and women, the age of pettifogging Jewish intellectualism has come to an end. The breakthrough of the German Revolution has also cleared the path for the German way.”35 The word “intellectual” emerged as a pejorative among the right prior to the advent of National Socialism and was used to attack rational analysis, the educated, and liberal and democratic attitudes. During the National Socialist period, the term was applied to “critically-thinking people (Kritikaster), insinuating lack of character and lacking ‘instinct,’ a ‘racially’-defined natural quality; as well as ‘decadent’ function of mind.”36 Alternately, the National Socialists held intellectuals to be “one-sided, mentally-stamped, overly critical, rootless [wurzellos], uncreative” people incapable of generating their own opinions but regurgitating what was told them by the Jewish upper class.37 “Intellectual” in National Socialist Germany was a negative adjective practically inseparable from “Jewish.” The people around Adolf Hitler were an immiscible suspension of the elitist, the intellectual, and the common. According to Albert Speer, Hitler’s upper-class intellectual

33 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I, 3/II, 113 (22 June 1936). “Dietrich Eckart-Bühne. Tanzspiele Probe: frei nach Nietzsche, eine schlechte, gemachte und erkünstelte Sache. Ich inhibiere vieles. Das ist alles so intellektuell. Ich mag das nicht. Geht in unserem Gewande daher und hat garnichts mit uns zu tuen.” 34 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 120–21. 35 The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl. Speech by Josef Goebbels. Deutsche Männer und Frauen, das Zeitalter eines überspitzenden jüdischen Intellektualismus ist nun zu Ende. Der Durchbruch der deutschen Revolution hat auch den deutschen Weg wieder die Gasse frei gemacht. 36 Benz et al., Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Intellektueller.” 37 Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, s.v. “Intellektueller.”

182

architect and later Minister of Armaments, Hitler’s cronies from the early party days in Munich were looked down upon by the intellectual Dr. Josef Goebbels. Hermann Goering, an aristocrat and fawning Hitler aspirant, looked down on Goebbels and the old guard. Heinrich Himmler, the zealous SS elitist looked down on them all.38 In Speer’s newly built chancellery, however, the party elites were seldom in attendance. Hitler surrounded himself with “people of the same origins as himself,” feeling at ease among those who often lacked higher education and had never traveled outside Germany. Speer recollected that “virtually none” of them “had distinguished himself by any notable achievement in any field whatsoever.”39 Hitler’s coterie were not intellectual in either the pejorative or literal sense. No wonder the intellectual or philosophical in dance, that which required effort to understand, was ill-received. Rudolf von Laban, who had embraced National Socialism, the promotion of Volksgemeinschaft, and New German Dance, faced the end of his meteoric career. So did Ministerial Councilor Otto von Keudell. On 9 July 1936, Keudell was transferred to the post of District Presiding Officer in Marienwerder in present-day Poland. He was replaced by Rolf Cunz, an “Old Fighter,” and member of the NSDAP since the early days of brawls in the streets and beer halls of 1920s Munich. 40 With the removal of von Keudell, Laban lost his advocate in the Promi.

New German Dance after Laban

Rolf Cunz was no advocate of Rudolf von Laban, yet Cunz did not completely undo Laban’s work. From August 1936 Cunz began a systematic review of Laban’s Master Workshops, denying various of Laban’s propositions, terminating the contracts of Laban’s assistants, and calling the Promi to examine Laban’s employment contract. Around this time, just when he needed most crucially to defend himself, Laban was admitted to the hospital for intestinal ulcers. At the end of August, Laban asked to be relieved of his duties as Director of the Master Workshops, and Cunz began to shape them according to his own ideals. Laban’s pupil Wigman was hindered by Cunz, who argued a flimsy case against her based upon his discovery that Wigman used several costumes that were not hers. The costumes belonged to the

38 Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 45. 39 Ibid., 121. 40 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 121–22.

183

State, and Wigman had neglected to report such on her tax return. She would never again enjoy a position of authority within New German Dance. At the beginning of 1937 Rolf Cunz was hospitalized for a detached retina, leading to a brief hiatus in his work of de-Labanizing Laban’s programs. The programs remained intact because Laban had constructed them in accordance with National Socialist ideals. Cunz merely assimilated them into the net of bureaucracy, an infinitesimally small sector of which he controlled from his desk. Cunz returned to work and, under pressure to show results, quickly ousted Wigman by July.41 Laban was out by October, for several reasons. Laban had taken up direction of his League for Community Dance after his hospitalization and organized events without the approval of the Promi. Citing financial mismanagement, Cunz took over direction of the organization and renamed it the German Dance Community. Further, Laban was denounced as a homosexual, a charge that was untrue; and as a Mason, which wasn’t. Without von Keudell in the Promi, Laban had no advocate to defend himself against the denunciations. More correctly, he had no “acceptance by the bureaucrats, which made defense unnecessary.” Rudolf von Laban was longer useful to National Socialism.42 Rolf Cunz, now the self-declared Reich Stage Organizer of Dance, took over direction of the Master Workshops as well, running them just as Laban and von Keudell had. Under the pretense of scouring the Reich Theater Chamber of Laban adherents, Cunz began a review of all its personnel, invoking the ire of its professionals, who were malcontent to let a Promi desk clerk, whatever his title, assess their personnel decisions. Meanwhile, Josef Goebbels began to tire of Cunz’s lack of progress in the renewal of dance in Germany, and he began to doubt that renewal was embodied in the intellectual New German Dance. Unaware, Cunz set his sights on reining in ballet, the stubborn theater dance that had to be brought under state control. Unfortunately for Cunz, Goebbels had turned to ballet. For the Minister, ballet was an alternative to the New German Dance, showing not “activity, but grace, harmony, buoyancy, color, no intellectual games, please!” Cunz irrevocably transgressed against Goebbels in December 1937, when he revealed that his research showed that dancing en pointe descended from a Russian form of torture and should therefore be banned as “un-German.” Through 1938, Cunz dissolved to a non-entity, and Goebbels assumed control of the Master Classes. In

41 Ibid., 127–30. 42 Ibid., 134–35.

184

December 1939 Goebbels appointed Hanns Niedecken-Gebhardt, the proponent of formerly- promising dancer Mary Wigman, as director of the Master Classes. In February 1941 Niedecken-Gebhardt was replaced by Rudolf Kölling, who restored the primacy of ballet. Ballet, unlike New German Dance, was never “danced philosophy,” something recognizable only by Goebbels’s adverse reaction to it.43 But even non-philosophical, non-intellectual, solely beautiful ballet, which Goebbels himself liked, was not immune to Goebbels’s own vacillations.

Egk’s Association with Modern Dance

Werner Egk was, from before 1936, at least circumstantially associated with the greatest names in New German Dance. In March 1936 Egk was present at the planning meeting for the opening ceremonies for the 1936 Olympics.44 The event brought together the most important figures in the New German Dance world, along with two of its foremost young composers, Werner Egk and Carl Orff. Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt, associated with dance in the Promi since 1933, was responsible for the general organization of the pageant Olympische Jugend. Gret Palucca danced in the second tableau, “Grace of Girls,” choreographed by Dorothea Günther. In the fourth tableau, “Heroic Struggle and Death Lament,” Harald Kreutzberg, with Werner Stammer and a chorus of sixty, danced a sword dance ending in the deaths of the two combatants. After, Mary Wigman danced her death-lament.45 As part of the extensive preparations for such a spectacle, Egk would at some point have collaborated with the dancers involved in the opening ceremony. The one name obviously absent is that of Rudolf von Laban, but it is reasonable to assume that he, too, would have been involved in the early preparations for the ceremonies, since Vom Tauwind und neuen Freude was removed from the program only five weeks prior to the 1 August opening ceremonies. The New German Dance representative with whom Egk was most closely allied was the choreographer of Joan von Zarissa, Lizzie Maudrik, the Ballet Mistress of the Berliner Staatsoper. Valued by Laban for her ties to ballet and its German reinvigoration, Maudrik was disliked by Hitler and Goebbels for the philosophical and intellectual qualities of her dance.

43 Ibid., 136–40. 44 Bundesarchiv, R8077/196. Dorothea Günther, who was responsible for choreography of those sections to music by Carl Orff, was also present at the meeting. 45 Carl Diem, et al., Olympische Jugend Festspiel, (Berlin: Reichsportverlag G.m.b.H.),

185

Egk’s associations with the New German Dance movement, beyond his association with Lizzie Maudrik, were not entirely circumstantial, however. Egk took an active role in the development of New German Dance in late 1942, after Joan von Zarissa had enjoyed successes in Berlin, Halle, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Chemnitz, Essen, Zurich, Vienna, Düsseldorf, and Paris. Early that year the Theater of Essen and Municipal Opera of Düsseldorf each performed a choreographed version of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony by Sonja Korty, a former member of Diaghilev’s Ballets russes.46 In February, the Generalintendant of the Theater of Essen received notice from Josef Goebbels himself that such performances, by composers of enemy states, were forbidden.47 The exclusion was not an isolated event. As World War II progressed, musical works by composers of the states against whom Germany was warring were systematically excluded from concert programs. Codified in the Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer (Official Memoranda of the Reich Music Chamber), the acceptable repertoire of German musicians, both in theater and opera and in dancehalls, perpetually shrank. In August 1939, Dr. Peter Raabe, the President of the Reich Chamber of Music had reminded its members that works by Jewish composers were designated unerwünscht (undesirable). 48 The earlier pronouncement apparently did not preclude musical groups from playing them, and the promulgation of National Socialist laws did not ensure their enforcement. Such was also the case with the German national anthem, Das Deutschlandlied. In early February 1939, Adolf Hitler decided that, as a “hallowed song,” the Deutschlandlied should be sung at a tempo of eighty beats-per-minute to the quarter note.49

46 Korty was the choreographer for the 1941 Essen performances of Joan von Zarissa. 47 Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 141–42. Germany attacked Soviet Russia on 22 June 1941, making a substantial ballet repertoire immediately forbidden as music of an enemy state. 48 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 6, no. 14/15, 47. “’Keine jüdische Unterhaltungs- und Tanzmusik’ Nach meinen Feststellungen spielen Unterhaltungs- und Tanzkapellen vielfach noch Werke jüdischer Autoren. Ich weise darauf hin, daß das Spielen von Werken jüdischer Autoren unerwünscht ist.” 49 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 6, no. 4 (15 February 1939), 9. “’Zeitmaß der Nationalhymnen’ 1 Der Führer hat entscheiden, daß das Deutschlandlied als Weihelied im Zeitmaß /4 = M 80 zu spielen ist, während das Horst-Wessel-Lied als revolutionäres Kampflied schneller gespielt werden soll. Ich gebe diese Anordnung des Führers hiermit allen Mitgliedern der Reichsmusikkammer bekannt. Berlin, den 6. Februar 1939 Der Präsident der Reichmusikkammer Dr. Peter Raabe

186

Unless local police officers and Gestapo agents were to run from event to event with metronomes in hand, this rule, albeit an edict from the Führer himself, would have been difficult to enforce. In the 1 September 1939 issue of the Amtliche Mitteilungen, the “First List of Undesirable Music,” including both scores and recordings, was published. This list included the broad-spectrum exclusion of the collected works of Irving Berlin and Fritz Kreisler; specific jazz numbers including Ellington’s recording of “Caravan,” Gaillard and Green’s “The Flat Foot Floogee,” and Sholom Secunda’s “Bei mir bist du schön”; the more comical “Meine Tante, die schwimmt wie ‘ne Flunder” (“My aunt, she swims like a flounder”) by Willy Bild-Sartory; the kitschy “Adolf Hitlers Lieblingsblume ist das schlichte Edelweiß” (“Adolf Hitler’s favorite flower is the simple Edelweiß”); “Swing low, sweet chariot”; and ostensibly nationalistic songs such as “Deutschland erwache, ‘s ist Frühling am Rhein” (“Germany awake, it’s spring on the Rhine”) by Otto Höser.50 On 2 September 1939, the day after the German invasion of Poland, the start of World War II, and the publication of the above list, Josef Goebbels issued the following dictum: Today more than ever, music has the great mission to uplift our people and to strengthen its emotional fortitude. For this reason, the programming of German musical life is to be adapted to the gravity of the present and the people’s sensibility. Cheerful music is in no way to be cut out; however, it is to remain free from disgracefulness and hyperbole in performance. I therefore order that works in opposition to the national sensibility, be it via the land of origin, the composer or in outward appearance, are no longer to be performed, but are to be substituted with others. Further, it must be ensured that a restriction of public musical activity, as is possible, does not occur to any great extent or that concerts are not cancelled without reason.51

50 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 6, no. 16/17 (1 September 1939), insert n.p. 51 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 6, no. 18 (15 September 1939), 55. “Der Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda hat am 2.9.1939 durch Fernschreiber folgenden Runderlaß an die Reichstatthalter, an alle Gauleiter und Gaupropagandaleiter (auch zur Weitergabe an die Städtischen Musikbeauftragten) gerichtet:

187

The edict simultaneously promoted and restricted musical activity. In November 1941, an article titled “Works of Enemy (feindländische) Composers” reminded Reich Chamber of Music members that the “performance of works of English, Polish, French, and Russian composers, with the exception of Chopin and Bizet (opera Carmen) is still forbidden, as before.”52 In February 1942, the list was expanded to include the newly declared enemy composers of the United States of America.53 In a surprising announcement in June 1943, the Promi relaxed the outright ban on French composers: As the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda conveys, no objections exist against the performance of works by the early French masters of baroque music, including Lully, Couperin, Rameau and others. In contrast, the public

‚Die Musik hat heute mehr denn je die große Aufgabe, unser Volk zu erheben und seine seelischen Kräfte zu stärken. Deswegen ist die Programmgestaltung des deutschen Musiklebens dem Ernst der Zeit und dem nationalen Volksempfinden anzupassen. Damit soll keineswegs die heitere Musik ausgeschaltet werden; sie ist jedoch freizuhalten von Würdelosigkeit und Übertreibung in der Wiedergabe. Ich ordne deshalb an, daß Werke, die dem nationalen Empfinden entgegenstehen, sei es durch das Ursprungsland, den Komponisten oder ihre äußere Aufmachung, nicht mehr aufzuführen, sondern durch andere zu ersetzen sind. Weiter ist dafür Sorge zu tragen, daß eine Einschränkung der öffentlichen musikalischen Betätigung nach Möglichkeit in nennenswertem Umfang nicht eintritt oder daß Konzerte nicht grundlos abgesagt werden. gez. Dr. Goebbels’” Emphasis in original. 52 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 8, no. 11 (15 November 1941), 42. “’Werke feindländischer Komponisten’ Aus gegebener Veranlassung weise ich darauf hin, daß die Aufführung von Werken polnischer, englischer, französischer und russischer Komponisten mit Ausnahme von Chopin und Bizet (Oper „Carmen“) nach wie vor verboten ist. Der Runderlaß des Reichsministers für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda vom 2. 9. 1939 betreffend „Programmgestaltung des deutsche Musiklebens“ (Amtl. Mitt. 1939, S. 55) wird in diesem Zusammenfang allen Mitgliedern und Dienststellen der Kammer nachdrücklich in Erinnerung gebracht. Berlin, den 4. November 1941 Der Präsident der Reichsmusikkammer” 53 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 9, no. 2 (15 February 1942), 5.

188

performance of works of later French composers such as Berlioz, Debussy, and Ravel is still forbidden as before.…54 In November, the admission of French works to German programs was limited to one-quarter of the program.55 After Goebbels’s reprimand of the City Theater of Essen, Reich Dramaturge Rainer Schlösser drafted an edict dated 8 December 1941, subsequently approved by State Secretary Leopold Gutterer, pertaining to artistic dance. In it, he declares the end of New German Dance as an independent entity: In recent times efforts have once again come to the surface that attempt to proclaim that the so-called modern expressive dance, as it is practiced by certain individual dancers or groups (chamber dance), is the one true “German” form of dance in contrast to classical ballet or stage dance in general. Such a view, in which the dying remnants of an individualistic mode of dance and a specialized aestheticism still make themselves felt, are to be resisted. The healthy development of ballet in the new Germany has already absorbed the useful element of the new dance movements and is based on the three fundamental aspects and training subjects: classical (point), national dance forms, and new artistic dance (expressive movement). These should not exclude each other as contradictory but grow closer in mutual augmentation. Without restricting the physical possibilities, that nature creates for dance (which also includes pantomime), the emphasis and main task of dance must lie in the presentation of cheerful, buoyant bodily feelings. Burdens of philosophical abstractions, interpretation of heavy symphonic music not originally written for dance or presentation of dramatic complexes, which without the spoken word

54 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 10, no. 6 (15 June 1943), 26 ff “’Werke französischer Komponisten’ (vgl. Amtl. Mitt. 1941, S. 42) Wie das Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda mitteilt, bestehen gegen die Aufführung von Werken der Alten französischen Meister der Barockmusik wie Lully, Couperin, Rameau, u. A. keine Bedenken. Dagegen ist die öffentliche Wiedergabe der Werke späterer französischer Komponisten wie zum Beispiel Berlioz, Debussy, und Ravel nach wie vor untersagt.…” Berlin, den 10. Juni 1943 Der Präsident der Reichsmusikkammer” 55 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 10, no. 11 (15 November 1943), 46.

189

or thorough study remain incomprehensible in every case, lead away from the road of a healthy development and can at best, insofar as strong cultural powers are behind them, be seen as limiting cases or transition forms but not as the real meaning and purpose of the cultivation of the art.56 The edict was an outright ban on dramatic ballet, anything with a plot, and was met with immediate disbelief and anger by the managements of various important theaters. On 15 September 1942 Werner Egk chimed in, writing to Reich Dramaturge Schlösser, I am receiving letters from all sides, which inform me that a prohibition has been issued not by the management of the German Opera House but by the intervention of the Ministry, which covers all more or less narrative-based dance works. Contracts already signed have been nullified as a result and an extension of the prohibition to all German theaters is in principle apparently being planned. I am extremely disquieted by these reports. Such a prohibition has no precedent and would amount to the extinguishing of an entire branch of art by administrative decree. It would further mean the appropriation without compensation of the work of German composers in a manner that cannot claim the most minimal justification by wartime need or other military necessities. I should be most exceptionally grateful if you would be good enough to let me know as soon as possible if the reports reaching me are true or not, or whether they are simply groundless rumors. It would of course be just as unfortunate if prevention of performances of works in the above mentioned category were to occur by other measures, however imposed, not necessarily involving a ministerial decree.…57 Egk had cause to chime in. Joan von Zarissa fell into the category of narrative-based dance work, and it was enjoying immense success within the Reich. The debate surrounding acceptable ballet continued, and by September 1942, even the Chancellery had heard the rumors of the ban on dramatic dance in Germany and demanded clarification. The Promi responded that there was still plenty of repertoire available, including Egk’s own Joan von Zarissa. In September, a certain Desk Office Lange addressed the “Ballet Problem” in a memo to Minister Gutterer, finally stating that “stopping ballets with dramatic plots would constitute a grievous interference in the program plans of theaters and publishers,

56 Bundesarchiv 50.01 238/1 in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 294–95. 57 Bundesarchiv 50.01 238/1 in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 295–96.

190

quite apart from damage done to several renowned composers, such as Richard Strauss (Joseph Legend), Werner Egk (Joan of Zarissa), Casella (The Big Jug), etc.”58 In an isolated document in the files of the Bundesarchiv, with the heading Promi Department Theater and dated 18 December 1942, there is an inventory in two sections. The first section is titled “Ballets of the Russian Ballet” and includes works by Berlioz, Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky. Since at least some of these composers were specifically forbidden in RMK documents, these ballets would fall into the “not acceptable” category. The second section, titled “Well Known Repertory Ballets of the German Theaters” includes works of numerous composers, with Werner Egk’s Joan von Zarissa among them.59 Joan von Zarissa had by 1942 been canonized in National Socialist German theater repertoire. The “Ballet Problem” remained unresolved until the 1944 Decree of Total War by the recently-elevated Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War Dr. Josef Goebbels.60 Goebbels declared that all theaters, the majority of all orchestras, and art and book publishers were to be closed in order for Germany to concentrate all efforts on winning the war.61 The development of New German Dance under National Socialism had come to an end.

New German Dance and the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk

Given Egk’s proximity to the New German Dance community, the presence of various of its most notable personalities in the works of Egk, the admission of Joan von Zarissa into the canon of dance acceptable to National Socialism, and the reception of Joan von Zarissa by contemporaries as something beyond ballet, Egk’s dramatische Tanzdichtung Joan von Zarissa may be regarded as an example New German Dance.62 But this label does not cover the curious presence of spoken and sung texts within the work. Joan von Zarissa is more than a dance work: it is a Gesamtkunstwerk, a synthesis of gesture, poetry, music, set, and lighting. Rudolf von Laban expanded the boundaries of gesture to include New German Dance and viewed his own work as an extension of Richard Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk.

58 Bundesarchiv 50.01 238/1 in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 296–99. 59 Bundesarchiv 50.01 238/1 in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 301–03. 60 Goebbels was named Generalbevollmächtigter für den totalen Kriegseinsatz on 25 July 1944. 61 Bundesarchiv 50.01 252 in Karina and Kant, Hitler’s Dancers, 307–08. 62 The reception of Joan von Zarissa makes it clear that the work was something beyond ballet, as do Serge Lifar’s descriptions of his production of the work. See Chapter 6.

191

According to Laban, Wagner had “a decisive influence on the art of movement,” in addition to being a “renewer and prophet of the arts of poetry and music.”63 Laban’s association with Wagner’s works began around 1921, when he choreographed the Tannhäuser Baccanale in Mannheim. Laban based his production on Wagner’s early writings on the “Nordic fantasies,” which had “nothing to do with the classical Roman dance-poem that Wagner later created expressly for Paris.” In the sketches, there were no Bacchantes or fauns, no images of Leda and Jupiter or any other figure of the Graeco-Roman world of gods. It was a witches-Sabbath with Nordic sacrificial rites and with Strömkarl, the demon of music, as the inciter dominating the whole scene. In this sketch of Wagner’s the passions were not stirred up by beautiful goddesses, but were represented as innate drives.64 In 1930 Laban produced the scene with seventy dancers on the stage of Bayreuth, confirming his opinion that “the new stage art must be rooted in the movement expression of the performer,” for only then did the “inner qualities of the characters become apparent in their full strength and beauty; only then do both the horrifying and the lovely stir the emotions and also become the symbol of deeper values.” At the same time, Laban rethought his “excessive rejection of a representational scene theatre,” when he saw the splendid productions of Bayreuth.65 Laban’s ascription of Wagner as a model may not have been wholly artistically motivated. By 1921 Laban had lost his homeland and declared himself German, but citizenship was not granted him until 1935. By declaring his art to be descended from that of Wagner, a parallel to Laban’s declaring himself to be German, he made another claim to the Germanness of his art. He made a place for New German dance in the New Germany, which prided itself on the German, and he made a place for himself as leader of the New German Dance movement, a leader descended from Richard Wagner. Even if Egk had not furnished the textual elements in Joan von Zarissa, the work may nonetheless be considered a later-generation Gesamtkunstwerk by its nature as New German Dance.

63 Rudolf Laban, A Life for Dance, 174. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid., 172–73.

192

Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk

The Gesamtkunstwerk as outlined in Richard Wagner’s Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (1849) and expanded in Oper und Drama (1851) emerges from the Gemeingeist, the communal spirit, of das Volk, the people. This fundamental concept is congruent with the National Socialist goal of art to cultivate Volksgemeinschaft. Laban’s work, focusing on mass-movement choirs, is likewise congruent with the National Socialist goal of fostering Volksgemeinschaft, literally moving bodies of people in order to move the people, das Volk.66 The model of Gesamtkunstwerk is Greek tragedy; in Wagner’s work, the orchestra replaces the chorus. Gesamtkunstwerk is the synthesis of dance (gesture), music, poetry, and visual art in the form of set design. For Wagner, dance was the “most realistic of all arts” whose “artistic stuff is the actual living person; and no single portion of the same, but the whole from heel to crown, just as he presents himself to the eye.”67 Dance unifies music, the heart of the “wholly artistic being,” with poetry, the head; and is brought to the level of art through rhythm, the “natural, unbreakable bond between the arts of dance and music.”68 Dance is categorically not ballet—ballet emphasizes only the lower portion of the body and is “merely art and not reality.”69 In Wagner’s view of opera, which should be the equal intersection of the three arts, music assumes a dominant role, forcing out dance. Ballets occurring within opera disrupt the drama instead of being integral to it. Ballet takes advantage of a pause for breath by the “songstress who makes the rules” to “splay her legs across the entire stage; dances sister music off the scene, down to the solitary confinement of the orchestra; and spins, swings, and whirls around so long, until the audience can no longer see the forest for the trees, i.e., the opera for the sea of legs.”70

66 Works for mass-movement choirs, including Egk’s Job der Deutsche (1933) are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2. 67 Richard Wagner, Kunstwerk der Zukunft in Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (n.p.: Adamant Media, 2005), III, 71. Facsimile of 1871 edition (Leipzig: C.F.W. Siegel). “Die realste aller Kunstarten ist die Tanzkunst. Ihr künstlerischer Stoff ist der wirklich leibliche Mensch, und zwar nicht ein Theil desselben, sondern der ganze, von der Fußsolhe bis zum Scheitel, wie er dem Auge sich darstellt.” 68 Wagner, Kunstwerk der Zukunft, 74. 69 Ibid., 78. 70 Ibid., 120. “Die Tanzkunst hingegen darf nur irgend welche Lücke im Athemholen der Gesetzgebenden Sängerin ersehen, irgend welches Erkalten des Lavastromes musikalischen Gefühlsergusses,—sogleich schwingt sie ihre

193

The orchestra comments on the action with its vocabulary of Grundthemen (fundamental themes) or leitmotivs. Poetry is the stuff of the drama itself, and the redemption of knowledge into poetry is “consummation of the knowledge of mankind.”71 To the three sisters, poetry, music and dance, Wagner added the role of the landscape painter. The painter’s “drawing, use of color, and warm, vivifying employment of light press Nature into service of the highest artistic purpose.” The spectator, through senses of sight and hearing, transports himself onto the stage, into the world of the consummate drama.72 According to Wagner, the communal work of the dancer, the poet, the musician, and the landscape painter yield the Gesamtkunstwerk. The requirement is more than the work of the three happening simultaneously: Wagner gives the example of Goethe being read aloud among statues in a gallery while a Beethoven symphony is performed. This does not constitute a cohesive artwork; it is, rather, an uncohesive mix. Similarly, a dramatic dance poem is more than choreography to a soundtrack—the music is inherently dramatic and unified with the dance; it is not incidental to either. The arts must also remain pure; that is, each art must remain the work of its dedicated artist. If an absolute musician, Wagner posits, attempts to paint, he creates neither a painting nor music.73

Joan von Zarissa as Gesamtkunstwerk

Joan von Zarissa was a collaboration of poet-composer Werner Egk, choreographer Lizzie Maudrik, and set designer Josef Fenneker, yet a contemporary critic remarked that “music, scene and choreography were bound in a unity of dramatic events in such cohesiveness as one has never before experienced.”74 The critic Elsi Jänecke expanded, “dance, pantomime, tableau and dramatic event form, with spoken word and the choruses, a unity that explodes the

Beine bis zu ihrer Ausdehnung über die ganze Bühne, tanzt die Schwester Musik von der Scene hinweg in das einzige Orchester noch hinunter, dreht, schwenkt und wirbelt sich so lange, bis das Publikum den Wald vor lauter Bäumen, d. h. die Oper vor lauter Beinen gar nicht mehr sieht.” 71 Ibid., 108. 72 Ibid., 152–3. 73 Richard Wagner, Oper und Drama, in Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (n.p.: Adamant Media, 2005), III, 71. Facsimile of 1871 edition (Leipzig: C.F.W. Siegel). 74 Nachrichten aus dem deutschen Kulturleben (Berlin) 13, 22 January 1940. “Musik, Szene und Choreographie waren zu einer Einheit dramatischen Geschehens verbunden, wie man sie in dieser Geschlossenheit noch nicht erlebt hat.”

194

boundaries of conventional ballet and approaches opera.”75 More correctly, Joan von Zarissa approached Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk. Of the Wagnerian roles enumerated above, Werner Egk was most obviously a musician. Earlier in his career as an accompanist to silent film, Egk likely became familiar with creating incidental music, soundtracks to film. His music for Joan von Zarissa was not incidental but instead represented a musician fulfilling his collaborative role in creating the inherently dramatic music necessary to achieve Gesamtkunstwerk. Critics of Joan von Zarissa were quick to observe this quality. Johannes Jacobi pointed out: The very theatrically effective music supports the dance setting wonderfully. The strict formal composition of the whole in four scenes framed by middle-French a cappella choruses and the musically cohesive composition of the individual dance numbers effectively bear the striking impact. The dramatic qualities of Egk’s music, perhaps lagging somewhat behind the opera Peer Gynt in pure substance, are startling not only in their dance rhythms; they lie just as much in the almost demonic tone, his suspenseful instrumentation and the keen, often oppressive forcefulness of melodic arabesques. 76 Fred Hamel noted that, in the music, Egk intensifies the dramatic to concentrated effects, the theatrical to tonal illustrations. When the booming steps of the approaching men-at-arms thunderously interrupt the tender flute arabesques of Joan’s love-dance with the girl Florence—then that is such a musical- theatrical vision of uncanny power. And so that the purely musical incursion might not always be of the same intensity, he always submits himself to the lapidary construction of

75 Hannoverscher Kurier 26, 27 January 1940. “Tanz, Pantomime, Bild und dramatisches Geschehen bilden mit dem gesprochenen Wort und den Chören eine Einheit, die die Grenzen des herkömmlichen Balletts sprengt und in die Nähe der Oper weist.” 76 Warschauer Zeitung 22, 27 January 1940. “stützt der sehr theaterwirksame Musik die tänzerische Handlung ausgezeichnet. Die strenge formale Komposition des Ganzen in vier von mittelfranzösischen a-capella-Chöre gerahmte Bilder und die musikalisch geschlossene Anlage der einzelnen Tanznummern tragen wesentlich zu der straffen Wirkung bei. Die dramatischen Qualitäten der Egk’schen Musik, die an reiner Substanz hinter der Peer- Gynt-Oper vielleicht etwas zurücksteht, erschrecken sich nicht allein auf die Tanzrhythmen, sie liegen ebensosehr in dem fast dämonisch anmutenden Klang, seiner spannungsreichen Instrumentation und der kühlen, oft beklemmenden Eindringlichkeit melodischer Arabesken.” Also printed in the Jenäische Zeitung 23, 27 January 1940, with attribution.

195

dramatic scenes such as the Lament, Rage, and Seduction of Isabeau in the second tableau or the downfall and death of Joan through wine, dice, and demonic hallucinations. And all of this against a background of dance-like rhythm, not grafted on by the percussion, rather fundamental to the character of the melody and its accompaniment.77 Unlike the incidental music that Egk had composed at the beginning of his career, this music is inherently dramatic and intimately tied to the drama of the dance-poem. It is fully integrated with the other art forms. In Joan von Zarissa, Werner Egk is also quite literally a poet. While he did not compose a libretto on the scale of Wagner, he did create ex nihilo the Prologue and Epilog of Joan von Zarissa. As a dramatist, Egk includes the “Homage” scene (No. 9 Die Huldigung) in the original version, to be danced without music, but integral to the plot, as it reflects the indignation of the rest of the court who must pay homage to Joan, the usurper. Additionally, Egk selected those texts by Charles d’Orléans that serve as the choral interludes in the work. In the Rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” Egk does more than select a poem: he inserts his own voice through the addition of three hundred thirty “la-la-las.” Finally, Egk provides copious stage directions in Joan von Zarissa. These detail the dramatic narrative by indicating its action and movements. In this way, the stage directions function as does the libretto in an opera; however, the drama is carried by movement instead of speech. It is not surprising that Egk would embrace the role of poet in Joan von Zarissa. Egk already had various literary works to his credit: the radio plays Zeit im Funk (1929, with Robert Seitz), Einundneunzig Tage (1930, with Robert Seitz), Furchtlosigkeit und Wohlwollen (1931), Der Fuchs und der Rabe (1932), Der Löwe und die Maus (1932), Die Historie vom Ritter Don Juan aus Barcelona (1932), and Columbus (1933); and the adaptations of libretti for the operas Die Zaubergeige (after Pocci, with Heinz Tietjen, 1935) and Peer Gynt (after Ibsen, 1938).

77 Deutsche Zukunft (Berlin) 4, 28 January 1940. “In ihr [die Musik] verdichtet sich das Dramatische zu geballten Affekten, das Theatralische zu tonmalerischen Illustrationen. Wenn in die zartern Flötenarabesken des Liebestanzes Joans mit dem Mädchen Florence dröhnend die Schritte der nahenden Gewappneten hereindröhnen – dann ist das so eine musikalisch-theatralische Vision von unheimlicher Schlagkraft. Und mag der rein musikalische Einfall nicht immer gleich stark sein: stets fügt er sich zum lapidaren Aufbau dramatischer Szenen wie im Zweiten Bild mit Klage, Zorn und Verführung Isabeaus oder im vierten mit dem Untergang und Tod Joans bei Wein, Würfeln und dämonischen Wahnbildern. Und das alles auf dem Hintergrund eines tänzerischen Rhythmus, der nicht durch Schlagzeug aufgepfropft ist, sonder elementar im Wesen der Melodik und ihrer Begleitung liegt.”

196

Egk also functioned in the Wagnerian role of visual artist, though to a limited extent in Joan von Zarissa. From 1921 to 1928 Egk created thirty-one artworks, mostly drawings. These include Augsburg Maximilianstraße, featuring a figure reminiscent of the work of Marc Chagall (see Figure 4.1).78

Figure 4.1. Werner Egk, Augsburg, Maximilianstraße, undated (1924 or 25). Werner Egk, Musik–Wort–Bild (Munich: Albert Langen Georg Müller, 1960), opposite 48.

Scheidungsprozeß (Ehescheidung) (Divorce Proceedings (Divorce)) of 1928 similarlyfeatures similar disproportionate two-dimensional figures with rigid limbs (see Figure 4.2).

78 Franz Roh, “Werner Egk als Zeichner” in Werner Egk, Musik–Wort–Bild. (Munich: Albert Langen Georg Müller, 1960), 310.

197

Figure 4.2. Werner Egk, Scheidungsprozeß (Ehescheidung), 1928. Werner Egk, Musik–Wort–Bild (Munich: Albert Langen Georg Müller, 1960), opposite 288.

Another of Egk’s works, a self-portrait from 1925, is reminiscent of the early works of Paul Klee (see Figure 4.3).79

79 Ibid.

198

Figure 4.3. Werner Egk, Selbstbildnis, Spring 1925. Werner Egk, Musik–Wort–Bild (Munich: Albert Langen Georg Müller, 1960), opposite 33.

Since Egk’s artworks date from the time of the Weimar Republic, it is not surprising that they reflect attributes of well-known artists of that period. But the nature of Egk’s work also begs the question of whether or not that association could have landed Egk’s work in the Entartete Kunst exhibition. In 1935 Jean Fouquet’s La Vierge et l’Enfant entourés de Séraphins et de Chérubins made a great impression on Egk and served as inspiration for the visual aspects of Joan von Zarissa, as did Fouquet’s miniatures in the Codex gallicus VI in the Bayerische Staatsbiliothek in

199

Munich.80 Egk did not attempt to use these as inspiration to fashion the set design for Joan von Zarissa himself, but instead referred a professional artist, Josef Fenneker, to them. In so doing, Egk obeyed Wagner’s guidelines. Were Egk, the absolute musician, to try to take on the task of the absolute artist, he would create neither music nor art. Egk guides Fenneker, but he himself does not paint. At the end of No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” as Isabeau first gives in to the advances of Joan, Egk specifies the exact moment at which a great “light-crescendo” should occur.81 Here, Egk is the artist, not of the plastic stuff of scenery, but of the “warm, vivifying employment of light” that Wagner mentions in Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft. Egk again specifies the nature of lighting to be used at the beginning of the fourth tableau. No. 14, “Wine and Dice Game” opens with light concentrated on a small table, the location of the games that cost Florence’s life, while all else remains in darkness.82 Light is also the primary image in Chanson II, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance,” an interplay of light, sun, and eclipse. Light becomes an important point of intersection between the world of the Gesamtkunstwerk and National Socialist Germany. The National Socialists often featured light at important events, such as Albert Speer’s “Cathedral of Light,” at the 1934 Nuremberg rally. To the chagrin of Goering, Speer requested and was granted the use of one-hundred thirty aircraft searchlights, placed at forty-foot intervals around Nuremberg’s Zeppelin Field. According to Speer, the sharply-defined beams of light were visible to “a height of twenty- to twenty-five thousand feet, after which they merged into a general glow,” giving the impression of “a vast room, with the beams serving as mighty pillars of infinitely high outer walls.” Speer cited the design as “not only my most beautiful architectural concept but, after its fashion, the only one which has survived the passage of time.”83 Light and flame were again emphasized at the 1936 Olympic games. The Olympia flame was kindled by sunlight focused and controlled by highly refined German optical tools, including

80 Egk, Die Zeit wartet nicht, 320–1. 81 Egk, JvZ, orig. version, 104. “Das große Lichtcrescendo soll erst auf die zweite Fermate treffen.” 82 Ibid., 182. “Auf den unteren Spielfläche steht ein kleiner Tisch, auf den sich das Licht konzentriert, während alles Übrige im Dämmer bleibt.” 83 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 58–59.

200

a reflector made by Germany’s Zeiss Optics. 84 The Olympische Jugend pageant featured both pyrotechnics and a prominent “Fire Hymn.”85 After 1 September 1939, though, the light images perhaps foremost in the minds many Europeans were that of Blitzkrieg, “lightning war,” and the defensive blackout. More proximate to art is an interesting incident recounted by Egk in his memoirs. Egk related that on the eve of the opening of the grand exhibition of German art at the Haus der deutschen Kunst, Adolf Hitler came across a painting of Munich’s Ludwigstraße by night, with its “plaster wet with rain, matte reflections of streetlights, house facades that faded into the darkness above.” Hitler, the painter and ideologue, ripped the picture from the wall and threw it into the corner, exclaiming, “‘With us there is no dark, rather only the radiant, brilliant day.’” Egk observed: “The light, the elevated, the lofty, the uplifting, that was correct.”86 Hitler’s affinity for light also applied to the theater. Hitler was a fan of Alfred Roller’s work for the 1903 production of Tristan und Isolde under the baton of Gustav Mahler at the Vienna Court Opera. In fact, Hitler had sought a meeting with Roller in order to gain advice for his art career. Roller agreed; however, the two never met because Hitler could not summon the courage to make it to Roller’s office. In his 1925 sketchbook, Hitler includes sketches for Acts II and III of Tristan und Isolde, basing his designs on those of Alfred Roller’s 1903 production.87 Of the Wagnerian roles available to the artist of the future, the only one that Egk did not avail himself to some degree was that of choreographer. Egk did not specify the movements of his dancers, though he did, as Wagner, specify important gestures and movements generally.

84 Large, Nazi Games, 3. 85 Olympische Jugend Festspiel, 10, 21. 86 Egk, Die Zeit wartet nicht, 306. “Der Künstler Adolf Hitler hatte dort [im „Haus der deutschen Kunst“ in München] am Vorabend der Eröffnung der großen deutschen Kunstschau ein Bild von der Wand gerissen und in die Ecke gefeuert, weil es die Ludwigstraße bei Nacht zeigte: Regennasses Pflaster, matte Reflexe der Straßenlaternen, Häuserfassaden, die sich nach oben im Dunkel verlieren. Warum um Gottes willen? Er sagte es selbst: „Bei uns gibt es dein Dunkel, sondern nur den strahlenden, hellen Tag.“ Das Lichte, Höhere, Erhabene, Erhebende, das war richtig.” Egk does not give the name of the artist. 87 Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, with a new introduction by the author (Woodstock and New York: The Overlook Press, 2002 and 2009), 223–24. For a detailed discussion of Roller’s work, see Steven Thursby, “Gustav Mahler, Alfred Roller, and the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk: Tristan and Affinities between the Arts at the Vienna Court Opera,” PhD dissertation, Florida State University, 2009.

201

The choreography of Joan von Zarissa was left to Lizzie Maudrik. While Egk was involved with New German Dance to a considerable, if at times circumstantial, degree, he left the choreography of his dramatic dance-poem to a professional dancer. In creating a twentieth-century Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, Werner Egk tapped into contemporary attitudes and nationalism. Hitler’s personal like of Wagner was known, promulgated, or assumed throughout the Reich. While this is true from the early days of the regime through the premiere of Joan von Zarissa in early 1940, the Führer’s tastes changed in late 1942. From the time of the German defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler abandoned his beloved Wagner, unable to endure the music he associated with a triumphant Germany. He preferred instead the distraction of the operetta Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) by Franz Lehár. Ironically, Hitler had denounced that work as “a pre-eminent example of artistic kitsch” in speeches in 1920 and 1922.88 But in 1940, Hitler still loved Wagner, as he did Bruckner, and, since some time in the 1930s, Franz Lehár. By invoking Wagner, Egk could have appealed to the one person who could fix Joan von Zarissa in the eternal canon of German art. Unlike Rudolf von Laban, Mary Wigman, Gret Palucca, or Lizzie Maudrik, as long as Adolf Hitler was a fan, Werner Egk would not have to worry about the capricious vacillations of bureaucrats who might declare Joan von Zarissa undesirable. By invoking Wagner and his ideals of Gesamtkunstwerk and by utilizing New German Dance, Egk grafted Joan von Zarissa onto the most German artistic rootstock, practically ensuring its success in the New Germany.

88 Ibid., 263, 233.

202

CHAPTER FIVE

MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF JOAN VON ZARISSA

Egk’s music is an extension of common-practice-period tonal music. It employs a large orchestra with a substantial percussion battery, but the orchestration is generally conventional. He employs various sound effects, vestiges of his earlier career in film and radio, to highlight the drama. The power and dance-like quality of Egk’s music are carried in its rhythm, the most primary of Stravinsky’s influences on the composer. Melody is fundamental to Joan von Zarissa, serving both to delineate form and to unify the drama. Egk’s forms tend toward the simple, a reflection of his rather informal music education. While Egk expands his chordal vocabulary beyond conventional triads and seventh chords, he very often retains functional harmonic progression. The music of Joan von Zarissa was accessible to contemporary audiences and so bound to the drama that it was inseparable from it. In Joan von Zarissa Egk favors the low-pitched instruments of the orchestra, especially bassoons and low strings. Additionally, Egk favors wind instruments in melodic roles, not the violins, which he often utilizes for accompaniment. Egk’s expanded use of winds was recognized by music critic Edwin von der Nüll, who confirmed that “whoever knows [Egk’s] music, recognizes his signature at every turn by the sound, the iridescent usage of the orchestra, the equipoise between winds and strings.”1 Egk’s predisposition toward winds is likely another vestige of his work in radio. Winds were often prominent in radio ensembles because their overtone-rich timbre was more easily broadcast than that of the less powerful strings. The inherent dramatic qualities of Egk’s music assert themselves most strongly in the battles scenes of Joan von Zarissa. For such scenes, Egk utilized a specific orchestration that features juxtaposed chords. The individual elements are often distinguished by timbre and tessitura and therefore reflect the engagement of two combatants or groups. In No. 4, “The

1 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 19, 22 January 1940. “Wer seine Musik kennt, spürt auf Schritt und Tritt am Klang, an der irisierenden Behandlung des Orchesters, dem Gleichgewicht von Bläsern und Streichern seine Handschrift.”

203

Duel,” Egk pits the flutes, oboes, trumpets, and trombones against the bassoons, timpani, and strings; a difference in both timbre and tessitura (see Example 5.1).2

Example 5.1. Battle orchestration in No. 4, “The Duel,” meas. 23–26.

In movement No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” the struggle between the Joan and Isabeau features two aggressive dogfights marked by contrasts in tessitura. Isabeau is represented by series of three chords played by flutes, clarinets, bass clarinets, horns, trumpets, violins, violas and cellos (see Example 5.2).

2 Unless otherwise specified, movement numbers cited in this discussion are those of the original version. See Figure 3.10 for a comparison of the movement numbers between the original and revised versions. The latter are the same as revised piano score.

204

Example 5.2. Battle orchestration in No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” meas. 70–81.

Though the group includes bass clarinets and cellos, it has generally a higher tessitura than its opponent. The difference in tessituras may be compared to the different tessituras of male and female voices, the voices of Joan and Isabeau. Joan is initially depicted by just the timpani and double basses, later augmented by oboe, English horn, bassoon, contrabassoon, trombone, tuba, and bass drum. The lower-pitched group ejaculates coarse, heavy tonic-dominant figures between the more dissonant gestures of the higher Isabeau group.3 The more functional stereotypes (V–I) of the lower voice reinforce the determination of Joan to seduce Isabeau, whose more dissonant line remains reluctant to conform to the tonal assertion. Unlike altercations between single figures, No. 12, “The Love-Dance,” limns a large- scale imbroglio. Here, the oppositional forces are substantial, as are the orchestrations that paint them. The horns, orchestral trumpets, trombones, tuba, and strings represent Isabeau’s men-at- arms. The clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoons, contrabassoon, horns, and eight backstage trumpets represent those of Joan. Here, the assignment of labels is based on the plot. Joan emerges

3 The assignment of the groups to the two characters is not specified in the score. This author bases his labeling on the tessituras of the two groups: the higher, female; the lower, male.

205

victorious from the melée—more correctly, he absconds with his new love Florence under the protection of his troops—while Isabeau commits suicide. A fanfare that becomes associated with Joan accompanies the victors.4 The rhythmic elements of Joan von Zarissa were often highlighted by contemporary critics. Music critic Johannes Jacobi wrote, [Egk’s music] is dance-like to a high degree, twitching throughout from the incisive rhythms which have always been Egk’s strong suit. [Rhythm] reveals its countenance principally in the theatrics and through the orchestral tone. It is imprinted less in the thematic substance—and in this regard perhaps lags behind Egk’s Peer Gynt—more meaningful are rhythm and tone.5 Critic John W. R. Hellmann provided a more detailed description in the Hamburg Mittagsblatt: For this [Don Juan] material, which stands closer to Mozart’s opera than to the Gluck ballet and in part infringes on the realm of Shakespearean demonic possession, Werner Egk (as the composer of the unfortunately too-little performed Zaubergeige of which we still have fond memories) wrote a music that obviously receives its strongest impetus from the early works of Stravinsky and nonetheless often hints at the Bavarian parentage of its creator, especially in the refined application of all instrumental media, fundamentally tänzerisch from beginning to end, in its elemental, not to mention primitive, display of rhythmic strength.6

4 The fanfare is further discussed later in this chapter. 5 Neuköllner Tageblatt 19, 23 January 1940. “Sie [Egks Musik] ist in hohem Grade tänzerisch, durch zuckt von den prägnanten Rhythmen, die stets die Stärke Werner Egks gewesen sind. Erst auf dem Theater und durch den Orchesterklang entschleiert sie ihr Gesicht. Es ist weniger durch die thematische Substanz geprägt – und steht in dieser Hinsicht vielleicht hinter Egks „Peer Gynt“ zurück –, bedeutungsvoller sind Rhythmus und Klang.” 6 John W. R. Hellmann, Mittagsblatt (Hamburg), Dec. 6, 1940. “Zu diesem [Don-Juan] Stoff, der eher der Oper Mozarts näher steht als dem Gluckschen Ballett und teilweise in die Bezirke Shakespearescher Dämonie verstoßt, schrieb Werner Egk (als Komponist der leider so wenig gespielten „Zaubergeige“ uns noch in bester Erinnerung) eine Musik, die von den früheren Arbeiten Strawinskis her offenbar die stärksten Impulse empfangen hat, besonders auch hinsichtlich der raffinierten Anwendung aller instrumentalen Mittel, die, vom Anfang bis zum Ende tänzerisch empfunden, in der elementaren, um nicht zu sagen primitiven Kraftentfaltung ihrer Rhythmik jedoch die bajuvarische Abkunft ihres Schöpfers oftmals durchblicken läßt.” N.B. The term bajuvarisch refers to the peoples populating present-day southern Bavaria south and east through Austria identified by their dialect. The term here connotes the quintessentially Bavarian.

206

By placing the dance-poem in the company of Stravinsky’s ballets, Hellmann conjures the specters of cultural bolshevism and degenerate music. By mentioning Die Zaubergeige, he does the exact opposite—he invokes Volkstümlichkeit and paints Egk as a model New German composer. Interestingly, mixed or obfuscated meters are common to both these disparate styles. Many movements of Joan von Zarissa feature mixed meters. In most cases, Egk juxtaposes groups of two and three pulses, either at the metric, e.g., the 2/4 and 3/4 of the Prelude; or at the sub-metric level, e.g., the division of sixteenth notes in the 3/8 section of No. 1, “Procession.” The latter excerpt merits further discussion. As the procession of the captured Moors begins (meas. 21), the 3/8 meter is broken into divisions of three and two sixteenth-note units (see Example 5.3).

Example 5.3. Joan von Zarissa, No. 1, “Procession,” meas. 21–28.

This is again the Bavarian Zwiefacher dance rhythm, an important element of Egk’s 1935 opera Die Zaubergeige. In Joan von Zarissa the rhythm appears in conjunction with the captured Moors, led by their prince and princess, “deplorable despite their barbaric finery,” in the company of a “chained and beastly hairy savage.” Here, the rhythm signifies not so much the folk character of the captives, but rather their savage status compared to the refined nature of the

207 court. The characterization continues into No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women,” emphasizing the idea that even the Most Beautiful among the Moors is still savage. Melody is a crucial element of Joan von Zarissa. Through juxtaposition, repetition, and variations of various melodies, Egk delineates the structural forms of individual movements and unifies the drama as a whole. The forms of individual movements of Joan von Zarissa are usually constructed of clearly-defined sections featuring particular themes. Many movements present and alternate one or more themes, resulting in rondo-like structures. For example, No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” features the presentation of two themes of four and six bars, respectively. The first of these is an open-ended melody-countermelody pair treated as a single unit and furnished with a variety of closing formulas. The second is a closed unit spanning a descending octave. These are interspersed with the sequential palindromic dogfights described earlier (see Figure 5.1).

1 19 31 35 39 43 59 65 A A B A B Dogfight (top parts) e: ii V i i /\/\/ III /\/\/ i i a–b¨–C–d, d–C–b¨–a; E–B–E in bass

81 84 92 100 116 119 135 151 Flutter- A B Dogfight Flutter- A (Closing) B Closing tongue (top parts) tongue a: N + V i d–C–b¨–a, e: N + V V–i i a–b¨–C–d; E–B–E in bass

Figure 5.1. Form of No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage.”

This movement also features a curious formal element that Egk employs elsewhere in Joan von Zarissa: a sonic event as a form delineator. After each of the dogfights in the above movement, Egk orchestrates a fortissimo flutter-tongued stinger across the winds. These sound effects elevate the tension of the movement at the same time that they serve as half cadences. Such chords, along with tuckets and other illustrative sound effects, are remnants from Egk’s career as

208

a film accompanist and radio composer.7 Melody-driven forms such as that of No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage” are quite prevalent in Joan von Zarissa. Egk constructs nine other movements along these lines.8 Movement No. 6, “Isabeau’s Lament,” exhibits a similar melody-driven character. Against an ostinato background in the low strings, violins, horns, celesta, and harp, the clarinets (chalumeau register), the bass clarinet, bassoons, violas, and cellos present the melody. A solo flute presents the second phrase of the melody against another ostinato pattern in the same accompanimental voices; the third phrase is taken by the English horn; the last, by the bass clarinet, accompanied by sighing violins. Movement No. 3, “Dance of the Fool,” is a recitative- and-aria-based form. The movement opens with a rhythmically free recitative by the clarinet. The melody is derived from a theme of the preceding movement and punctuated by muted strings. The aria is a triadic Puppet theme. After the Puppet, with whom Lefou has fallen in love, is again hoisted upward, Lefou mourns to a second recitative based on new material. The metered Puppet theme returns with the puppet at the end of the movement. No. 11, “Pantomime,” is a variation-based form (see Figure 5.2). After an opening theme associated with the Beast (U, Ungeheuer), the Townsfolk theme (B, Bürger) is presented in three variants.9 A restatement of the Beast theme and the appearance of the Hero mark the end of the movement, rounded out by material based on the Townsfolk theme.

7 A stinger is a common dramatic element of film scores and consists of a strongly articulated note or chord that accompanies a violent or significant action. A tucket is a short fanfare figure that announces an important figure or event. 8 Movements No. 1, “Procession”; No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women”; No. 8, “The Seduction of Isabeau”; Chanson II, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance”; No. 12, “The Love-Dance”; Rondeau, “Vous y fiez vous?”; No. 14, “Wine and Dice Game”; No. 15 “Appartitions”; and the Rondeau-Finale. 9 The labels of the themes are taken from the German stage directions to facilitate their location in the score. For example, the “Beast” (Ger., Ungeheuer) theme is labeled “U,” not “B”; the “Townsfolk” (Ger., Bürger) theme, “B,” not “T.”

209

1 14 20 26 28 32 38 40 46 58 70 U Drum B1 ext. Drum B2 ext. B3 U Hero B Motive Roll Roll Tucket (Parallel triads) Closing function e: [1–5–1] i V7 [5–1] b: II i e: E: e: V I (e: v)

Figure 5.2. Form of No. 11, “Pantomime.”

In this movement, as in No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” Egk uses a sound effect to help delineate form. Instead of a flutter-tongue stinger, he uses a drum roll. Four movements of Joan von Zarissa are combinations of melody-driven sectionalized form and variation form.10 In these movements, themes are juxtaposed with one another and may appear in their prime or in varied forms. No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women,” provides the best example of Egk’s combination of the two forms (see Figure 5.3). After an introduction featuring the theme associated with the hairy savage (BW, behaarter Wilder) from No. 1, “Entrance,” and an effect to accompany the opening of the large on-stage peacock, out of which the Most Beautiful steps, the Most Beautiful (S, Die Schönste der gefangenen Maurinnen) theme is presented, followed by a simpler variant, making this a theme- and-variation form up to this point. After a flutter-tongued chord marks a formal stop, the Voluptuous theme (W, wollüstig) marks the beginning of the transformative dance of the Most Beautiful. Here, the flutter-tongued chord may be considered part of the Voluptuous theme: its jarring brashness marks the entrance of the theme associated with, as the people of the court see it, the degradation of the Most Beautiful. The distance between high court culture and the low estate of the naked Most Beautiful is reinforced by the musical movement from E minor through E Major to B-flat major, the most remote key, a tritone away.

10 Movements No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women”; No. 4, “The Duel”; No. 5, “Honor Dance”; and No. 10, “Opening Dance.”

210

1 34 42 56 83 89 112 126 BW Peacock S1 S2 Flutter- W Flutter- W (from No. 1) Effect tongue tongue† e: F pentatonic F: F-9/+5/5 Bb: I add 6– F-9 Bb: I add 6– IV6/9–ii–V9 IV6/9–ii

149 159 186 192 215 230 233 S3 S4 Flutter- W S5 Naked Coda tongue† E Lydian- E: E11 Bb: I add 6– E: I IM7 Mixolydian IV6/9–ii

† The flutter-tongued chords in meas. 112 and 186 do not appear as such in the revised piano score. In the original and revised versions, however, they are clearly marked “Flutterzunge.”

Figure 5.3. Form of No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women.”

Various themes corresponding to characters or actions serve as unifiers of the drama and encourage recollections at pertinent points. That is, they function similarly to Wagner’s leitmotivs. For example, No. 13, “Perette’s Wrath,” contains no new melodic material but rather continues the set of variations begun in No. 10, “Opening Dance.” In the earlier movement, the court dance, headed by the usurper Joan, is marked by a stately melody and countermelody pair, the Court “theme” (H, Hof). As Lefou enters, his dance is musically interrupted by variations on two themes (LA & LB, Lefou A & B), in D major and in E minor (see Figure 5.4).

1 17 25 33 41 49 57 66 69 81 91 Introduction H Interlude 1 H Interlude 2 H Interlude Ext. LA1 LB1 LA2 3 F ------D E e D

105 119 133 147 165 180 185 195 201 209 LB2 LA3 LB3 LA4 Ext. H Interlude 2 H Coda e D e D /\/\/\/ V/Bb Bb ------

Figure 5.4. Form of No. 10, “Opening Dance.”

No. 13, “Perette’s Wrath,” resumes the dramatic interplay between Lefou and Perette begun in the “Opening Dance” movement. Musically, the variations on Lefou’s two melodies continue, in their original keys (see Figure 5.5).

211

1 17 31 45 59 72 LA7 Cadence and LA5 LB4 LA6 LB5 (Closing) Extension D e D e D: I–V–I V9–I

Figure 5.5. Themes and keys in No. 13, “Perette’s Wrath.”

In addition to unification by melodic variation, Egk utilizes melodic quotation to unify the entirety of Joan von Zarissa. In the revised “Apparitions” scene (No. 14), the specters of Isabeau and Florence, both dead, confront Joan with his past deeds: Joan’s battle with and murder of the Iron Duke; his usurpation of the Duke’s throne and seduction of Isabeau; and his abduction of Florence.11 Egk brings together melodies from earlier in the dance-poem together in a musical illustration of those misdeeds (see Figure 5.6).

1 4 19 29 57 Introduction Court Theme (No. 10) Flutist Theme Battle Theme New Mateiral (No. 12) (Nos. 4 and 5) Bb: V-9 Bb B B (Mixolydian) B (Lydian-Mixolydian) -- Joan’s usurpation Abduction of Florence Murder of the Iron Duke -- of throne; Isabeau’s suicide Enticement of Isabeau

81 89 106 120 “Vous y fiez vous?” “La-la-la” Theme “Vous y fiez vous?” Theme Theme (Rondeau) & (Rondeau) Dies irae g# Cb: ii7–I add 2 Db Db: vi7–V add 2–I M7 ------

Figure 5.6. Themes and keys in No. 14, “Apparitions,” the final movement of the revised version of Joan von Zarissa.

11 The “Apparitions” movement of the original Joan von Zarissa and the revised Joan von Zarissa vary considerably. In the original version, “Apparitions” (No. 15) includes a reminiscence of Joan’s first attempt to seduce Isabeau from No. 5, “The Honor-Dance,” the Dies irae, and the themes from the Rondeau. It does not recall the murder of the Iron Duke (No. 5) through the use of the Battle Theme, nor does it recall the Court Theme of No. 10, “Opening Dance”; nor does it recollect the Flutist Theme from No. 12, “The Love-Dance.” In the revised version, “Apparitions” (No. 14) is the final movement, a tragic close with a moral in music. In the original, the resolution of the entire drama relied on a moralizing spoken Epilog, followed by the ebullient Rondo-Finale that effectively dissolved any remnants of tragedy.

212

Egk also includes both the “Vous y fiez vous?” and “La-la-la” themes of the Rondeau between the third and fourth tableaus. These appear simultaneously with the Dies irae at the point at which Joan collapses, the victim of the specter of the Iron Duke. While these do not bring distinct dramatic actions to mind, they do remind the audience of the moral expounded by the choir and intoned by the Dies irae: that blindly trusting in the world leads to death. Egk employs various sound effects to depict characters and actions within Joan von Zarissa as well. That is, Egk composes short, non-functional snippets that illustrate the action of the drama. These gestures emanate from the illustrative side of Egk’s writing, the effective side, the non-inherently-dramatic side. The first instance of sound effect writing appears in No. 4, “The Duel.” Three effects follow in quick succession as the duel between the knight and Joan comes to an end (see Example 5.4). In measure 77, Joan hoists a large two-hander sword, to the accompaniment of a disjunct ascending line that parallels the ascent of the sword. The zenith of both the sword and the musical line are capped with a D# + E + F stinger as Joan attacks. As the knight’s sword falls, so does the musical line, chromatically from E¨4 to E¨2. After the Battle

theme reappears one final time, an A¨2 tremolo announces the preparation of the coup de grâce, a single eighth note on the same pitch.

213

Example 5.4. Joan von Zarissa, No. 4, “The Duel,” meas. 77–89.

Stingers and other alarms highlight some of the most dramatic moments in the work. The most illustrative of these occurs at the end of No. 8, “The Seduction of Isabeau.” The triptych of

214

the third tableau begins with No. 6, “Isabeau’s Lament,” during which Joan encounters the Duchess and initiates his seduction. Things go awry for Joan in No. 7, “Isabeau’s Rage,” but he persists. In No. 8, he finally wins over Isabeau. Egk foreshadows the unhappy ending of this seduction near the end of the movement. As Joan encircles Isabeau with his arms, the horns sound a fortissimo minor third high in the instrument’s range, an alarm alerting all but Isabeau of the moral–and mortal–jeopardy in which she places herself. According to critic Alfred Burgatz, Egk was a “Don Juan who makes eyes at the tonal and the ‘atonal.’”12 Critic Walter Abendroth remarked that Egk’s music “wallows in grating tones of audacious recklessness,” and critic Heinz Joachim disparaged the “travestied undertone” he heard in Egk’s music for Joan von Zarissa.13 While hyperbolic, these comments pointed to several harmonic traits of Joan von Zarissa. Egk works within an essentially tonal framework, but makes various forays into a wilder musical landscape. Egk grafts seconds, sevenths, and fourths onto functional harmonies for color and interest. The added sonorities also contribute to the dramatic character of Joan von Zarissa. An example of conventional functional stereotypes, No. 4, “The Duel,” opens in A-flat with dorian inflection, progressing i | IV | i in its first measures. Egk expands conventional progressions such as these in No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women.” The variations of the Most Beautiful of the Captured Moorish Women begin in F major. The accompaniment of the next twenty-seven bars appears to oscillate between the tonic and dominant; however, the harmonies themselves are not as straightforward as the ear makes them seem. Egk flavors the tonic with an added second, and the dominant sonority is built of the pitches C + E + F + G + B¨ + D, a V9 with an added fourth. Listeners likely interpret the latter as a first-inversion dominant seventh chord with an added second, since E is consistently used in the bass. The added pitches color the dominant sonority but do not obscure its perceived function.

12 Berlin Illustrierte Nachtausgabe 18, 22 January 1940. “Musikalisch – hochinteressant – ist Egk bei den Jungrussen, der Gruppe um Rimsky-Korssakow (und seiner „Scheherezade“) angelangt, plus dem heutigen, modernen Einschlag. Er ist ein Don Juan, der mit dem Tonalen und dem „Atonalen“ liebäugelt.” 13 Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger 19, 23 January 1940. “… schwelgt in Klangreibungen von kühnster Rücksichtslosigkeit.” Frankfurter Zeitung (Reichsausgabe) 39/40, Jan. 23, 1940. “… travestierende Unterton der Musik …”

215

Egk also expands common-practice harmonic convention through the obfuscation of key. Measures 17–25 of No. 10, “Opening Dance,” present the Court theme discussed above. While the melody is diatonic in F major and accompanied by inner voices in F major, the bass seems to assert D minor (see Figure 5.7).

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 F: I or vi7 IV add 6 V add 4 vi7 iii7 I9/-7 -- -- I6 ii6/5 V7 I add 7 or vi9 -- IV7 add 4 V9 add 4 IM7 Bass: D D G D D (passing)

Figure 5.7. Obfuscation of key in No. 10, “Opening Dance”

Egk avoids closure until the cadence in measure 29 and asserts D in the bass in measures 17, 21, 25, and 26. While Egk usually relies on conventional major and minor modes, he occasionally uses other modes, sometimes mixing them. For example, No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women,” discussed earlier is in Lydian-Mixolydian mode at measure 149 ff. In No. 3, “Dance of the Fool,” Egk relies on mode mixture: the scale on which the movement is based comprises the pitches E¨–F–G–A¨–B¨–C¨–D¨–E¨; ambiguously either A¨ melodic minor or E¨

natural minor with a raised mediant (or E¨ mixolydian with a lowered submediant). Additionally,

in No. 1, “Procession” measures 55 ff. are in the “Arabic” minor scale: C–D–E¨–F©–G–A¨–B– C. Egk does more in Joan von Zarissa than expand a functional system through added tones, false-bass harmonies, and mode mixture. At several points in the dance-poem, Egk abandons functional harmony in favor of successions of static blocks of tone. This style is most conspicuous in the choral interludes in Joan von Zarissa. The two chansons and rondeau feature the juxtaposition of different key areas or sonorities, without substantial harmonic progression within them. The first chanson, “C’est grant paine,” oscillates between G major and E-flat major, each profusely decorated with added tones. The second chanson, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance” alternates units of G minor and D major. Unlike the chansons, the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” relies on the juxtaposition of the individual sonorities b¨7, A¨ add 2, and A¨7 (at the “la-la-la” sections) rather than key areas.

216

No. 6, “Isabeau’s Lament,” is the first of several movements in which an ostinato accompaniment supports a melody. Here, the phrases of the melody are separated and separately orchestrated: the first phrase, for an ensemble comprising clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, viola, and cello (m. 8); the second, for flute (m. 28); the third, for English horn (m. 44); and the fourth, for bass clarinet (m. 50). For the first phrases, Egk provides an ostinato of two alternating sonorities, e¨ add 2 and C¨ add 4. The second is accompanied by an ostinato alternating E¨–B¨–F

and E¨–C¨–F simultaneities. The third phrase is accompanied by yet another ostinato of

alternating fØ7 and B¨9. The ostinati of the first three phrases are absent in the fourth, presented

over a pedal point on E¨. Soft B¨s are furnished by the pianissimo tubular bells, piano timpani,

and celesta. Sighing figures in the strings introduce slowly undulating E¨–F triplets in the horns. The most conspicuous element of Egk’s harmonic language in Joan von Zarissa is his sparing use of major mode. Egk composes in forthright major mode rarely within the dance- poem: at the nakedness of the Most Beautiful in No. 2, “Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women”; at the arrival of the Hero in No. 11, “Pantomime”; and in the concluding “Rondeau-Finale,” No. 15 in the original Joan von Zarissa. In the first instance, the Most Beautiful dances to four variations of her theme, becoming ever more feral, and finally casts off the veils draped on her by the other Moorish Women. Her former innocence is lost in her “fully- transformed salacious nakedness,” as Egk indicates. At the end of her dance, she is accompanied by a radiant fortissimo E-major chord. This is not perversion; rather, the E-major chord represents honesty, purity, and truth. At this moment, the true nature of the Most Beautiful is revealed: her natural unshrouded beauty. She is true to her body and does not cover it. Egk’s interpretation of “salacious nakedness” is not objective. Rather, it represents the view of the court that disregards the mean estate of the Most Beautiful. In contrast, the ladies of the court are attired in period couture that reveals very little of their true bodies, and they are not accompanied in the major mode. E major functions similarly in No. 11, “Pantomime.” The Hero who saves Florence from the Beast is heralded by a twelve-measure fanfare in E major in measures 58–69, an excerpt of which is included as Example 5.5.

217

Example 5.5. Hero’s tucket in No. 11, “Pantomime,” meas. 58–64.

The harmonic progression of the fanfare is fundamentally functional (see Figure 5.8).

58 59–62 62 63 64 65–66 67 68 69 E: I (1–5–1) I–IV IV–I–IV V–IV–I–V (no 3rd)–I (1–5–1) V–IV–I–V–I IV–V7 (no 3rd)–IV–V–I I

Figure 5.8. Harmonic analysis of the Hero’s fanfare, No. 11, “Pantomime.” meas. 58–69.

The use of major here is also pure and honest—this Hero is the only true hero of Joan von Zarissa; that is, he is the only morally pure hero. In measures 107–34 of the following movement, No. 12, “The Love-Dance,” another fanfare appears, this time played by the backstage trumpets. At this point in the drama, Joan has been smitten with Florence and dances with her. Isabeau attempts to break up the couple, and the spat escalates to a melée in which Joan absconds with Florence; Isabeau commits suicide;

218

and Joan’s men rout those loyal to Isabeau. This fanfare signifies the victory of Joan and, though similar, is not the same as that of the Hero in the previous movement (see Example 5.6).

Example 5.6. Joan’s fanfare in No. 12, “Love-Dance,” meas. 105–11.

The earlier fanfare provides a foil by which to judge this one. Joan’s fanfare is orchestrated for eight trumpets, a more regal–and pompous–accompaniment for the usurper Joan. Instead of E major, the fanfare is in D major, and the tonic is colored with an added second. That is, this tucket is “corrupted” by the added tone. The fanfare is not pure. It is a Schreckenfanfare that reflects the tragic hero whom it announces. Joan is an immoral man and cannot be characterized by the E major that denotes purity, honesty, and truth. Further, the fanfare is accompanied by a dramatic stinger, a B-flat major chord with an added fourth and sixth. The B-flat chord is a deceptive resolution of the A dominant seventh chord before, a frustration of the expected arrival of the tonic as foreshadowed by the earlier Hero’s fanfare. Again, this represents the deceptive nature of Joan. Further in the first twenty-eight bars of the fanfare passage (meas. 107–34), the fanfare does not progress—it simply asserts itself, again separating Joan’s stagnated immorality from the morality of the Hero, which is represented by stereotypical functional progression without deception. Egk also employs major mode in the Rondeau-Finale at the end of Joan von Zarissa. This coda is a dazzling spectacle: the formerly backstage choir and trumpeters join the dancers onstage in a dance “symbolizing the most exuberant joy of life and the triumph of love.” Happy sections in E major (progressing II–vi–V–I) serve dominant functions to others outlining I–V–I in A major. At this point, the drama is over, and Joan is dead. This happy coda simply dispels

219 any lingering tragic sentiment and harmonic discomfort. Egk’s extended harmonies are sublimated into diatonic major mode. In using an essentially tonal framework, Egk made the music of Joan von Zarissa accessible to his audiences and was able to engage them in the drama. That drama is variously punctuated and articulated by Egk’s music, especially by his juxtaposition, repetition, and variation of melodies. Egk’s use of extended diatonicism adds to the dramatic expressiveness of his music at the same time it sets his music apart from the chromaticism of the Romantic era. The fundamental rhythms of Joan von Zarissa make Egk’s music tänzerisch, and his use of sound effects make it illustrativ. Ultimately, though, Egk’s music is dramatisch, inseparable from the drama for which it was composed.

220

CHAPTER SIX

THE RECEPTION OF JOAN VON ZARISSA

Joan von Zarissa premiered to a sold-out Berliner Staatsoper on Saturday, 20 January 1940. Between 1940 and the close of all German theaters on 1 September 1944, Egk’s work was produced in fifteen cities across six European countries. After substantial delay, Joan von Zarissa was danced twenty times in Occupied Paris between 1942 and 1944 as part of a German cultural propaganda campaign directed toward France. While components of the work were modified to accommodate the circumstances presented by various venues, the cohesive nature of Joan von Zarissa and Egk’s recreation of the atmosphere of fifteenth-century Burgundian court culture were universally admired. Both inside and outside the Reich, Joan von Zarissa met with excitement and success.

Premieres of Joan von Zarissa, 1940–1942

From the outset, Joan von Zarissa was perceived as something new in the history of German dance. H.M. Cremer declared the work a “landmark in the history of German ballet,” citing how Tietjen valued the art of dance, how all involved worked together, and how the Staatsoper orchestra played to the fullest of its excellent reputation.1 Joan von Zarissa left a distinct impression. It was something more than ballet—a Gesamtkunstwerk of music, dance, and scenery. In the Nachrichten aus dem deutschen Kulturleben, the premiere was extolled, since … For the first time the ideal demands of dance were consummately satisfied, that a ballet might not be just a story line, but above all be dance. Music, scenery, and

1 Das 12 Uhr-Blatt 19, 22 January 1940. “Weil Tietjen selbst durch seine Regieführung kundtat, wie hoch er die Tanzkunst einschätzt, weil alle Kräfte des Ballettes in wundervoller Ausgeglichenheit fanatisch an den Aufgaben arbeiteten, weil das Orchester in bekannter prächtiger Form musizierte, deshalb wird dieser Abend ein Markstein in der Geschichte des deutschen Ballettes sein.” “Kurz, es fehlt der Ausdruck, um all das zu deuten, was hier geschaffen wurde.”

221

choreography were linked in a unity of dramatic events, in such closeness as one has never experienced them.2 Critic Elsi Jänecke added more elements to the Gesamtkunstwerk, including pantomime. More importantly, spoken word and choruses helped to advance Joan von Zarissa beyond the boundaries of ballet and into the realm of opera.3 The importance of language to the overall work was echoed by Fred Hamel, who reported that Egk “very nearly returned to the music- drama [the Wagnerian Musikdrama], directly to the border at which word meets music.” Hamel pointed to the importance of prologue, epilogue, and choruses in amplifying the setting of the drama. Disavowing the choruses as solely utilitarian music, he noted that they were “universalized reflections” that took up the style of Flemish chanson, allowing the “temporal and regional atmosphere of the setting to resonate further.”4 While text was extra-generic to ballet, it was integral to Egk’s dramatic dance-poem. Dr. Andreas Liess drew a direct artistic genealogy between Wagner and Egk in the pages of the Neues Musikblatt. In an article titled “The Future of Dance-Dramas,” Liess pointed out that the traditional fields of opera, oratorio, and ballet had proven sufficiently fruitful, and that

2 Nachrichten aus dem deutschen Kulturleben 13, 22 January 1940. “… zum ersten Male war in Vollendung die ideale Forderung der Tanzkunst erfüllt, ein Ballett möge nicht nur eine Handlung, sondern vor allem Tanz sein. Musik, Szene und Choreographie waren zu einer Einheit dramatischen Geschehens verbunden, wie man sie in dieser Geschlossenheit noch nicht erlebt hat.” 3 Hannoverscher Kurier 26, 27 January 1940. “Tanz, Pantomime, Bild und dramatisches Geschehen bilden mit dem gesprochenen Wort und den Chören eine Einheit, die die Grenzen des herkömmlichen Balletts sprengt und in die Nähe der Oper weist.” 4 Deutsche Zukunft 4, 28 January 1940. “Er rückt ganz nahe an das Musikdrama heran, bis unmittelbar an die Grenze, an der zur Musik das Wort hinzukommt, das Egk auch tatsächlich – gesprochen als Prolog und Epilog, gesungen in Chorsätzen während der Zwischenakte – zu Hilfe nimmt. Nur daß eben diese Verwendung des Wortes keinen dramatische Funktion hat. Die Chöre sind keine Verwandlungsmusiken, sondern, fast im Sinne der antiken Tragödie, verallgemeinernde Betrachtungen; Prolog und Epilog geben einen epischen und ethischen Rahmen, der in einem angehängten Finale szenisch-symbolisch ausgebaut wird. Aber eben darum wirkt dieses Finale noch der dramatischen Tanzdichtung nicht zwingend, zumal die Musik hier auch zwischen heiterer Diesseitigkeit und hymnischer Ueberhöhung in der Schwebe bleibt und nicht die Stärke der übrigen Partitur erreicht. Um so schöner sind die unbegleiteten Zwischenchöre, die kunstvoll den Stil der altniederländischen Chanson aufgreifen und damit die zeitliche und örtliche Atmosphäre der Handlung in der Musik weiter schwingen lassen.”

222 contemporary dance composition was itself evolving. While the elements of a dance-drama were in place, the field lacked a champion to unify them. Liess declared, … Only the Great One was missing, who wrests the baton from the hand of opera, already grown slack, and sets about the new construction of a great German dance drama in the spirit of the Gesamtkunstwerk—and his time appears to have come—a Great One, who knows how, as Wagner once did lavishly and with fantasy, to take the building blocks from here and there; and with sure instinct of genius and a clear head, is at the same time master of the execution and master of the truth.5 Without artistic execution, however, Egk’s efforts remained fruitless. The dancers of Joan von Zarissa were likewise lauded as part of the overall work. They provided a human link between the stage and the audience and, as Wagner would have had it, transported the audience into the drama. They understood “artistic cooperation”: subsumption and subordination to a great, collective idea given by the composer; experienced by all participants; dramatically accentuated by the director through the artful arrangement of positions, exits, and entrances, with color and light; and completely dissolved in the dance by the choreographer; and bound into an organic whole.6

5 Andreas Liess, “Die Zukunft des Tanzdramas,” Neues Musikblatt 51 (February 1940). “Die Geschichte der Formen der Oper, des Oratoriums, des Balletts gibt Befruchtung genug. Manchen Zug haben zeitgenössische Tanzkompositionen bereits angedeutet. Mittel und Versuche sind als da; es fehlt nur der ganz Große, welcher der schon schlaff gewordenen Hand der Oper den Führerstab entreißt und den neuen Bau eines großen deutschen Tanzdramas im Sinne des Gesamtkunstwerkes türmt – denn seine Zeit scheint gekommen –, ein Großer, der wie einst Wagner großzügig und mit Phantasie die Baustein hierher und dorther zu nehmen weiß und mit sicherem Genieinstinkt und klarem Kopf Meister der Wirkung und Meisterer [sic] der Wahrheit zugleich ist.” 6 Nachrichten aus dem deutschen Kulturleben 13, 22 January 1940. “Die Leistungen dieses Abends (Ilse Meudtner als Isabeau und Bernhard Wosien als Joan müssen besonders herausgehoben und als dramatische Tanzcharakteristiker von grossem Format vor allen genannt werden) haben bewiesen, was künstlerische Gemeinschaftsarbeit heisst: Ein- und Unterordnung unter eine grosse, gemeinsame Idee, die vom Autor gegeben, von allen Mitwirkenden erlebt, vom Regisseur mit geschicktem Arrangement der Stellungen, Abgänge und Aufzüge, mit Farbe und Licht dramatisch akzentuiert, und von der choreographischen Leitung ganz in Tänzerische aufgelöst und zum organischen Ganzen gebunden ist. Der Eindruck ist darum so gross und einmalig, weil ein tiefes menschliches Problem nach unendlich mühe- und liebevoller Arbeit, die ohne Rast überwunden wurde, aufgegangen ist in das Erlebnis des Werkes durch all Beteiligten, seien sie nun Zuschauer oder Ausführende.”

223

Accordingly, Joan von Zarissa was a true Gesamtkunstwerk, a unity of drama, dance, scenery, light, and spoken word. It was also a Gesamtkunstwerk in its execution, with its producer, choreographer, scenic designer, and dancers working together to bring the work to life. And the whole was driven by Egk’s distinctly dramatic score. Three German descriptors were commonly applied to Egk’s music for Joan von Zarissa: tänzerisch, illustrativ, and dramatisch. His music is often evaluated against the standard of being tänzerisch, a word difficult to translate. The connotation of tänzerisch is that the music is inherently dance music, to a degree beyond that conveyed by the word “danceable.” According to Karl H. Ruppel of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Egk’s music was tänzerisch because of Egk’s use of “persistent elemental rhythm,” manifested not so much in Egk’s prevalent use of percussion, but more fundamentally in the nature of Egk’s melodies and their accompaniments. By recalling the words of Egk’s own Lochhamer Opernbrief, Ruppel made Joan von Zarissa a member of the same volkstümliche family as Die Zaubergeige, though without the explicitly völkische rhetoric. For others, the “Bajuware” Egk was completely absent, and Joan von Zarissa was the latest product of an artistic evolution well beyond the music of Die Zaubergeige.7 Illustrativ, or “illustrative” music would run alongside the dramatic action without being part of it. The dramatisch, “dramatic,” nature of Egk’s music repeatedly cited by critics referred to the expressive qualities of the music itself. Instead of merely running alongside the action, Egk’s dramatic music was part of the drama of Joan von Zarissa, sometimes diegetic, sometimes illustrative, and always inherently dance-like. The dramatic aspect of Egk’s music, Ruppel continued, was manifest in its expressive and illustrative qualities that buttressed dramatic actions and in Egk’s unusually precise stage directions.8 Joan von Zarissa was a “great dramatic ballet” that did not just present “a suite-like

7 Signale (Berlin) 34, 24 January 1940. “Der „Bajuware“ in Egk ist ganz vergessen.” 8 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 38, 22 January 1940. “Was liegt näher, als beides in der Phantasie zu einer eigenen Handlung zu verbinden, in der das Optische des Milieus und das Dynamische der Gestalten zu einer dramatischen Einheit zusammenfließen? Aus dieser Einheit erwächst Egk die musikalische Konzeption, eine Musik, die tänzerisch und dramatisch zugleich ist: tänzerisch in der durchgehenden elementaren Rhythmik, die weniger durch das sekundäre Mittel des Schlagzeugs als durch das Wesen der Melodie und der Begleitung gegeben ist; dramatisch in der ausdrucksmäßigen und illustrativen Haltung, die noch den Schwertstoß, das Fallen der Würfel tonmalerisch wiedergibt und mit ungewöhnlich genauen szenischen Anweisungen zum Teil bis auf die einzelne Achtelnote fixiert.”

224

succession of compatible dance works, but a dramatic as well as musical and choreographic through-composed plot.” Ruppel explained that this was a form of musical theater that contemporary German composers hardly considered, though almost all other European countries had already contributed similar dance works to the genre. For Germany, there was but one example before Egk, Richard Strauss’s 1914 ballet Josephslegende (Legend of Joseph). Strauss had reawakened interest in German ballet, diverging from Romanticism and turning instead to rhythm. Egk’s Joan von Zarissa, with its strong rhythm and unity of the Sister Arts, was the successor to Strauss’s work.9 Strauss’s ballet was written for Diaghilev’s Ballets russes, augmented by Léonide Massine as Joseph. Its librettists, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf von Keller and Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, relocated the story from Biblical Egypt to Venice. Strauss himself conducted the premiere of the Josephslegende at the Palais Garnier on 14 May 1914.10 According to a review cabled to The New York Times, the music was “rather melodious, though filed [sic] with strange harmonies” in an orchestration that ranged from violent to gentle. The reviewer reported, “Some of the pantomimic scenes were highly symbolic and hardly comprehensible, though throughout they were picturesque beyond description.” The dramatic elements of the Josephslegende were such that the reviewer subtitled it “an opera without words.”11 Such a

Ruppel’s last reference is to an indication in No. 4, The Duel, where Egk specifies that Joan draws Isabeau to himself “on the fourth eighth note” of a given measure. 9 Hamburger Fremdenblatt 21, 22 January 1940. “Das große dramatische Ballett, das nicht nur eine suitenartig aneinandergerechte Folge von Tanzstücken, sondern eine dramaturgisch ebenso wie musikalisch und choreographisch durchkomponierte Handlung darstellt, ist eine von den deutschen Komponisten noch immer verhältnismäßig wenig beachtete Form des musikalische Theaters. Fast alle musikschöpferischen europäischen Länder haben zu dieser Form wichtige, zum Teil schon klassisch gewordene Beiträge gestiftet: Frankreich mit Werken von Debussy und Ravel, Spanien mit de Falla, Italien mit Casella, Malipiero und Riete, Ungarn mir Kodaly und Bartok, Rußland mit Tschaikowskij, Rimskij-Korsakoff, Strawinskij – um nur einige zu nennen. In Deutschland blieb die für das Russische Ballett geschriebene „Josefslegende“ von Richard Strauß so lange eine Einzelerscheinung, bis mit der Abkehr vom romantische Ausdrucksprinzip und der Neuwertung der rhythmischen und motorischen Eigenkräfte der Musik auch das Interesse am Ballett wieder erwachte.” 10 Hoffmannsthal was Strauss’s librettist for Elektra (1909), Der Rosenkavalier (1911), and Ariadne auf Naxos (1912, rev. 1916) 11 The New York Times, 15 May 1914. < http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?res=F10E13FB3C5E13738DDDAC0994DD405B848DF1D3> (Accessed 7 July 2011).

225

review could very well have been written for Joan von Zarissa, which Berliner Börsenzeitung critic Frank Köppen similarly epitheted a “danced opera about Don Juan.”12 Critics praised Joan von Zarissa for its atmosphere, its scenery, and its music, especially its choruses. Others expounded on the work’s negative aspects: its dark tragedy, its unsuccessful finale, and the incomprehensibility of its choruses. Stravinsky was still there, as he had been in Egk’s earlier works, peeking over the composer’s shoulder. In his company were various other composers from Rimsky-Korsakov to Ravel. One aspect of Joan von Zarissa that especially resonated with contemporary critics was the recreation of the atmosphere of fifteenth-century Burgundian court culture. Egk’s inspirational sources shone through in the work. According to the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag, Joan von Zarissa displayed the “last blossoms of old-French culture and joie de vivre.” 13 Such an idealization of historic culture was congruent with the New Germany returning to its roots as a source of pride. Heddenhausen’s Tanz ums Dorf, with which Joan von Zarissa premiered, is another example: its Bavarian milieu was one of little drama but pervasive joyfulness. Such works were the domain of German organizations such as Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy), which offered a multi-faceted free-time program of theater and musical performances, lectures, and tours of Germany, cruises, and exercise programs open to all. These events showcased the wonders of Germany, broke down the perception of culture as available only to the affluent, and fostered Volksgemeinschaft. Through the joy found in the appreciation of the German, Germans garnered strength.14 While Egk successfully recreated an historical time and place, Joan von Zarissa was not an historical document. In it, the composer of Die Zaubergeige and Peer Gynt trod new ground. Egk created a milieu that, according to critic Edwin von der Nüll, was “un-romantic, bereft of everything arbitrary-personal, everything romantic-subjective” as had never been shown on the German stage. This was possible only as “a result of the prodigious historical understanding” specific to the New German era. Egk recreated an historic epic, whose vibrancy and perceived

12 Berliner Börsenzeitung 36, 22 January 1940. 13 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 17, 19 January 1940. 14 Marie-Luise Recker, “Kraft durch Freude (KdF)” in Benz, Graml, and Weiß, Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, 550–51.

226 objectivity were meaningful to contemporary Germans. 15 The class structure and perceived self- centeredness of Weimar culture, latter-day embodiments of elements captured in Egk’s historical drama, had been dissolved by egalitarian and utopian National Socialism. Sensuality and eroticism, indulgences of both Burgundy and Weimar, were relegated to a historical context, and by Nüll’s standards, could be evaluated objectively by the modern German, now divorced from such baseness. In its historicism, therefore, Joan von Zarissa showed the progress of National Socialist German culture, at least in Nüll’s estimation. Critic Fritz Brust saw quite the opposite of Nüll’s objective history. He claimed that in Fouquet and the Feast of the Pheasant, Egk saw in his fifteenth-century Burgundian sources “a courtly atmosphere of rampant sensuality, mistress-influence [Mätressenwirtschaft], skullduggery, and murder.”16 Such qualities were anything but progressive; similar depravity had just been the catalyst for the controversy surrounding Egk’s earlier work Peer Gynt. Werner Oehlmann echoed this opinion in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. He reported, A Madonna of Jean Fouquet, not so much Mother-of-God as entirely secular beautiful woman, allowed a remote epoch to come alive to him [Egk] as if she had slapped him: fifteenth-century Burgundy, in its fusion of the most powerful vitality and over-refined culture, was as if made to be the backdrop for this [Don Juan] subject matter; a tense aesthetic-erotic sphere, a local color of time and environment, for which the theater offers wonderful, as yet completely unutilized possibilities of costuming and scenery.17

15 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 19, 22 January 1940. “Nach den Opern „Zaubergeige“ und „Peer Gynt“ betritt Werner Egk im „Joan“ neuen Boden. Nicht nur versucht er sich zum ersten Male in der Sphäre des Ballett, sondern er wählt auch hierfür ein Milieu, das Mittelalter, das so unromantisch, so bar alles Beliebig-Persönlichen, alles Romantisch-Subjektiven, noch nicht auf der Musikbühne gezeigt wurde. Das muß eine Folge des ungeheuren geschichtlichen Verständnisses sein, welches unserer Zeit eigentümlich ist. Während des ganzen Stückes wird man die Erinnerung an die Phantasiebilder mittelalterlicher Helden-Epen nicht los, deren wunderbare Buntheit und Objektivität uns so groß und bedeutend erscheint, weil aus ihr das Alltägliche, das Ich-Bezogene verbannt ist. So bleibt dem geschichtlich Fernen die Starre und Fremdheit des Erotische, das es für uns in Wahrheit hat.” 16 Der Neue Tag (Prague) 22, 23 January 1940. “Angeregt durch Bilder des 15. Jahrhunderts, sah er eine höfische Atmosphäre zügelloser Sinnenlust, Mätressenwirtschaft, Betrügereien und Mord vor sich.” Brust’s review was also published in the Fränkischer Kurier (Nuremberg) 23, 24 January 1940. 17 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 32, 18 January 1940. “Ein Bild gab, so erzählt er, die Anregung, auf jene geheimnisvolle und zentral bestimmende Art, die oft das Werden von Kunstwerken regiert. Eine Madonna des Jean Fouquet, wenig Gottesmutter, ganz weltlich schöne Frau, ließ ihm eine entlegene Epoche wie mit einem Schläge

227

Given the murder, seduction, and revenge exacted within the drama, it is difficult to divorce the emotional and erotic from the courtly atmosphere of Joan von Zarissa. For Oehlmann, these were drives that remained innate to contemporary culture, despite the advent of National Socialism, and as such made the drama tangible. Given such a reading, historical objectivity would serve only to diminish the impact of Egk’s Gesamtkunstwerk. Central to the fifteenth-century Burgundian atmosphere were Josef Fenneker’s scenic designs and Kurt Palm’s costumes. Nüll’s description of Fenneker’s work is practically poetic: When, after the prolog, light falls through the painted veil on which one sees Odysseus bound at the mast and the sirens, one is overcome at the outset by the image, of which the eyes cannot drink their fill. For depth, Josef Fenneker expanded the space with graceful late-Gothic columns, a peaceful open hall with expansive views of the city and river with wind-swelled sails, an equal to the illuminations of van Eyck, full of sparkling colors, and a poem of the living, of such beauty that one has never seen onstage.18 Alfred Burgatz likened Egk’s libretto to Fenneker’s backdrop. The libretto was “a fantastic, heavily-colored medieval tapestry with a central character that initially tremendously ignites the audience, then admittedly dismisses them a bit coolly.”19 Burgatz’s comparison reflected the integral part Fenneker’s design played in the drama. The drama’s visual aspects were reinforced by the words of the narrator, and Burgatz used the design as a metaphor for Egk’s libretto.

lebendig werden: das Burgund des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, im seiner Verbindung von kraftvollster Vitalität und überfeinerter Kultur wie geschaffen zur Kulisse dieses Stoffes; eine gespannte ästhetisch-erotische Sphäre, ein Kolorit von Zeit und Umwelt, das dem Theater wundervolle, noch ganz ungenutzte Möglichkeiten des Kostüms und des Bildes bietet.” 18 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 19, 22 January 1940. “Wenn nach dem Prolog das Licht durch den bemalten Schleier fällt, auf dem man Odysseus an den Mast gebunden und die Sirenen sieht, ist man zunächst einmal überwältigt von dem Bild, an dem sich das Auge nicht satt schauen kann. Als tiefe, auf zierlich spätgotischen Säulen ruhende offene Halle mit weiten Durchblicken auf Stadt und Fluß mit vom Winde geschwellten Segeln, hat Josef Fenneker den Raum ausgebaut, so wie die Buchmalereien eines von Eyck [sic] voll sprühender Farben, einem Gewachsensein und einer Dichte des Lebendigen, das man in dieser Schönheit auf der Bühne noch nicht gesehen hat.” 19 Berlin Illustrierte Nachtausgabe 18, 22 January 1940. “Vielmehr ist sein Tanz-Libretto, das er selbst verfaßte, ein phantastischer, farbenschwerer mittelalterlicher Gobelin mit einer Hauptfigur, die zuerst ungeheuer zündet, dann freilich ein wenig die Zuschauer kühl entläßt. Die Steigerung des Charakters wird nicht bis zum grandiosen Gipfel geführt.”

228

Kurt Palm’s period costumes were likewise integral to the atmosphere of Joan von Zarissa and were similarly commended by Nüll. He was captivated by Palm’s “Burgundian luxury costumes, whose richness of color and form ceaselessly elicited gaze.”20 While Palm manufactured the costumes for Joan von Zarissa, various costume designs were sketched by Fenneker. Similarities between photographs of the premiere and Fenneker’s sketches indicate that Palm appears to have used them as a guide. In so doing, he further reinforced the artistic unity of the work. Fenneker’s extant sketches include the following costumes, shown in Figures 6.1–6.10, among others.

Figure 6.1. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: The Most Beautiful of the Captured Moorish Women. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

20 Berliner Zeitung am Mittag 19, 22 January 1940. “Mit ihn wetteifert Kurt Palm in burgundischen Prachtkostümen, deren Farben- und Formen-Reichtum unausgesetzt zum Betrachten herausfordert.”

229

Figure 6.2. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: the Iron Duke. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

Figure 6.3. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Joan. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

230

Figure 6.4. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Isabeau. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

Figure 6.5. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Isabeau in mourning. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

231

Figure 6.6. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Florence. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

Figure 6.7. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Lefou. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

232

Figure 6.8. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Perette. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

Figure 6.9. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Standard Bearer. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

233

Figure 6.10. Josef Fenneker’s sketches for the costumes of Joan von Zarissa: Monster. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

As Nüll likened Egk’s libretto to Fenneker’s set design, Hans Jenker, critic for Berlin’s Der Angriff, likened Egk’s music to Palm’s costumes. He observed, Egk’s score shrouds itself in the brass of the time of Don Juan: tubas, trombones, trumpets and timpani define the dramatic sequence. The melody exhibits part old-French style, part Landsknecht motives, part influence of opera literature. The strongly motoric course of the scenes and phrases gives free course to the dance movement. Ostinato basses parallel the rigidity of court and knightly costumes.21 Egk’s orchestration was celebrated by critics. Among specific aspects mentioned were the sixteen percussion instruments of the modern orchestra that strikingly contrasted the sounds of

21 Der Angriff 18, 22 January 1940. “Egks Vertonung hüllt sich in das Blech der Don-Juan-Zeit: Tuben, Posaunen, Trompeten und Pauken bestimmen in kurzen, scharf rhythmischen Perioden den Handlungsablauf. Die Melodik zeigt teils altfranzösischen Stil, teils Landsknechtmotive, teils Einflüsse der Opernliteratur. Der stark motorische Verlauf der Szenen und Sätze gibt der Tanzbewegung freien Raum ostinate Bässe [sic] entsprechen der Starrheit des höfischen und ritterlichen Kostüms.” Jenker takes a bit of license in describing the instrumental armory. A Landsknecht is a 15th–17th-century mercenary foot soldier, especially a German pikeman.

234

violins played with plectra, whereby Egk sought to “bring to life the spirit of the Gothic.”22 Critic Kurt Westphal saw in Joan von Zarissa a mitigation, or better a “clarification” of the aggressive music of Peer Gynt. He adulated Egk’s novel orchestral juxtapositions, particularly the solo flute arabesques accompanying the love-dance of Joan and Florence, interrupted by timpani and trumpets as the men-at-arms of Joan and Isabeau advance on each other. 23 The same was mentioned by critic Fritz Stege in Berlin’s Der Westen, who described the same love- dance as one of the most effective of the work and marveled that it was accompanied by a single flute.24 By far, the musical elements of Joan von Zarissa that received most attention in the press were the choral interludes. Stege pointed out the contributions of the choral interludes to the overall atmosphere of Joan von Zarissa. He wrote, Werner Egk’s goal is the Netherlands-style Renaissance of the age of Dufay in the 15th century, and the vocal “chansons” and “rondeaus” inserted between the individual tableaus are artful polyphonic creations, especially masterful [are] the close of the second Chanson and the third [chorus].25 By modeling the choruses on Renaissance polyphony, Egk ensured their cohesion with the drama, much as he did by inserting period texts into his radio play Columbus.26 Hans Jenker went so far as to designate the choruses “the key to Egk’s music,” observing their didactic

22 Hamburger Tageblatt 21, 22 January 1940. “Der Komponist versucht mit den Mitteln des großen modernen Orchesters, darunter allein 16 verschiedene Schlagzeugeffekte, in interessanten klanglichen Kombinationen (Geigen mit Plektron), den Geist der Gotik lebendig zu machen.” 23 Rheinisch Westfälische Zeitung 41, 23 January 1940. “Die aggressive Klangkraft seines „Peer“ ist im „Joan“ wesentlich gemildert, fast möchte man sagen abgeklärt. Das gibt an einigen Stellen eine völlig neue Art der Weichen Klangschönheit. Doch auch so, als die Herzogen Joan in die Arme sinkt, und völlig neue Mischungen, so etwa die in Melismen schweifende Soloflöte, die von harten Paukenschlägen durchbrochen wird (ähnlich an anderer Stelle Trompeten und Pauken), ferner das ungemein fein ausgesparte erste Zwischenspiel, prachtvoll zudem der Schlußtanz.” 24 Der Westen (Berlin) 21, 22 January 1940. “Eine der stärksten Szenen wird allein von einer Soloflöte begleitet.” 25 Ibid. “Werner Egks Ziel ist die Renaissance des niederländischen Stils, des Dufay-Zeitalters im 15. Jahrhundert, und die zwischen den einzelnen Bildern eingelegten vokal ausgeführten „Chansons“ und „Rondeaus“ sind kunstvoll polyphone Gebilde, meisterhaft besonders der Schluß der zweiten Chanson und die dritte.” 26 In Columbus, the inserted texts were only approximately contemporary, but the motivation is the same.

235 function of moralizing at the end of each tableau.27 Adolf Diesterweg also noticed the function of the chorus as similar to those in Greek tragedy, pointing out simply that “they comment (something like the Greek choir) on the course of the story line.”28 While various critics observed that the choir functioned as does a Greek chorus, few stated how effective their commentary was. Alfred Burgatz apparently found them ineffective, since he likened them instead to a “musical ‘act curtain.’”29 Herbert Gerigk explained further, Between the tableaus choruses on middle-French texts of Charles d’Orléans (15th century) sound, but they may better constitute a sound-coulisse, since one could neither understand anything from the text nor could one follow the voice-leading.30 In addition to whatever acoustical challenges were created by positioning a choir behind a drop, Gerigk’s initial comment could be explained by the fact that the choruses were sung in the original French. Das 12 Uhr-Blatt, though, touted the French choruses as a “good sign for the impartiality and chivalry of German art even in times of war.”31 The description of the choral interludes as musical curtains is not surprising to those familiar with Egk’s earlier works, especially Job, der deutsche. In such mystery plays, the open- air theaters in which they were performed necessitated a musical cue to show the end of a scene,

27 Der Angriff 18, 22 January 1940. “Hier liegt der Schlüssel zu Egks Musik. Sie schließt, dem Lehrstückcharakter treu, jede Szene mit einem unsichtbaren und begleiteten [sic] Madrigalchor ab, der moralisierende Songs anstimmt.” Jenker is the only critic who states that the choruses were accompanied. This could be a typographical error, since “[un]-begleiteten” would match other accounts. 28 Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung 26, 27 January 1940. “Diesem altertümlichen, melodischen Zug begegnen wir in den von einem unsichtbaren Chor gesungenen, kunstvoll gefügten a-cappella-Chorsätzen nach altfranzösischen Dichtungen, die in den Zwischenakten erklingen, wieder. Sie kommentieren (etwas nach Art des griechischen Chors) der Verlauf der Handlung.” 29 Berlin Illustrierte Zeitung 18, 22 January 1940. “Neu im Ballett sind altfranzösische (unsichtbare) Chöre: ein musikalischer „Zwischenvorhang“ gleichsam.” 30 Herbert Gerigk, “Aus den Berliner Opernhäusern,” Die Musik 5 (February 1940): 173–74. “Zwischen den Bildern erklingen Chöre auf mittelfranzösische Texte des Charles d’Orléans (15. Jahrhundert), die aber wohl mehr eine Klangkulisse bilden sollen, denn weder konnte man vom Text etwas verstehen noch vermochte man die Stimmführung zu verfolgen.” 31 Das 12 Uhr-Blatt (Berlin) 17, 19 January 1940. “Die vier eingestreuten Chansons (vier A-Capella-Chöre) werden in Staatsoper in französischer Sprache gesungen, gewiß ein schönes Zeichen für die Unvoreingenommenheit und Ritterlichkeit der deutschen Kunst auch in Kriegszeiten.”

236

entrances of characters, and the like. The choral interludes in Joan von Zarissa do the same. That said, the curtain choruses are not merely utilitarian filler, but are, like the Odyssean tapestry of Josef Fenneker, very intricately woven into the drama. Another parallel can be drawn between the two works: both end with spectacular finales. Job, der deutsche ends with a grandiose chorale and procession of flags, while Joan von Zarissa concludes in a grand dance celebrating true love and joie de vivre.32 The spectacular finale of Joan von Zarissa did not fare well in the press. Though Karl H. Ruppel applauded the finale as a “dance of victory and joy in which the decorative-symbolic form play of late-Medieval allegory and early-Renaissance trionfi is manifestly renewed in the spirit of modern dance theater,” most critics found the rondeau-finale unsuccessful.33 Critic Herbert Gerigk simply did not know what to make of the banality of the abrupt finale.34 Fred Hamel anticipated that the atmosphere germinated in the prologue and epilogue was to be more fully developed in the finale; however, that culmination never occurred. Hamel judged that the finale was not compelling. It vacillated between “cheerful worldliness and hymnic elevation, remained in limbo and did not attain the strengths of the rest of the score.”35 Friedrich Herzfeld reported that Egk, who had otherwise proven himself one of the most promising of contemporary German stage composers, spoke “his own style least of all” in the finale. Herzfeld assessed Joan

32 As discussed previously, the finale also has a part for the choir, which would bring the entirety of the musical forces to bear. For the premiere, however, the choral parts were taken by the orchestra, and Joan von Zarissa closed with a wordless dance spectacle. 33 Kölnische Zeitung (Reichsausgabe) 44, 25 January 1940. “Die Kraft der wahren Liebe ist dadurch aber nicht gebrochen. Mit einem Sieges- und Freudentanz zu ihrem Preis schließt das Werk mit einem Rondo-Finale, in dem das dekorativ-symbolische Formenspiel spätmittelalterlicher Allegorien und früh-renaissancistischer „trionfi“ aus dem Geist des modernen Tanztheaters sinnfällig erneuert wird.” 34 Gerigk, “Aus den Berliner Opernhäusern,” 173. “Die Melodik ist einfach und im Finale sogar bewußt banal…. Ein turbulentes Final der Lebensfreude gibt dann den recht abrupten Ausklang, mit dem man eigentlich wenig anzufangen weiß.” 35 Deutsche Zukunft (Berlin), 28 January 1940. “Prolog und Epilog geben einen epischen und ethischen Rahmen, der in einem angehängten Finale szenisch-symbolisch ausgebaut wird. Aber eben darum wirkt dieses Finale noch der dramatischen Tanzdichtung nicht zwingend, zumal die Musik hier auch zwischen heiterer Diesseitigkeit und hymnischer Ueberhöhung in der Schwebe bleibt und nicht die Stärke der übrigen Partitur erreicht.”

237 von Zarissa as merely a stepping stone between Egk’s great works.36 Johannes Jacobi concluded that the “shortened” finale simply did not provide convincing resolution to the tragedy that proceeded it.37 Similarly, critic Adolf Diesterweg found those scenes showcasing Joan’s base drives especially compelling. “Unfortunately,” he reported, “the music of the essentially lackluster finale of the work, an ‘Epilog’ [sic], that, as an antipode to Joan’s sensuality, limns the triumph of pure love, does not reach these musical zeniths.” Diesterweg further observed that “Here, Egk is, as in the similar task in his Peer Gynt, less in his element.”38 In Peer Gynt, Egk had focused too keenly on the turpitude of troll culture. Some critics found that Egk focused too intensely on Joan’s libertinism. Writing for the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, Wolfgang Sachse found that in Joan von Zarissa, Egk “felt even more strongly that he had to adopt an attitude toward the negative and its dangerous power” than he had in Peer Gynt. Egk had not sufficiently balanced the negative aspects of his “inferno of sensual addiction” with his “foxtrot-like” finale.39 In complete contrast, Kurt Westphal found

36 Kölnische Volkszeitung 30, 30 January 1940. “Am Schluß wird in einem gesprochenen Nachwort die reine, unschuldige Liebe gepriesen. Es ist für Egk und seine musikalische Art durchaus bezeichnend, daß er sie nicht in Musik zu fassen versuchte, denn in dem Schlußtanz spricht am wenigsten seine eigene Art. In allem hat sich Egk wiederum als eine der hoffnungsvollsten Kräfte unter unseren jüngeren Bühnenmusikern erwiesen, wenn auch diese Tanzdichtung wohl nur ein Zwischenglied zwischen seinen großen Arbeiten bleiben wird.” 37 Danziger Neueste Nachrichten 22, 26 January 1940. “Lediglich das Finale der Lebensfreude hat in der gekürzten Bearbeitung der Aufführung nach nicht die überzeugende Lösung gefunden.” Herzfeld’s reference to the “shortened” finale is ambiguous and is not corroborated elsewhere. The substantial change to the finale was the subsumption of the choral parts by the orchestra. 38 Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung 26, 27 January 1940. “Daß Egk alles Tänzerische mit Ueberlegenheit beherrscht, nimmt bei dem Komponisten des „Peer Gynt“ nicht Wunder. Darüber hinaus gelange er, besonders in den Szenen, die der dämonische Trieb Joans beherrscht, zu packenden dramatischen Wirkungen. Diese Gipfelungen erreicht die Musik im wesentlich matteren Ausklang des Werkes, einem „Epilog“, der, im Gegensatz zu der Sinnlichkeit Jvans [sic], den Triumph reiner Lieben schildert, leider nicht. Hier ist Egk, wie in ähnlicher Aufgabe in seinem „Peer Gynt“, weniger in seinem Element.” Critique of the music of the epilogue indicates that Diesterweg is referring to the musical finale as opposed to the spoken epilogue. 39 Allgemeine Musikzeitung 4, 26 January 1940. “Ein Inferno sinnlicher Süchte wird hier ausgemalt mit letzter Deutlichkeit wie im „Peer Gynt“; die Fäden zum vorhergehenden Werk sind offenbar. Dennoch hat Egk offenbar hier stärker gefühlt, daß er Stellung nehmen müsse zum Negativen und seiner gefährlichen Macht…. Wenn aber Egk nun in einem tänzerischen Finale bildhaft und klangreal den Triumph der „himmlischen“, lebenstärkenden Liebe als Gegenpol zur Triebwelt zeigen will, dann müßte er musikalisch andere Mittel einsetzen. Dem Bereich des

238

Joan von Zarissa too much a dramma giocoso. Westphal observed that Egk tacked on a finale to show the downfall of corrupt love, just as Mozart had provided a buffo-sextet at his Don Juan’s demise. He concluded that the work as a whole consisted of loosely connected scenes of “too little momentum, too little inner vehemence,” out of which to construct a gestalt of the “all- consuming-intensive power” of the hero. Egk’s Don Juan saga was, in short, “nothing special.”40 Other critics found Joan von Zarissa unimpressive after the spectacle of Peer Gynt and, no doubt, the controversy surrounding that opera. The insertion of texts within a ballet remained a novel trait of Joan von Zarissa, albeit not without detractors. While the choruses were acclaimed for their dramatic or utilitarian functions in Joan von Zarissa, their execution was faulted. They were difficult to understand. Critic Alexander Runge commented, … The choruses between the tableaus (unfortunately not easy to hear), singing of the transience of earthly fortune, of the refulgence of unforeseen serendipity, and of the hope that one should not allow himself to be misled in life, possess a musical direction and unity, leave behind a lasting impression.41

Positiven gehört jedoch diesen an Foxtrottweisen gemahnende Rondeau nicht an, es wird nicht als auflichtender und ethisch befreiender Gegensatz empfunden.” The reference to a foxtrot-like finale is discussed later in this chapter. 40 Rheinisch Westfälische Zeitung 41, 23 January 1940. “Egk wollte jedoch nicht die „Tragödie der Liebe schlechthin“ zeige, sonder nur den Untergang der zerstörenden Liebe. Und so hängt er – hierin wohl nicht unbeeinflußt von Mozart, bei dem Don Juans Ende ein Buffosextett folgt – ein Finale an, das den Sieg der guten, echten, großen Liebe verherrlicht. Und der Fabel, wie Egk sie dichtet, ist nichts besonderes zu vermerken, inhaltlich hat sie keine neuen Züge. Denn daß Egk das Geschehen von Spanien nach Burgund verlegt, betrifft eigentlich nur ihr, übrigens sehr schönes, bildliches Gepräge, nicht ihren Kern, nicht ihre Substanz. Die einzelnen Tanzszenen stehen viel zu locker nebeneinander, um eine Gestalt von so verzehrend-intensiver Kraft wie die des Helden aus sich heraus aufbauen zu können und als Gestalt durchscheinen zu lassen. Wir wissen wohl: das soll Don Juan sein. Aber wir spüren es nicht genügend. Die einzelnen Tanzszenen habe inhaltlich zu wenig Triebkraft, zu wenig innere Vehemenz.” “Und der Fabel, wie Egk sie dichtet, ist nichts besonderes zu vermerken, inhaltlich hat sie keine neuen Züge.” 41 Nachrichten aus dem deutschen Kulturleben 23, 22 January 1940. “… die (leider nicht gut zu hörenden) Chöre in den Zwischenakten, die von der vergänglichkeit [sic] irdischen Glücks, von dem Leuchten ungeahnten Glücks und von der Hoffnung singen, durch die man sich im Leben nicht verleiten lassen soll weisen eine musikalische Führung und Geschlossenheit auf, die bleibende Eindrücke hinterlassen.” The German verb hören can mean either “to hear” or “to understand.”

239

Though they were difficult to understand, it appears that Runge did catch the primary themes of the choruses he found difficult to hear. In fact, he quoted nearly verbatim the descriptions of the choruses found in the concert program.42 Wolfgang Sachse commented that understanding the texts was difficult because the choruses were sung from backstage.43 The other texted portions of Joan von Zarissa also received some negative press. Kurt Westphal wrote that “the speaker, who in the prologue and epilogue delivered something like a ‘moral of the story,’ appeared to us altogether amiss and instead only well and truly bored us.”44 Considering the location of the epilogue between Joan’s demise and the effervescent finale, Westphal’s critique is understandable, at least for the epilogue, which may well have seemed a static insertion. As with Die Zaubergeige and Peer Gynt, critics heard in Joan von Zarissa a variety of musical influences upon Egk. While none were quite so scandalous as the presence of Ernst Krenek’s Johnny spielt auf as a forbear to Peer Gynt, several problematic influences were associated with Joan von Zarissa. One of these was Carl Orff. Critic Walter Abendroth credited both the fundamental traits and entire vision of Joan von Zarissa to inspiration from Orff’s Carmina burana.”45 The premiere of Carmina burana predated Joan von Zarissa by three years, but Orff’s work did not receive wide critical acclaim until its repeated performance alongside Joan von Zarissa in the early 1940s.46 The connection between the two is unspecified but may arise out of the antiquarian aspects the works share. Alfred Burgatz noted that Egk musically—most interestingly—is related to the Young Russians, the group surrounding Rimsky-Korsakov (and his Scheherazade) together with the contemporary, modern

42 Program Joan von Zarissa, Staats-Theater Berlin & Staats-Oper, 20 January 1940, f. 13r. BSB Ana 410. “Musikalisches Zwischenspiel: Ein Chanson, von einem unsichtbaren Chor gesungen, kündet von der Vergänglichkeit irdischen Glückes.” “Musikalisches Zwischenspiel: Ein Chanson kündet von dem Leuchten ungeahnten Glückes.” “Musikalisches Zwischenspiel: Ein Rondeau warnt, sich im leben durch Hoffnung verleiten zu lassen.” 43 Allgemeine Musikzeitung 4, 26 January 1940. “Da die Chöre hinter den Szenen gesungen wurden, blieb das Verständnis der Texte der Lektüre vorbehalten.” 44 Rheinsche Westfälische Zeitung 41, 23 January 1940. “Völlig verfehlt scheint uns aber der Sprecher, der uns mit Prolog und Epilog so etwas wie eine „Moral von der Geschichte“ verkündet, uns aber lediglich gehörig langweilt.” 45 Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger 19, 23 January 1940. “Die Gesamtvision des Werkes weist aber auch in wesentlichen Zügen auf eine zeitgenössische Anregung hin: Orffs ‚Carmina burana’.” 46 Orff’s Carmina burana has since totally eclipsed Egk’s Joan von Zarissa.

240

wallop. He is a Don Juan who makes eyes at the tonalists and the atonalists. His music is splendidly “barbaric”—the theme material not always sharply stamped.47 Burgatz placed Egk in Russian company. As one of the Moguchaya kuchka, Rimsky-Korsakov is a quintessential Russian, and obviously non-German, composer. The presence of Rimsky- Korsakov is “interesting,” instead of negative, as would have been expected had such a comparison been cited in an review of an earlier Egk work. Burgatz’s tone is neutral. This reversal is striking, but it may have a reasonable explanation. Burgatz was writing in January 1940. The war was on. German troops had invaded Poland on 1 September 1939; Soviet troops did the same on 17 September. On 23 August 1940 Hitler’s Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Joseph Stalin’s protégé Vyacheslav Molotov had signed the farcical Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact. The Soviet Union benefited by increasing its territory: parts of Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, and the Balkans were absorbed. In return, Nazi Germany avoided a two-front war. Hitler, however, had no intention of honoring the agreement; German plans to invade the Soviet Union had already been formulated in November 1939, formally announced by Hitler in July 1940, and were implemented in Operation Barbarossa of 22 June 1941.48 But for the time being, the Germans and the Soviets were allies. Since they were no longer foes, the war against cultural Bolshevism, declared by the glow of the burning Reichstag on 27 February 1933, enjoyed a logical armistice. The proximity of Egk to Rimsky-Korsakov therefore posed few problems. Such amnesty also extended to Igor Stravinsky, Burgatz’s splendid barbarian. It is not difficult to imagine the Puppet with whom Lefou falls in love is a reincarnation of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Nor had Egk sworn off the use of propulsive rhythm, another Stravinskian trait, in Joan von Zarissa. Wilhelm Matthes, in an article titled “Is Werner Egk a Problem?” noticed the “late Rimsky-Korsakov and the early Stravinsky, and the middle [Richard] Strauss as well”

47 Berlin Illustrierte Nachtausgabe 18, 22 January 1940. “Musikalisch – hochinteressant – ist Egk bei den Jungrussen, der Gruppe um Rimsky-Korssakow (und seiner „Scheherezade“) angelangt, plus dem heutigen, modernen Einschlag. Er ist ein Don Juan, der mit dem Tonalen und dem „Atonalen“ liebäugelt. Seine Musik ist herrlich „barbarisch“ – die Thematik nicht immer scharf geprägt.” 48 Schirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 513–544, 793–852.

241

standing as godfathers over Joan.49 Matthes’s primary issue with Joan von Zarissa was not this lineage, but rather Egk’s questionable ethical notions and the use of sonic effects and expanded diatonicism rather than post-Romantic chromaticism. Fritz Stege, in the Zeitschrift für Musik, pointed to Egk’s magnum opus of dance as the continuation of the synthesis of drama and dance by composers associated with Diaghilev’s Ballets russes and “especially realized by Stravinsky.”50 Compared with reviews for Die Zaubergeige or Peer Gynt, the attitudes of critics who heard foreign influences in Joan von Zarissa were surprisingly neutral, a reflection of recent German-Soviet political nonaggression in the cultural theater. Regardless, by July 1941 war with the USSR was imminent. The Official Memoranda of the Reich Music Chamber of 15 July 1941 carried a proclamation by Reich Music Chamber President Peter Raabe forbidding the performance of works by Russian composers and the performance of Russian folksongs.51 The cultural armistice was over. This political-cultural reflection does not explain one curious description of Joan von Zarissa’s rondeau-finale. As did Wolfgang Sachse above, critic Hermann Wanderscheck pointed out that Egk employed a “foxtrot-like march melody” to capture joie de vivre in the finale.52 In National Socialist dance and music journals, the tango, foxtrot, and slow fox were often mentioned in conjunction with debates about Germanness in music, and the outcomes were variable. Here, though, reaction to the foreign dance element of the finale was neutral. Unlike Egk’s clear label of “Tango” in the third tableau of Peer Gynt, and to which the reaction was anything but neutral, Egk did not declare the finale of Joan von Zarissa to be foreign, nor was

49 Signale der Musikalische Welt (Berlin) 98, no. 5/6 (7 February 1940). “Der späte Rimskij-Korssakow und der frühe Strawinskij, aber auch der mittlere Strauß standen hierbei Pate, wenn man diese Musik auf ihre eigentliche Erbmasse untersucht.” 50 Fritz Stege, “Werner Egk und der dramatisch Kunsttanz: zur Uraufführung seines „Joan von Zarissa,“” Zeitschrift für Musik no. 3 (March 1940): 143–146. “Soviele Bilder – soviele Tote. „Dramatische Tanzdichtung“. Aber die Synthese von „Drama“ und „Tanz“ ist zweifellos eines der schwersten Probleme, die die Tanzkunst kennt, da die beiden Begriffe eigentlich in ihrer ursprünglichen Bedeutung einen Selbstwiderspruch darstellen. In dem Komponistenkreis um das Russische Ballett Serge Diaghilew, das der Einheit von Tanz, Musik und Szene einen neuen Wert verlieh, ist der dramatische Tanz besonders von Strawinsky verwirklicht worden.” 51 Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 8, no. 7 (15 July 1941). 52 National Zeitung (Essen) 24, 24 January 1940. “In der Schlußapotheose setzt Egk eine foxtrottartige Marschmelodie für die Ekstase überschäumender Lebensfreude ein.”

242

that reinforced by its setting. Its perception as such is limited, and, apart from being mentioned, kindled little debate in contemporary press. After the successful premiere of Joan von Zarissa, the City Theaters of Halle (Städtische Bühnen Halle) and the Hamburg State Opera (Hamburgische Staatsoper) produced the work within the year, in April and December, respectively.53 At the 30 April premiere in Halle, Joan von Zarissa was performed as it was in Berlin. Reception of the dramatic dance poem was similar to that at its premiere, though critic Dr. Wolfgang Bülau added Debussy to the list of Joan’s godfathers.54 As does Bülau, other critics also made references to Debussy or Ravel in conjunction with the Halle premiere of Joan von Zarissa. These references are not problematic because Germany had not yet invaded France. That would happen ten days later. In December 1940 Joan von Zarissa was produced in Hamburg, but unlike the Berlin premiere and Halle performances, the work was performed in its entirety with choral participation in the rondeau-finale. The full rondeau-finale was a success in Hamburg, and the atmosphere and the unity of the whole Gesamtkunstwerk were acclaimed as at the premiere.55 But for the first time, critic Max Broesike-Schoen asked, Why doesn’t someone print the old-French texts (with German translation) sung by the offstage choir in the program? All the more, since the listeners in a completely darkened orchestra and auditorium surely have the feeling that something important to the story line is presented, about which one would also like to know something.56

53 For a listing of performance cities, dates, and programmed works, please see Appendix C. 54 Hamburger Neueste Zeitung, 6 December 1940. “Werner Egk ist kein musikalisches Geheimnis fremd; er kennt die Instrumentationskunst eines Berlioz so genau wie die Strawinskys, die Linienführung in gotischen Madrigalen so gut wie die in Debussys Tondichtungen; nur einen einzigen Meister kennt er anscheinend nicht: Werner Egk selber.” 55 Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt 342, 13 December 1940. “Werner Egks „Joan von Zarissa“ ist in Berlin uraufgeführt worden – doch mit wesentlichen Streichungen. Erst in der Hamburger Uraufführung hat man jetzt gewagt, den Epilog, ein Rondeau, tanzen und singen zu lassen: mit durchschlagendem Erfolg. So kommt der Hamburger Wiedergabe der Charakter einer zweiten Uraufführung zu, in der die musikalisch-orchestrale Pracht des Balletts, die wunderbar übertragene, geschichtliche Atmosphäre, die bildhaft Zusammenschau der burgundischen Spätepoche durch den Komponisten zum einmaligen Erlebnis wurde.” 56 Hamburger Fremdenblatt 29, 29 January 1941. “Eine Frage: Warum bringt man nicht im Programm-Heft einen Abdruck der altfranzösischen Texte (mit deutscher Übersetzung), die hinter der Szene vom Chor gesungen werden?

243

While Berlin critics may have complained about the inaudibility or incomprehensibility of the choruses, Broesike-Schoen appears to be the first to posit that a German translation would be helpful to fully understanding their part in the drama. The perceptive Broesike-Schoen, who referred to the Janus-faced Joan von Zarissa, asked another question that had not yet been posed, “Why does Odysseus on the Mast look like an ascetic Christ-gestalt, if anything, instead of a voluptuous hero?”57 Unfortunately, he left his question unanswered. Another Hamburg performance was scheduled for 6 January 1941 as part of a New Year celebration. In addition to Joan von Zarissa, the concert was to feature “songs of the nation,” selections from Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and “Ah, perfido!” and the finale of the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. The program, a very German one, reminiscent of the 1936 Olympics, never made it to the stage. As Egk wrote on the front cover of the program, the performance was “canceled due to the major offensive of the English air force on neighboring Wilhelmshaven on 2 January 1941.”58 The remainder of 1941 saw Joan von Zarissa performed in Stuttgart (February), Chemnitz (April), Essen (May and November), and Zurich (December). For the Stuttgart performance of 27 February 1941, there appeared in the program what Broesike-Schoen requested in Hamburg: reproductions of the d’Orléans chanson texts with German translations prepared by the Managing Director of the Württemberg State Theater, Dr. Fritz Schröder.59 The program does not contain the texts of the rondeaus, though both were sung.60 Despite the program’s boast that the choruses would be sung in

Um so mehr, als die Hörer bei völlig verdunkeltem Orchester- und Zuschauerraum sicher das Gefühl haben, daß da irgend etwas bedeutungsvoll zur Handlung Gehöriges gebracht wird, von dem man auch etwas wissen möchte.” 57 Hamburger Fremdenblatt, Abend-Ausgabe, 6 December 1940. “(Noch eine Bemerkung zum Bühnenbild: Warum gleicht der Odysseus am Mast eher einer asketischen Christus-Gestalt als einem sinnenfrohen Helden?)” 58 Program, Festveranstaltung, 6 January 1941. BSB Ana 410. “abgesagt wegen Grossangriff der englischen Luftwaffe auf das benachbarte Wilhelmshaven am 2.1.41” Wilhelmshaven was an important German North Sea port. 59 Das Programm der Württembergische Staatstheater 6, 27 February 1941, 89. BSB Ana 410. 60 Neue Augsburger Zeitung [7 March 1941, dated from advertisements on the reverse]. BSB Ana 410. Schröder’s translation for the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” is included in Werner Egk, Drei französische Chöre aus dem Ballet “Joan von Zarissa” (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1940).

244

Schroeder’s German version at all German performances, it remains unclear whether or not this was the case.61 On St. Nicholas’s Day, 6 December 1941, Joan von Zarissa premiered at the Zurich City Theater. As had been the case in Essen, the ballet was paired with Orff’s Carmina burana. According to the Neuer Züricher Zeitung, Egk’s godfathers Strauss, Mussorgsky, and Stravinsky were there in spirit. The unnamed critic noted that the “scenes of the comic confrontation (Harlequin [Lefou] and Perette) are certainly unthinkable without Petrushka; however, the imitation is so deftly done that it hardly bothers one.”62 Stravinsky was once again a decisive influence on the work, and the tone of reviews resembled those of Egk’s earlier works. Then, Stravinsky was un-German; in December 1941, he was the enemy, the German Wehrmacht having launched Operation Barbarossa in June. In December 1941, Joan von Zarissa returned to the Berlin State Opera, which had relocated from Unter den Linden to Königsplatz.63 In the night of 9–10 April 1941, the “Lindenoper” edifice had been destroyed to its foundations in a bombing raid.64 The 20 December 1941 performance of Joan von Zarissa also featured the Berlin premiere of Orff’s Carmina burana, and the latter received rather more press than did Egk’s work. These Berlin performances of Joan von Zarissa were advertised as a Neueinstudierung, a “new production.” Though the work remained largely unchanged, a testament to its previous success, some significant changes that addressed objections critics had previously raised. Joan von Zarissa was outfitted with a new conclusion. The epilogue was excised, and the Apparitions scene was changed to the version of the revised score. The rondeau-finale, at best moderately successful, was likewise lopped off.65 The scenery and costumes were still those of Fenneker and Palm;

61 Das Programm der Württembergische Staatstheater 6, 27 February 1941, 89. BSB Ana 410. “Die beiden folgende altfranzösischen Chansons von Charles d’Orléans die Egk in sein Werk aufgenommen hat, wurden von Oberspielleiter Dr. Fritz Schröder übersetzt und werden in dieser Fassung in allen deutschen Aufführungen gesungen.” 62 Neuer Züricher Zeitung 6 December 1941. “Die Szenen des komische Widerspiels (Harlekin und Perette) sind allerdings ohne „Petruschka“ nicht denkbar, doch ist die Imitation so geschickt gemacht, daß es kaum stört.” 63 Program, Staatstheater Berlin, 20 December 1941. BSB Ana 410. 64 Werner Otto, Die Lindenoper: Ein Streifzug durch ihre Geschichte (Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 1985): 306–07. 65 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 610, 22 December 1941. “Der deutschen Gotik der „carmina Burana“ tritt im „Joan von Zarissa“ das Burgund der Renaissance gegenüber. Die Großartige Aufführung, die vor zweit Jahren in der

245

they had not been destroyed in the bombing raid that obliterated the Lindenoper.66 By 18 May 1942 Joan von Zarissa celebrated its twenty-fifth performance at the Berlin State Opera.67 The premiere run comprised eleven performances; that of the 1941 new production, fourteen.68 In early 1942 Joan von Zarissa boasted successes in Düsseldorf (February), Vienna (February and March) and Prague (March and April). Of these, the performances at the Vienna Staatsoper were the most important. For these performances, Josef Fenneker adapted his Berlin scenic design to the Vienna stage. He also served as costume designer. Not only was Fenneker imported from Berlin, so was Harald Kreuzberg, the dancer of the Waffentanz for the 1936 Olympische Jugend pageant. Kreuzberg danced the part of Lefou for several performances. Rudolf Moralt conducted the 5 February 1942 Vienna premiere, and Egk conducted the 4 March performance. In Vienna, Joan von Zarissa was performed in its entirety, with prologue, epilogue, and rondeau-finale. In another significant change from the Berlin premiere, the choir, whose deployment in the finale was ever-problematic, was dispatched in two large stalls above the stage. Fenneker’s sketch of the stage design for Vienna clearly shows the choir stalls (see Figure 6.11).

Inszenierung Heinz Tietjens und der Ausstattung Josef Fennekers herauskam, ist in neuer Einstudierung fast unverändert nach dem Königsplatz übergesiedelt: das bezeugt deutlich genug, daß Werner Ecks [sic] Schöpfung der dramatischen Tanzdichtung ein voller Erfolg war. man ist auch hetzt wieder gepackt von dem theatralischen Instinkt, der diese Ballettmusik vom ersten bis zum letzten Takt erfüllt, und von der dramatischen Kraft, die an den entscheidenden Stellen großartig durchbricht. Geändert ist nur der Schluß; der Epilog und das große Rondo-Finale sind fortgefallen, die Visionen Joans in der Sterbeszene sind vereinfacht.” 66 Program, Staatstheater Berlin, 20 December 1941. BSB Ana 410. 67 Berlin Illustrierte Nachtausgabe 115, 19 May 1942. 68 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410.

246

Figure 6.11. Fenneker’s sketch of the stage design for the Vienna Staatsoper performances of Joan von Zarissa. Bocholt, Stadtarchiv Bocholt, Fenneker-Nachlaß. Reproduced by permission.

The choir’s location is confirmed by the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung coverage of the Vienna premiere: “the choir was positioned on tribunes on both sides one story higher, engrossed in the action.”69 Karl H. Ruppel, a fan of the Berlin finale, noted that for the first time the intervening choruses on old-French texts by Charles d’Orléans traced the extraordinarily artful direction of style to every detail because they were sung onstage instead of behind.

69 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 66, 7 February 1942. “Auf Tribünen zu beiden Seiten ein Stockwerk höher, dem Geschehen also entrückt, war der Chor postiert.”

247

Ruppel pointed out that the “fatal effect of a nowhere-to-be-found mood music issuing forth from ‘mystic’ darkness that must come about with an unseen choir is precluded here.”70 A similar solution would be used for the Paris performances of Joan von Zarissa as well. Despite Fenneker’s solution of how to deploy the choir for the closing rondeau-finale, the finale again failed to impress critics. Critic Franz Gräflinger thought the postlude an “almost extraneous ‘appendage’.”71 And to the critic of the Straßburger Neueste Nachrichten, the finale “seemed a mitigation instead of an intensification of the foregoing arresting stage activity.”72 Among those who attended the Vienna performance of Joan von Zarissa was Richard Strauss, who sat with German author Gerhart Hauptmann in the box of Gauleiter and Reichstatthalter of Vienna Baldur von Schirach, who was also Reich Youth Leader (Reichsjugendführer) and head of the Hitler Jugend. In June 1942 Joan von Zarissa was an important element of the Berlin Weeks of Art, a “People’s Festival of Consciousness” under the patronage of Gauleiter Dr. Joseph Goebbels.73 During the course of the festival, which ran from 31 May until 22 June, Joan von Zarissa was performed twice at the State Opera, on 2 and 15 June.74 The critic of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten explained, Weeks of art are not intended as a representation of or gift to art enthusiasts, but as an affirmation of the entire Folk for art. They provide a sense of solace and edification for every individual who must face the grim realities of everyday life. The fact that even Berlin, where since the time of Frederick the Great, the primacy of politics has prevailed,

70 Kölnische Zeitung 81/82, 14 February 1942. “Zum erstenmal sind die Zwischenaktchöre auf die altfranzösischen Texte des Charles d’Orleans, da sie nicht hinter, sondern auf der Szene gesungen werden, bis in jede Einzelheit der ungemein kunstvollen Stillführung zu verfolgen. Die fatale Wirkung einer nirgends lokalisierbaren, aus „mystischem“ Dunkel hervorquellenden Stimmungsmusik, die sich bei unsichtbarem Chor einstellen muß, ist hier ausgeschlossen.” 71 Düsseldorfer Nachrichten 75, 10 February 1942. “Das Nachspiel empfand ich als fast fremdes „Anhängsel“.” 72 Straßburger Neueste Nachrichten 45, 14 February 1942. “Der »Nachspruche« des Balletts und das abschließende Chor-Rondo, welches nach dem Tode Joans durch eine Verherrlichung der ewig sich erneuernden Kraft des Lebens dem Stück einen versöhnlichen Abschluß geben will, dünkt uns eher eine Abschwächung als Steigerung des vorangegangenen, fesselnden Bühnengeschehens.” 73 Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten 116, 20 May 1942. A Gauleiter is the leader of an NSDAP district, or Gau. Goebbels had served as Gauleiter of Berlin since 1928. 74 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410.

248

should be the arena for a musical festival in this eventful time has its own particular inward justification and, naturally, its own outward face.75 That inward justification was the mollification of a people cowering under a hail of bombs; its outward face, an unconcerned countenance in the midst of war. Among the musical highlights of the festival were performances of the Berlin Philharmonic under the batons of Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Pfitzner, and Karl Böhm; performances of Richard Strauss’s Salome and his early opera Guntram; Orff’s Carmina burana under Clemens Krauß; and the premiere of a Pfitzner violin sonata. There were no complimentary tickets for the festival, nor were there subscriptions, and half of all seats were reserved for military and armament workers.76 The festival also featured art exhibitions, theater performances, film presentations, poetry readings, and music theater performances, all headed by the motto “The Art of the People.”77 Berlin’s Deutsche Wochenschau newspaper reported on Joan von Zarissa and Carmina burana. Critic Gerner-Beuerle stated that “despite their peculiar choice of themes, to some extent difficult for universal understanding, these modern music-poems met with approval by wide circles of our nation.”78 The tragedy Joan von Zarissa was a rather odd inclusion for a festival whose purposes were distraction and putting on a brave face. The lighter fare of music theater or comedy would have likely served as better diversions. Perhaps the festival organizers were beginning to see the looming national tragedy of an unwinnable war, signaled by the failure of Germany’s Russian offensive and the air raids destroying Berlin, and were showing the “Art of the [defeated] People.”

75 Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten 116, 20 May 1942. “Kunstwochen seien nicht als Repräsentation oder als ein Geschenk an die Kunstenthusiasten gedacht, sondern als ein Bekenntnis des ganzen Volkes zur Kunst. Ihr Sinn sei Trost und Erbauung für jeden einzelnen, der die harten Forderungen des Alltags erfüllt. Die Tatsache, daß gerade Berlin, wo seit den Zeiten Friedrichs des Großen das Primat der Politik geherrscht habe, inmitten dieser bewegten Zeit Schauplatz eines musischen Festes werde, habe ihre besondere innere Berechtigung und natürlich nach außen ihr eigenes Gesicht.” 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. and Film-Kurier (Berlin) 123, 29 May 1942. In German, the slogan reads, “Die Kunst dem Volke.” This could also be translated as “Art for the People.” 78 Deutsche Wochenschau (Berlin) 25, 24 June 1942. “Neben anerkannten Werken deutscher und europäischer Musik bewiesen die Aufführungen von Carl Orffs „Carmina Burana“ und Werner Egks „Joan von Zarissa“, daß diese modernen Musikdichtungen trotz ihrer besonderen und teilweise das allgemeine Verständnis erschwerenden Themenwahl auf Anerkennung breiter Kreise unseres Volkes stoßen.”

249

At least four additional Berlin performances of Joan von Zarissa took place before 15 May 1943, bringing the total performances of the work in Berlin to at least twenty-nine.79 There would be no further Berlin performances until that by the Deutsche Oper in 1970.80 The enlarged Staatsoper Unter den Linden reopened on 12 December 1942, but was essentially shut down once again in August 1944 as part of the all-out mobilization for Total War.81 Air raid sirens sang the Opera’s death knell on 3 February 1945. The stage area of the Opera suffered three direct hits, and the auditorium burned to ruin.82

Joan von Zarissa in Paris, 1942–1944

At 6:50 p.m. on 22 June 1940, in the same railway car in which Germany had had to sign the bitter armistice of 11 November 1918, French General Charles Huntziger and German General Wilhelm Keitel signed another armistice: this one between France and a victorious Germany.83 The battle for France had begun on 10 May 1940, six weeks before, though German troops had much earlier made an opening westward gesture, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, on 7 March 1936. German troops had entered Paris on 14 June 1940.84 Hitler himself would tour the Opéra, the Église de la Madeleine, the Arc de Triomphe, the Trocadéro, and the Invalides the day after the armistice, 23 August 1940.85 Werner Egk arrived in Paris on 3 June 1942.86 A notification was sent by the Berlin Foreign Affairs Office (Auswärtiges Amt) to the German Embassy Paris on 3 June that “composer Werner Egk is traveling to Paris on behalf of the Reich Music Chamber through 14 June for the purposes of producing his ballet Joan von Zarissa at the Opéra.”87 Egk remained

79 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 80 Royalty records of B. Schott’s Söhne, Stadtarchiv Donauwörth. 81 Goebbels first mentioned mobilization for Total War in a speech of 23 February 1942. All theaters and cultural institutions were closed completely by 1 September 1944. 82 Otto, Die Lindenoper, 307. 83 Schirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 745. 84 John Plimlott, The Atlas of World War II (Philadelphia and London: Courage Books, 2006), 54. 85 Serge Lifar, Ma Vie: From Kiev to Kiev, trans. James Holman Mason (New York and Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1965.), 180. 86 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 87 AA Paris 1215 “Komponist WERNER EGK reist im Auftrage Reichsmusikkammer bis 14. Juni Paris zum Zwecke der Einstudierung seines Balletts „Joan von Zarissa“ an Grosser Oper.”

250 through 10 June.88 The Stadtblatt der Frankfurter Zeitung of 7 June reported that German music had gained a following in France, that Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina had already met with acceptance, and that Egk’s Joan von Zarissa would soon follow suit.89 Plans for bringing Joan von Zarissa to Paris substantially predated Egk’s first trip, however. According to a July 1942 report by Propaganda Staff of Paris (Propaganda-Staffel Paris) Lieutenant Lucht, In late Summer 1941 the Culture Detachment of the Propaganda Staff of Paris initiated meetings with the administration of the Paris Opéra targeted toward presenting newer German works yet unknown in France to the French public and where possible, to achieve their inclusion in the Paris repertoire. In these discussions, for tactical reasons, a point was made to create the impression with the administration of the Opéra that it could make a choice largely independently and free from influence [of the Propaganda Staff] from a selection of scores placed at their disposal. During collective deliberations, the musical legend Palestrina by Hans Pfitzner and the ballet Joan von Zarissa by Werner Egk were decided upon for the upcoming season.90

88 Egk, Terminkalender, BSB Ana 410. 89 Stadtblatt der Frankfurter Zeitung 131, 7 June 1942. “Die deutsche Musik findet in Frankreich jetzt ein starkes Interesse. Pfitzners „Palestrina“ hat sich durchgesetzt, die Goldberg-Variationen Bachs haben in Kempffs Interpretation Eindruck gemacht, selbstverständlich hatten die Berliner Philharmoniker unter Clemens Krauß große Erfolge, Egk wird in diesen Tagen „Joan von Zarissa“ inszenieren, im nächsten Jahr werden Werke der Frankfurter Hessenberg, Höller und Reutter (das Klavierkonzert, vom Komponisten gespielt) in Paris zu hören sein….” 90 Lucht, Bericht über die französischer Erstaufführung des Ballettes “Joan von Zarissa” von Werner Egk, 28 July 1942. AA Paris 1215. The Propaganda Staff was an arm of the German Wehrmacht. “Im Spätsommer 1941 hatte die Gruppe Kultur der Propaganda-Staffel Paris Besprechungen mit der Administration der Pariser Grossen Oper aufgenommen, die darauf abzielten, neuere, in Frankreich noch unbekannte deutsche Werke der französischen Oeffentlichkeit vorzustellen und womöglich ihren Einbau in den Pariser Spielplan zu erreichen. In diesen Unterhaltungen wurde aus taktischen Gründen Wert darauf gelegt, dass bei der Leitung der Oper der Eindruck bestehen blieb, dass sie die Auswahl aus einer Reihe ihr zur Verfügung gestellter Partituren weitgehend selbständig und unbeeinflusst treffen konnte. In den gemeinsamen Erwägungen wurde für die bevorstehende Saison zugunsten der musikalischen Legend „Palestrina“ von Hans Pfitzner und des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ von Werner Egk entschieden.” Lucht’s report is included in its entirety in Appendix F.

251

In a letter of 24 April 1942 musicologist Fritz Piersig, recently dispatched to the Propaganda Staffel, wrote to Egk that Pfitzner’s Palestrina was launched, after a great deal of work, on 30 March, and he decided that for the next newer German work, your Juan [sic] is to be put on here. In the meantime, at least, I have not heard anything otherwise from the leadership of the Opéra. If anything, only the premiere originally planned for the second half of May will be postponed somewhat.91 In a letter of 4 May 1942 Lucht, on behalf of his superiors, wrote to Egk, I am pleased to be able to inform you that the premiere of your ballet Juan di Zarissa [sic] was announced to me by the Opéra administration for the period between 15 and 25 June. My music consultant Dr. Piersig reported to me that you are prepared and happy, in principle, to assume the musical leadership of the preparations and first performances. I must express my delight, because the experiences of the productions of Palestrina just done here show how essential it is to have a leading and strong German hand in the performance of newer German works in French theaters. Lucht then set to procuring a three-month travel visa effective 16 May for Egk, so that he might have “every possible freedom of movement.”92 Piersig wrote a marginal apology to Egk for missing him in Vienna, apparently for the February performances of Joan von Zarissa there.

91 Fritz Piersig to Werner Egk, 24 April 1942. BSB Ana 410. “Als naechstes neueres deutsche Werk soll hier dann Ihr „Juan“ herauskommen. Ich habe inzwischen wenigstens nichts Gegenteiliges von der Leitung der Oper gehoert. Nur wird sich womoeglich der urspruenglich fuer die zweite Maihaelfte vorgesehene Premierentermin etwas verschieben.” 92 Lucht to Egk, 4 May 1942. BSB Ana 410. “Ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu koennen, dass mir die Erstauffuehrung Ihres Balletts „Juan di Zarissa“ seitens der Administration der Oper in der Zeit zwischen dem 15. bis 25. Juni in Aussicht gestellt wird. Mein Musikreferent Dr. Piersig berichtete mir, dass Sie im Prinzip und gern bereit sind, die musikalische Leitung der Vorbereitung und ersten Auffuehrungen zu uebernehmen. Ich darf auch darueber meiner Freude Ausdruck geben, denn gerade die jetzt hier mit der Inscenierung [sic] des „Palestrina“ gemachten Erfahrungen haben gezeigt, wie notwendig fuer die Darbietung neuerer deutscher Werke auf franzoesischen Buehnen die fuehrende und straffende deutsche Hand ist. Da ich noch nicht weiss, wie Sie bezueglich Ihres Aufenthaltes in Paris disponieren, werde ich auf jeden Fall bei den zustaendigen Stellen fuer Sie die Ausstellung eines Einreisevisums bezw. eines Passierscheines ab 16. Mai auf 3 Monate beantragen, damit Sie jede moegliche Bewegungsfreiheit haben. Fuer die Behandlung aller Einzelfragen bleibt mein Musikreferent Dr. Piersig mit Ihnen in Verbindung.”

252

Judging by Lucht’s letter, the Paris production Pfitzner’s Palestrina had not met German, or at least his, expectations. Unlike Joan von Zarissa, Palestrina was an opera and had more trouble negotiating the language barrier. Joan von Zarissa would experience no such issues, since the German texts were to be omitted in Parisian performances.93 Egk received a travel permit dated 16 June 1942, reflecting another month’s postponement of Joan von Zarissa’s French premiere.94 Egk returned to Paris on 25 June and remained through 1 July, when he took a short trip to Salzburg, Austria. On 5 July 1942 Egk made his third trip to Paris, and his wife Elizabeth joined him the following day. On 10 July 1942 Joan von Zarissa premiered in Occupied Paris.95 Werner Egk himself conducted the premiere of Joan von Zarissa. Paris Opéra conductor Louis Fourestier directed the other two works on the program: Carl Maria von Weber’s La spectre de la rose, its ninetieth performance; and Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus, its fifty-sixth performance.96 Lieutenant Lucht would later lament that the postponed premiere of Joan von Zarissa in Paris left time for only two performances before the end of its inaugural season.97 For the Paris performances, Egk’s ballet underwent a number of substantial changes including new choreography by Serge Lifar, who danced the part of Joan. The Ukranian-born Lifar was a student of Sergei Diaghilev and a dancer in the Ballets russes and had been appointed balletmaster of the Paris National Ballet in 1930.98 Egk respected Lifar’s work, and commented glowingly on his artistry:

93 Program, Théatre National de L’Opéra, 10 July 1942. BSB Ana 410. 94 Bewilligung zur Einreise in besetzten Gebiete Frankreich und Belgien for Werner Egk, 16 June 1942. BSB Ana 410. Egk’s wife Elizabeth received a similar permit one week later, on 23 June. 95 An entry in Egk’s appointment book indicates that the Paris premiere was to occur on 8 July, with a second performance on 10 July. It may be that the premiere of Joan von Zarissa was postponed by two days. A postponement is not supported elsewhere. 96 Program, Théatre National de L’Opéra, 10 July 1942. BSB Ana 410. 97 Lucht Bericht, AA 1215. “Es bleibt an sich zu bedauern, dass sich infolge des Schlusses der Opernspielzeit vorerst nicht mehr als zwei „Joan“-Aufführungen ermöglichen liessen.” 98 Helga-Maria Palm-Beulich, “Erotische Trilogie: Werner Egk und seine Ballette” in Komponisten in Bayern: Dokumente Musicalischen Schaffens in 20. Jahrhundert. Volume 29: Werner Egk. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider Verlag, 1997), 150. Serge Lifar, Ma Vie: From Kiev to Kiev, trans. James Homal Mason (New York and Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1965), 107.

253

One of the greatest strokes of luck in art happens when the faculty of knowledge unites itself to the faculty of execution, and in dance today, this stroke of luck is named Serge Lifar. As often as I could, I attended not only ballet performances, but also ballet rehearsals high atop the Opéra, under its roof. Here sits Lifar, with his back against the great mirror in which the dancers regulate their movements, the inevitable stick in hand, with which he pounds out meter and shapes his dancers and his works. At work, he is of a fierce concentration, relentless with himself and with others. As if possessed by a demon, he demands absolute perfection, and the power he exudes appears to stir everyone, beginning with the “élèves,” this tenderly lovely school of youth and grace, up to the “étoiles,” these perfectly thoroughly trained virtuosic individualities.99 Given that Egk’s music was provided entirely new choreography by Serge Lifar, and its entire troupe comprised dancers of the Paris Opéra, Joan von Zarissa suffered something of an identity crisis. Lizzie Maudrik’s Ausdruckstanz choreography was absent, and with it, the Germanness that dance expressed. But this does not mean that the work became ballet. Joan von Zarissa was of a different type from that genre whose stupendous leaps had made Lifar famous. In Die Zeit wartet nicht, Egk quoted Pierre Michaut’s Le Ballet contemporain, 1920– 1950, to an unnamed musicologist interested in the Paris performances. Regarding Lifar’s choreography, Egk related, For the solemn, poetic, and demanding work, Lifar developed his own choreography: few elevations, little reliance on the solely decorative classic [ballet]. The character of Joan, ensnared in murder, passion, conflict of conscience and diabolic vengeance, does not admit to the dance the signs of airiness and spirituality. And yet in this ballet there

99 Werner Egk, Musik–Wort–Bild (Munich, Albert Langen Georg Müller Verlag, 1960), 213–214. “Es bedeutet einen der großen Glücksfälle in der Kunst, wenn sich die Fähigkeit der Erkenntnis mit der Fähigkeit der Formgebung verbindet, und für die Tanzkunst heißt heute dieser Glücksfall Serge Lifar. So oft ich konnte, habe ich nicht nur die Ballettabende besucht, sondern auch die Arbeitsproben des Balletts in der Rotunde hoch oben unter dem Dach der Großen Oper. Mit dem Rücken gegen den großen Spiegel, in dem die Tänzer ihre Bewegungen kontrollieren, sitzt hier Lifar, den unvermeidlichen Stock in der Hand, mit dem er den Takt angibt, und formt seine Tänzer und seine Werke. Er ist dabei von einer wilden Konzentriertheit, unerbittlich gegen sich und gegen die andern. Wie von einem Dämon besessen, fordert er das schlechthin vollkommene, und die Kraft, die von ihm ausgeht, scheint sie alle zu bewegen, von den »élèves« angefangen, diesem zärtlich holden Schwarm von Jugend und Grazie, bis zu den »étoiles«, diesen vollkommen durchgebildeten virtuosen Individualitäten.”

254

were eloquent contrasts in the expression of purity and in the yearning for good. These antitheses reinforced the expressive power of the tragedy.100 That Lifar constrained himself to earth was something special for the dancer, who prided himself on his leaps. In his fanciful autobiography, Lifar boasted that at the 22 May 1931 premiere of his Bacchus et Ariane, a memorial to the late Diaghilev with music by Albert Roussel, the audience disliked the abandonment of the principles of classicism or romanticism and, above all, they disapproved of my famous leap, a gigantic bound of some eighteen feet high [sic (!)] into the wings where I was caught in the arms of the stage-hand, but it did cause the audience to shiver with surprise and utter cries of stupefaction.101 While remaining earthbound was a concession, diverging from classical ballet was nothing new for Lifar, who had come from the Ballets russes. Lifar expanded that reinvigoration of classic ballet by his own invention. In the pages of Comœdia of 4 July 1942 Lifar explained himself and his choreography. although his account sometimes runs askew of Michaut’s observations above. Lifar neither disavowed balletic classicism in order to accommodate Egk’s German work, nor did he unequivocally embrace the German product. Instead, Lifar sought a hybrid of the two national styles. He explained, My intention in composing the ballet was not to create a German ballet, strictly speaking. Above all, I wanted to make a synthesis of German choreographic aspirations and our own. I wanted to reveal the enrichment, for both countries, that could be the result of a reciprocal and sound interpenetration. There is no doubt that German choreographers achieved great results in the domain of expressionism and the use of the masses of the ensemble, but with their insatiable desire for novelty, they disregard the secular traditions of academic dance.

100 Egk, Die Zeit, 355. “Für das pathetische, dichte und strenge Werk hatte Lifar eine eigene Choreographie entwickelt: Wenig Elevationen, wenig Anleihen bei der nur dekorativen Klassik. Der Charakter des Joan, verstrickt in Mord, Leidenschaft, Gewissensbisse und infernalische Rache gestattet dem Tanz nicht die Symbole der Leichtigkeit und der Spiritualität. Und doch gab es in diesem Ballett beredte Kontraste durch den Ausdruck der Reinheit und durch die Sehnsucht nach dem Guten. Diese Gegensätze verstärkten die expressive Kraft der Tragödie.” 101 Alexander Schouvaloff, The Art of the Ballets Russes: The Serge Lifar Collection of Theater Designs, Costumes, and Paintings at the Wadsworth Atheneum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998): 172. Lifar, Ma Vie, 111.

255

Hence, a tragic pathos is present in their dance that sometimes leads to convulsion and an overly cerebral mathematics, as we have already noticed. Disregarding the technique and the precepts of the academy, they developed in the domain of the mundane instead of looking for harmony and elevation, as we have done, the rest of us “classiques.” In my version of Joan de Zarissa, I wanted precisely to show how German ballet could be enriched and enhanced by the contact with the academicism it ignores; I wanted to marry plastic expressionism and pure dance. Joan de Zarissa differs from ballets of pure German tendency, which are essentially tragic pantomimes, in that it comprises a succession of expressive dances interpreted by academic dancers. I tried to give to these dances a strong, massive, powerful, and dynamic expression, evoking the triumphal constructivism of present-day Germany.102 Lifar went on to explain that the choreography was very stylized, suggesting Dürer or Fouquet, the latter perhaps reflecting a close working association with Egk, or at least a knowledge of Egk’s inspirational sources. Lifar concluded that The essential objective of the diverse methods that I was able to use in Joan de Zarissa is to contribute to reinforcing the expressionism of dance, to help us achieve this synthesis

102 Comœdia, 4 July 1942. “Mon dessein, en composant ce ballet, n’était pas de créer un ballet allemand, à proprement parler. J’ai voulu surtout réaliser une synthèse des aspirations chorégraphiques de l’Allemagne et des notres. J’ai voulu montrer l’enrichissement qui pouvait résulter, pour les deux, d’une interpénétration réciproque et judicieuse. Il est hors de doute que le choréauteurs allemands sont parvenus à de très grands résultats dans le domaine de l’expressionnisme et de l’utilisation des masses d’ensemble, mais ils ont dédaigné, dans leur désir insatiable de nouveauté, les traditions séculaires de la danse académique. De là sont venus dans leurs danses un pathos tragique qui tourne parfois à la convulsion et un mathématisme trop cérébral, comme nous avons pu le constater. Dédaignant la technique et les préceptes de l’académie, ils se sont développés dans le domaine du terre à terre au lieu de chercher une harmonie et de l’élévation, comme nous le faisons, nous autres « classiques ». Dans ma version de « Joan de Zarissa » j’ai précisément voulu montrer à quel point le ballet allemand pouvait s’enrichir et se développer au contact de l’académisme dédaigné par lui, j’ai voulu marier l’expressionnisme plastique et la danse pure. « Joan de Zarissa » diffère des ballets de pure tendance allemande qui sont essentiellement des pantomimes tragiques, tandis que lui, il constitue une succession de danses expressives interprétées par des danseurs académiques. Et j’ai tâché de communiquer à ces danses une expression forte, massive, puissante, dynamique, évoquant le constructivisme triomphant de l’Allemagne d’aujourd’hui.” Kindest thanks to Ms. Jena Whitaker for her translations from the French.

256

of two schools that I have wanted for a long time and in which I want to see a precursory symbol of the return to artistic free exchange, which is so favorable to cultural progress.103 Lifar’s tone was a confident, optimistic—even pandering—one. He mapped out not only a collaborative and reciprocal cultural exchange between France and Germany, but pointed toward the cultural “progress” of the nations in tandem. His goal was confirmed in his article in Le Matin on the day of the premiere. Lifar wanted to see, in Joan von Zarissa, “the beginnings of an artistic collaboration, emotional and fecund, between two neighboring countries, representing an age-old culture.”104 After the war, as he himself was facing charges of a different collaboration, he would not view Joan von Zarissa in the same light. Yves Brayer created the scenic design for the Paris production. In his own, he preserved the primary elements of Fenneker’s set design, including the tapestry with Odysseus on the mast, the two-tiered stage, and the lion. In addition, Brayer designed the Paris costumes, again congruent with the ideas of Fenneker.105 And as did Fenneker in Vienna, Brayer placed the choir onstage (see Figure 6.12).

103 Ibid. “Mais le but essentiel des divers procédés que j’ai pu utiliser dans « Joan de Zarissa » est de contribuer à renforcer l’expressionnisme de la danse, de nous aider à réaliser cette synthèse de deux écoles que j’ai souhaitée depuis longtemps déjà et dans laquelle je veux voir un symbole précurseur du retour au libre-échange artistique, si favorable au progrès de la culture.” 104 Le Matin, 10 July 1942. “Etoiles et premiers danseurs, grand suets et coryphées, tous ont mis le meilleur d’eux- mêmes au service de cette œuvre en qui je veux voir les prémices [sic] d’une collaboration artistique, affective et féconde, entre deus grands pays voisins, représentants d’une culture multiséculaire.” 105 This statement is based on an examination of photographs of the Paris production in BSB Ana 410.

257

Figure 6.12. Model of Brayer’s stage design for the Paris performances of Joan von Zarissa. Beaux-Arts, 10 July 1942. BSB Ana 410. Reproduced by permission.

According to Lifar, the choir numbered eighty choristers who played, sang, and served as “living decor” to the developments surrounding the primary roles. Essential for dramatic success, lead dancers and choir were united in a desire for perfection.106 Again quoting Michaut, Egk recollected that the choir, as it sang the Intermezzi on the wonderful texts—magical conjuration formulas—of Charles d’Orléans, was arranged in two tiered risers positioned right and left on the stage. It represented the people and expressed the collective and elementary reaction of the assembly through stylized movements: it rose at the entrance of the important figures; it rejoiced with them; mourned with them; and averted its glance from the ominous shrouded head.107

106 Le Matin, 10 July 1942. “En plus du corps du ballet, il y a 80 choristes qui jouent, chantent et servent de décor vivant aux évolutions de tous not premiers rôles, fraternellement unis dans un même désir de perfection.” 107 Egk, Die Zeit, 355–356. “Der Chor, der während der Intermezzi die wunderbaren Texts – magische Beschwörungsformeln – von Charles d’Orléans sang, war auf der Bühne in zwei stufenweise ansteigenden, rechts und links postierten Blöcken aufgebaut. Er repräsentierte das Volk und drückte durch stilisierte Bewegungen die

258

Unlike previous performances of Joan von Zarissa, the choir was accompanied. Egk had “himself furnished an instrumental accompaniment for the choruses inserted in the ballet.”108 Choreography and choral accompaniment were not the only emendations made to Joan von Zarissa in Paris. Critic and Egk champion Heinrich Strobel reported in the Pariser Zeitung of 12 July 1942 that “following the custom of most German stages, Serge Lifar unfortunately cut the great closing chorus that lends the ballet a cheerful conclusion in the sense of dance-drama and formal rounding.”109 Lucht confirmed the omissions: Various modifications resulted from circumstances particular to Paris. The prologue was dispensed with because its translation encountered linguistic difficulties. That made it easier for the composer to fulfill Lifar’s wish to cut the jovial postlude and close the performance with the death of Joan. The a cappella choral movements in the original were orchestrated by Werner Egk for the Paris performance. The incidentally expanded orchestral support not only worked positively for the intonation of the choruses, but also enhanced the cohesive cumulative effect.110

kollektiven und einfachen Reaktionen der Menge aus_ Er erhob sich beim Auftritt der Großen, er freute sich mit ihnen, trauerte mit ihnen und wandte den Blick verhüllten Hauptes vom Unheil ab.” 108 Pariser Zeitung 183, 6 July 1942. “Werner Egk hat eigens für die Pariser Aufführung die in das Ballett eingelegten Chöre mit einer instrumentalen Begleitung versehen.” 109 Pariser Zeitung 189, 12 July 1942. “Leider strich Serge Lifar, dem Brauch der meisten deutschen Bühnen folgend, den grossen Schlusschor, der dem Ballett einen fröhlichen Ausklang im Sinne des Tanzspiels und die formale Rundung verleiht.” 110 Bericht über die französische Erstaufführung des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ von Werner Egk. AA Paris 1215. “Verschiedene Aenderungen hatten sich aus Berücksichtigung der gegebenen Pariser Verhältnisse ergeben. Auf den Prolog wurde verzichtet, da seine Uebersetzung auf sprachliche Schwierigkeiten stiess. Das erleichterte dem Komponisten die Erfüllung von Lifars Wunsch, das heitere Nachspiel zu streichen und die Aufführung mit dem Tode des Joan abzuschliessen. Die im Original a capella gehaltenen Chorsätze, die die einzelnen Bilder des Werkes verbinden, wurden von Werner Egk für die Pariser Aufführung instrumentiert. Die gelegentlich weiter ausladende orchestral Stütze wirkte sich nicht nur für die Intonation der Chöre positiv aus, sondern steigerte auch die geschlossene Gesamtwirkung.”

259

Despite the loss of the finale, Strobel concluded that the premiere “was more than a great ballet success. It was a victory in forward-striving German music.”111 And readers were reminded that Egk had been the first German composer to conduct a Parisian premiere of his own work since Richard Strauss conducted the premiere of his Josephslegende in the Palais Garnier in 1914.112 In a surprisingly self-deprecating account, Lifar agreed that the Paris performances of Joan von Zarissa were triumphant: But, no doubt, the most brilliant success was that of Werner Egk’s ballet Joan de Zarizza created on 10th July. The décors were by Yves Brayer and Louis Fourestier conducted. The work was ample, lyrical and powerful. The success was so overwhelming that even those who had held aloof had to admit it. Critics and public were unanimous. The French—and I do not mean the musicians whose talents were well displayed on every occasion—wanted to emulate and play their part worthily. Les Animaux modèles, a most charming ballet by Poulenc—with décors by Brianchon—was created on 8th August, thus shortly after Joan de Zarizza. Poulenc’s ballet, though highly appreciated, was somewhat thrown in the shade by the enduring success of the dazzling German work, just as Egk’s ballet had relegated to a second place my ballet by Gaubert Le Chevalier et la Demoiselle which, however, up to then had been considered as a masterpiece.113 The German sources reporting the success of Joan von Zarissa are to be taken with a grain of salt, since, according to the German press, not a single German cultural event in France was unsuccessful. Inflated reports included one that Notre Dame de Paris held 6,000 people for an April 1941 performance by the Choir of Regensburg Cathedral, a physical improbability.114 Lifar’s accounts are likewise exaggerated. He seems never to have had any unsuccessful productions, with the exception of the above triumph of one of Lifar’s masterpieces over another.

111 Pariser Zeitung [189], 12 July 1942. “Leider strich Serge Lifar, dem Brauch der meisten deutschen Bühnen folgend, den grossen Schlusschor, der dem Ballett einen fröhlichen Ausklang im Sinne des Tanzspiels und die formale Rundung verleiht.” “Es war mehr als ein grosser Balletterfolg. Es war ein Sieg der vorwärts strebenden deutschen Musik.” 112 Völkischer Beobachter 194, 13 July 1942. 113 Lifar, Ma Vie, 231. Lifar mistakenly recollects that Fourestier conducted Joan von Zarissa. Both the program and Egk’s accounts credit Egk as conductor. 114 Allan Mitchell, Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation 1940–1944 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008), 29.

260

Among the critics who reviewed the Parisian premiere of Joan von Zarissa was French composer Arthur Honegger, a member of Les Six. Honegger viewed Egk as “at last a true contemporary” German composer in the file paraded before the French public: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, and Brahms, all prudently interpreted; and Pfitzner, “a respectable ancestor.” Honegger acknowledged the “unprompted success” of Joan von Zarissa, “a paradigm of young music” that had already made the rounds of the German theater circuit. Honegger remarked, Werner Egk’s music is above all firm, spirited, and colorful. It is nourished by the novel sources of the productions of the century’s masters, and it is not contented with a return to neo-classical expressions, of which we so often have disappointing examples. It is also free from that “mandarinism” which, by dint of sterile complications, made of certain works amusement for specialists with nothing for simple listeners attached to musical art by links too strongly tied to the Romantic period. His direct language, occasionally harsh, often full of charm, often touches [the listener] directly and can be understood immediately.115 What Honegger appeared to be describing was a long-term goal Egk set for his music back in the days of Die Zaubergeige: Volkstümlichkeit and the accessibility of the work to a large segment of the public. Karl H. Ruppels’s assessment of Joan von Zarissa’s Berlin premiere was similar. Egk would likely disagree with the link Honegger made to the Romantic period. That period was replete with chromaticism, but Egk championed his own expanded diatonicism. Honegger regarded Joan and Isabeau’s dances at the beginning of the second tableau as “one of Lifar’s most beautiful accomplishments.”116 Like many German critics, Serge Moreaux of La Herbe heard Debussy and Stravinsky in Egk’s music. Moreaux even heard Honegger. In them, he perceived the influence of the West:

115 Comœdia, 18 July 1942. “La musique de Werner Egk est avant tout robuste, vivant et colorée. Elle s’est nourrie aux sources fraîches des productions des maîtres du siècle et ne s’est pas contentée d’un retour vers des formules « néo-classiques » dont nous avons si souvent le décevant exemple. Elle est dégagée aussi de ce « mandarinisme » qui, à force de complications stériles, avait fait de certaines œuvres des amusements pour spécialistes sans aucune portée sur l’auditeur simple et attaché à l’art musical par des liens souvent trop fortement noués à l’époque romantique. Son langage direct, quelquefois rude, souvent plein de charme, touche directement et peut être compris d’emblée.” 116 Ibid., “L’important danse entre Joan et Ysabeau me semble une des plus belles réalisations de Lifar.”

261

His art remains Germanic in spirit but abandons the structures and forms of the musical philosophy so dear to his fellow countrymen, to attack mankind head-on, mankind of flesh and blood. In addition, his sonic material, although dense, has very little sensuality, truly delightful for us other Latins: Debussy, Stravinsky, Honegger push veins of discrete color in this racial granite. And as critics had noticed in Egk’s earliest works, Moreaux found the percussion battery of Joan von Zarissa “indispensable,” a criterion he had never before used, and that Egk used that battery in an “impressionist manner,” congruent with his reference to Debussy above. Unfortunately, Moreaux didn’t elaborate, but his comment indicates a usage distinctly French, likely in Egk’s choruses.117 On 16 July 1942 Egk conducted a Radio Paris performance of the Suite from Joan von Zarissa, and on 22 July a recording was made.118 Moreaux heard Joan von Zarissa “three times in a row” prior to his 1 August review, according to which he heard practically nothing German in the work. Troping on his detection of French forbears, he disavowed the Bavarian part of the “Bavarian Stravinsky”: Despite its German origin, there is no trace of Wagnerism, no philosophy in this score; its vibrant polychromy is not borrowed from the brilliant colorist Richard Strauss; its writing owes nothing to neoclassicism. In summary, it doesn’t have any signs of what we believed up until now to be German music. And in a convoluted paragraph, Moreaux fawned: The surprise that musicographers feel comes from the fact that they are unfamiliar with the clan of young composers beyond the Rhine. Certainly, they are given notice that this future, by the strong confluence of two currents, one neoclassical in its form and language, the other constructivist as well, but with free forms that express themselves through an evolved spelling and syntax (“Some Handel with its wrong notes!” they said,

117 La Herbe, 23 July 1942. “Son art reste germanique en esprit, mais abandonne les plans et les formes de la philosophie musicale, si chers à certains de ses compatriotes, pour attaquer de front l’Homme, l’Homme de chair et de sang. Aussi son matériau sonore, quoique dense, dégage-t-il quelque peu de sensualité ce qui est bien réjouissant pour nous autres Latins : Debussy, Stravinsky, Honegger poussent des veines de couleur discrète dans ce granit racial.” 118 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410.

262

… but hush!), but they lack recent information about the ostracism that “Nazi music” faced before the war, at least that which could be ousted without outraging the many French musicians who are liberated from political prejudice. It was not a question of blocking the way to the young, pure music school coming from the Hindemithian revolution: Fortner, Pepping, Hessenberg and some others, without having citizen status were strongly supported by the “pure,” but Carl Orff and Werner Egk, to list only the most important, clearly oriented towards a collectivist and therefore dynamic art, remained in the shadow.119 Moreaux was obviously a strong supporter of Egk’s music and did not perceive it as a National Socialist threat to France. If Joan von Zarissa was meant as a cultural Trojan horse, the propaganda worked perfectly. Egk was engaged to conduct the eighth performance of Joan von Zarissa at the Paris Opéra on 30 September 1942.120 The performance had to be postponed, however, until the

119 Revolution Nationale, 1 August 1942. “Trois fois ? Pourquoi ? d’abord parce que la chorégraphie de S. Lifar, dans les sombres décors de Y. Brayer, est magnifique : c’est une synthèse de la pantomime germanique et de la danse latine, de la discipline de masse et du spontané individuel ; ensuit, parce que l’ensemble de la conception musicale et les conséquences esthétiques qui s’en dégagent bouleversent toutes les idées reçues au cours d’une fréquentation assidue de la musique allemande.” “Malgré son germanisme, pas une trace de wagnérisme, dans cette partition, nulle philosophie ; sa vive polychromie n’est pas empruntée au génial coloriste Richard Strauss ; son écriture ne doit rien au néoclassicisme. En résumé, elle n’offre aucune des apparences de ce que nous avons cru jusqu’alors être l’art musical allemand.” “L’étonnement qu’en éprouvèrent les musicographes vient de ce qu’ils connaissent mal le clan des jeunes compositeurs d’outre-Rhin. Certes, ils sont avertis dans cet avenir en puissance de la concomitance de deux courants, l’un néoclassique par la forme et la langue, l’autre constructiviste aussi, mais aux formes libres et s’exprimant au travers d’une orthographe et dune syntaxe évoluées (« Du Hændel avec de fausses notes ! » disait … mais chut !), mais il manquent d’informations récentes du fait de l’ostracisme dont fur frappée avant la guerre la « musique nazi », tout au moins celle qui pouvait être évincée sans scandaliser les multiples musiciens français libérés des préjuges politiques. Il n’était pas question de barrer la route à la jeune école de musique pure issue de la révolution hindemithienne ; Fortner, Pepping, Hessenberg et quelques autres, sans avoir droit de cité, étaient fortement soutenus par les « purs », mais Carl Orff et Werner Egk, pour ne citer que les plus importants, nettement orientés vers un art collectiviste donc dynamique, étaient tenus dans l’ombre.” 120 Memorandum to the German Embassy Paris, 6 August 1942. AA Paris 1205. The memorandum bears many pencil notations and emendations. Next to a typed entry specifying “Aufführung Juan di Zarissa” [sic] unter Leitung

263

second half of October, because two of the lead danseuses fell ill.121 At some point, the Paris premiere of Peer Gynt appears to have been scheduled for this date, but, by another in a string of postponements, that would not happen until October 1943. Egk again journeyed Paris on 14 October 1942 for two more performances of Joan von Zarissa. He conducted at least one of the performances himself, that of 28 October. According to Egk, this was the fourth performance of the work in Paris. The third took place the previous day, and Egk does not indicate that he himself conducted. On 29 October Egk conducted another radio broadcast featuring selections from his Olympische Festmusik, the tango from Peer Gynt, and the “Coronation Dance,” that is, No. 10, the Opening Dance, of Joan von Zarissa.122 But Egk’s trip was not all business. On the evening of 22 October 1942 Egk was fêted at the Club de Pointus. At the soirée, dancer Marianne Ivanoff, who danced the part of Perette, pangyrized the composer in an ode whose stanzas closed with plays on Egk’s name.123 La Semaine reported that the “dancing poet made him drink champagne from a dance slipper. A brand new slipper, of course.”124 Hans Pfitzner had been similarly celebrated on 17 October 1942, when he was in Paris to conduct a performance of Palestrina.125 In November 1942 Egk received a letter from Dr. Fritz Piersig of the German Embassy in Paris requesting his presence at the 27 January 1943 performance of Joan von Zarissa. The dramatic dance poem was to be the highlight of a twenty-minute cultural newsreel by Actualités françaises, akin to the German newsreel Die deutsche Wochenschau. The feature was to include “excerpts of planning meetings, rehearsals, set construction, and if possible, the performance.” Piersig also hoped that Egk could “tighten up the tempi and rhythms Fourestier had somewhat

des Komponisten Werner Egk” scheduled for October 1942, “30.9.” is written, along with “8. Auff” in Sütterlin. “Auff” is an abbreviation for Aufführung (performance). 121 Piersig to Knothe, 21 September 1942. AA Paris 1215. 122 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 123 Ivanoff manuscript, “Déja le grand rideau palpité.” BSB Ana 410. 124 La Semaine 3, no. 117, [23 October 1942.] “…la jeune danseuse-poète lui fit sabler le champagne dans un chausson de danse. Un chausson tout neuf, bien entendu.” 125 Extrait de l’ANNUAIRE GÉNÉRAL DU SPECTACLE EN FRANCE, Édition 1942–1943. BSB Ana 410.

264

mucked up.”126 Paris Opéra conductor Louis Fourestier, then, conducted performances of Joan von Zarissa at the opera when Egk did not do so himself. On 12 January 1943, Dr. Alfred Morgenroth, the deputy to Reich Music Chamber President Peter Raabe, confirmed that Egk had permission to travel to Paris from 20 January to 20 February 1943 for the filming of Joan von Zarissa and for preparations for the upcoming production of Peer Gynt. For the trip, Egk was promised the equivalent of RM 2,000 in French francs.127 Egk left for Paris on 24 January 1943 and remained there until 6 February, and he directed the 27 January 1943 performance.128 In his memoir, Egk states that Joan von Zarissa was danced a total of “approximately 30 times” in Paris between 1942 and 1944.129 Paris opera historian Stéphane Wolff puts the number of performances at twenty.130 Considering the wartime occupation context in which the performances took place, either of these numbers counts as success for the composer.

Premieres of Joan von Zarissa, 1943–1944

In 1943 Joan von Zarissa premiered in three cities: Rome (March), Leipzig (May), and Weimar (November). In Rome, Giovanni di Zarissa did not receive as much attention as did its program partner, Stravinsky’s L’Usignuolo (Le Rossignol); however, the critic of Il Popolo di Roma did acknowledge the spectacular Joan von Zarissa as a new form of theater.131 The work was performed three times, on 21, 24, and 27 March.132 In Leipzig, the choir was again moved backstage, to the detriment of its dramatic agency.133 In Weimar, Dr. Otto Reuter found the dramatic dance-poem a bit graphic:

126 Piersig to Egk, 13 November 1942. BSB Ana 410. “Dass Sie wieder einmal eine Aufführung dirigieren, halte ich – nebenbei gesagt – auch deswegen für wünschenswert, damit unter Ihrer Leitung die bei Fourestier doch etwas verschlampten Tempi und Rythmen [sic] wieder zurechtgestrafft werden.” Though Piersig refers to Actualités françaises, it appears that the correct name for the production was France Actualités. 127 Morgenroth (on behalf of the President of the RMK) to Egk, 12 January 1943. BSB Ana 410. 128 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. Egk does not indicate whether or not the work was filmed. 129 Egk, Die Zeit, 349. “1942 bis 1944 wurde mein Ballett „Joan von Zarissa“ an der Pariser Oper etwa dreißigmal gegeben.” 130 Stéphane Wolff, L’Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962) (Paris and Geneva: Slatkine Ressources, 1983), 291. 131 Il popolo di Roma 21, no. 83, 24 March 1943. 132 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 133 Neue Leipziger Zeitung 137, 17 May 1943.

265

Four dead: four tableaus! This “mass die-off” gets a conciliatory explanation in a spoken Epilog: things are not intended to be so dire, only corrupt love is to be damned, not the great, real love that triumphs in a turbulent rondeau by the choir at the conclusion. A prologue introduces the “hero” with a wink toward Odysseus and the Sirens.134 In an attempt to reconcile the effervescence of the rondeau-finale with the rest of Joan von Zarissa, the German National Theater (Das Deutsche Nationaltheater) in Weimar completely recast the finale. Instead of a disjunct dance of joy at the end of an otherwise tragic tale, the Weimar performance featured a fifth tableau, a finale in which “the royal household, lordless and led by the fool, frolics, singing and drinking in the ducal palace.”135 Instead of serving to dispel the foregoing tragedy, the Weimar finale made the tragedy of Joan von Zarissa complete in the dissolution of refined culture. Joan von Zarissa finally arrived in Munich, Egk’s home, in July of 1944. The work was performed in its entirety, with prologue, epilogue, and rondeau-finale.136 Similar to productions in Vienna and Paris, the choir was positioned onstage, but not in accessory stalls in the wings, rather on the platform above the stage proper, that designated in Egk’s stage directions for Lefou, Perette, and the imbedded pantomime. Dr. Otto Hödel, Chief Dramaturge of the Bavarian State Opera (Bayerische Staatsoper), revealed a very surprising change to Joan von Zarissa in his article for the Völkischer Beobachter. He wrote that the ensemble dances belong to the genre of Ausdruckstanz, but the primary figures, that is the actual bearers of the drama, avail themselves of the classic dance form, of point technique, indeed not in a purely motoric or even acrobatic sense, but symbolically, to rise above the earth, to become greater, and there, where the

134 Thüringer Gauzeitung, 27 November [1943]. “Vier Tote: vier Bilder! Diese „Massensterben“ erfährt eine versöhnende Erklärung in einem gesprochenen Epilog: Die Sache sei nicht so schlimm gemeint, nur der zerstörende Liebestrieb solle verdammt werden, nicht die große, echte Liebe, die in einem turbulenten Rondeau des Chores am Schluß triumphiert. Ein Prolog führt den „Helden“ ein mit einem Augenblinzeln nach Odysseus und den Sirenen.” 135 Program, Das Deutsche Nationaltheater, 13 December 1943. BSB Ana 410. “5. Finale: Herrenlos tollt die Hofstaat, angeführt von dem narren, singend u. trinkend im herzoglichen Schloß.” 136 Münchner Neueste Nachrichten 176, 26 June 1944.

266

atmosphere of the erotic could explode the boundaries of the material involved, to bring the setting into extraordinary domains. 137 The Munich productions of Joan von Zarissa were distinctly more ballet-oriented than the heretofore Ausdruckstanz-oriented productions in Germany. This reorientation coincided with the bureaucratic shift away from Ausdruckstanz and back toward ballet in 1942. Joan von Zarissa premiered in Munich on 2 July 1944. The Bavarian State Opera was performing, for the time being, in the Convention Hall of the German Museum on its island in Munich’s Isar River. The Opera’s home on the Max-Joseph-Platz had been destroyed, not in the air attack Egk recorded in his appointment book on the night of 8–9 March 1943, nor that of 6 September 1943, but in a raid of 3 October 1943. Egk was then in Paris conducting a Radio Paris performance of his Peer Gynt.138 The second Munich performance of Joan von Zarissa took place on 5 July; the third, on 8 July 1944. An extensive Allied air offensive on Munich began on 11 July 1944, the day of the fourth Munich performance of Joan von Zarissa. Two days later, on 13 July 1944, the German Museum Conventional Hall was destroyed. The bombardment of Munich and its environs continued through 21 July 1944. The successive destruction of venues and Goebbels’s 1 September 1944 proclamation that all theaters and cultural institutions be closed through the end of the war brought the drama of Joan von Zarissa under National Socialism to an end.

137 Völkischer Beobachter 176, 24 June 1944. “Die Hauptfiguren aber, die eigentlichen Handlungsträger also, bedienen sich der klassischen Tanzform, des Spitzentanzes, freilich nicht in rein motorischem oder gar akrobatischem Sinne, sondern symbolhaft, um sich über die Erde zu erheben, größer zu werden und dort, wo die Atmosphäre des Erotischen dem Stoffe zur Folge Grenzen sprengen könnten, die Situation in Außerrealistische Bezirke zu stellen.” 138 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410

267

CHAPTER SEVEN

JOAN VON ZARISSA AS PROPAGANDA

On 24 August 1940, the day after Hitler’s visit to Paris, the Palais Garnier reopened under French control. It was “life-as-though-nothing-had-changed,” although everything had.1 The administration of Germany’s new western territory was marred by disorganization and a lack of preparation.2 Within a year, German artists had begun to arrive in Paris and its environs. They brought with them propaganda by which to introduce National Socialist German culture to the recently conquered French. The simultaneous French and German elements of Joan von Zarissa made it inherently different from other German propaganda, and the advocate that Egk found in Serge Lifar guaranteed the work’s artistic success. As propaganda, Joan von Zarissa was part of an ultimately unsuccessful campaign that began shortly after the German occupation of Paris in June 1940.

German Cultural Propaganda in France

A battle for control of culture in France, analogous to that between Goebbels and von Rosenberg in Germany, ensued among the German occupiers of Paris. After the invasion of the capital, the army’s Propaganda Staff of Paris took control of cultural propaganda. In August 1940, however, Hitler decided that all such duties fell to the German Embassy in Paris. The Head of the Propaganda Staff, Major Heinz Schmidtke went to Berlin to appeal this decision, but his protest went unheard. German Ambassador Otto Abetz would become the premiere director of cultural propaganda in Occupied France, and his flagship would be the Paris Opéra. 3 The repertoire of the Paris Opéra was theoretically determined by its director, seventy- eight-year-old Jacques Rouché. Rouché was an able administrator who had devoted twenty-five years and substantial private fortune to the institution’s success. With the outbreak of war, Rouché purged the Opéra repertoire of German works and nullified a contract with German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, one of Hitler’s favorites. When the Germans were closing in

1 Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008): 20, 205. 2 Mitchell, Nazi Paris, 3. 3 Mitchell, Nazi Paris, 29.

268

on Paris, Rouché, along with much of the Opéra administration, fled to Cahors. In his wake, Serge Lifar unsuccessfully vied for the helm of the Palais Garnier. Unable to find a politically suitable replacement for the eminently qualified and devoted director, the Propaganda Staff awarded Rouché a two-year appointment. Rouché returned to his post as Director of the Paris Opéra, which, aside from his excursion to Cahors, he had held since 1914.4 During the Occupation, Rouché made his own decisions only part of the time, and these were often based on the priorities set forth by the puppet Vichy government. At other times, the Occupational authorities made demands on Rouché directly, or they made their demands known to the Vichy government, who then transmitted the orders to Rouché.5 An example from April 1941 encapsulates the tangle of control and non-control, communication and non-communication typical of early propaganda efforts in France. Serge Lifar approached the German Institute in Paris (Das deutsche Institut in Paris), and asked them to recommend the production of Richard Strauss’s Josephslegende to Jacques Rouché.6 The German Institute was directed by Dr. Karl Epting and was associated with the German Embassy. The goal of the Institute was the production of cultural events and the dissemination of German propaganda in France.7 Though the German Institute took no action, Abetz’s assistant Rudolf Schleier had to defend the Institute against a Head of Staff named Paltzo at the Propaganda Staff, who reported that Epting’s actions were conceived more spontaneously and more with momentary propaganda success than bothering to align itself in a goal-oriented way with a program in which due consideration is given to definitive standpoints pertaining to the cultural propaganda of the New Germany.8

4 Spotts, The Shameful Peace, 204–5. 5 Jane Fulcher, “French Identity in Flux: Vichy’s Collaboration, and Antigone’s Operatic Triumph,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 2 (June 2006): 270. 6 AA, Paris 1368. 7 Mitchell, Nazi Paris, 27–28. 8 Schleier to Paltzo, 18 (Draft) & 19 April 1941. AA Paris 1368. “Die Behauptung des Herrn Staffelführers Paltzow, „dass die kulturelle Aktivität des Leiters des Deutschen Instituts mehr spontan und mehr auf propagandistische Augenblickserfolge bedacht ist, als dass sie zielbewusst sich um eine Linie bemüht, in der die für die Kulturpropaganda des neuen Deutschlands massgeblichen Gesichtspunkte berücksichtigt sind“, weise ich

269

Schleier countered that the opposite was true, that the activities of the Embassy and its agencies were well aligned with National Socialist standpoints but took into account the particularities of the French mindset and were part of a long-term plan, not capricious individual events. He adds a biting epithet: “the collaboration desired by you as well as by us is not supported when … unwarranted allegations are raised based only on the suppositions, that is, the comments of a foreigner.”9 That foreigner was Russian-French Lifar. But it was not Lifar who instigated the vitriol. Lifar had received a “no” from the Institute and dropped the matter, but Epting had not informed the Propaganda Staff, headed by Schmidtke, in the meantime. Epting’s non- communication was the real issue. On 13 April 1941 Goebbels confided to his diary, In Paris, meanwhile, our Embassy is putting on ballet-evenings with the new blood of the Paris Opéra. I stopped the pictures of them altogether, sent them to the Führer with an introductory complaint, and struck up a hell of a din. Paris has become a veritably evil stage. The greatest failure in the affair is our Major Schmidtke. A consummate lame duck.10 Goebbels, as Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, should have had ex officio control of National Socialist propaganda in France. However, Hitler had specified that the duties fell to the German Embassy. To complicate matters, the Propaganda Staff was an arm of neither the Promi nor the Embassy, but of the Wehrmacht, the German Armed Forces.

eindeutig zurück und bitte, Herrn Staffelführer Paltzow zu Beweisen für seine diskriminierenden Behauptungen zu veranlassen.” (18 April) “Die Deutsche Botschaft und die ihr angeschlossenen Dienststellen führen ihre Aufgaben ausschliesslich nach nationalsozialistischen Gesichtspunkten, unter Berücksichtigung der besonderen Mentalität der Franzosen und auf lange Sicht geplant durch.” (19 April) 9 Ibid. (19 April) “Die von Ihnen ebenso wie von uns gewünschte Zusammenarbeit wird nicht gefördert, wenn auf Grund eines technischen Missverständnisses unberechtigte Vorwürfe erhoben werden, die sich nur auf Vermutungen bezw. Aeusserungen eines Ausländers stützen.” Schleier is responding to Paltzo, whom he addesses with the formal “Ihnen,” about the foreigner Lifar, whose name peppers Paltzo’s original complaint and Schleier’s response. 10 Goebbels, Tagebücher, I, 9, 245. “In Paris macht unsere Botschaft unterdeß Ballettabende mit dem Nachwuchs der Pariser Oper. Ich lasse die Bilder davon allesamt sperren, schicke sie beschwerdeführend dem Führer und schlage einen Mordslärm. Paris ist so eine richtige übel Etappe geworden. Der größte Versager dabei ist unser Major Schmidtke. Eine vollkommene Niete!” Because of the nature of Goebbels’s diaries, there is little information about the pictures to which he refers. They were likely press photographs.

270

The confusion over direction of German propaganda in Paris did not impede its importation. On 8 March 1941 the boy choir of the Regensburg Cathedral gave a concert at Notre Dame in Bordeaux; on 5 April, at Notre Dame in Paris. The program featured works by Lassus, Palestrina, Bruckner, Brahms, Mozart, and Reger.11 In May, Herbert von Karajan conducted the Berliner Staatsoper in a performance of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, with scenery by German Emil Preetorius and Germaine Lubin reprising her Bayreuth Isolde. In July 1941, a Mozart Week showcasing the Hans von Benda ensemble was held.12 Schleier received a certain amount of flak for one of these concerts because a concert program was printed in French only. Graf Siegfried von Roedern wrote on behalf of the NSDAP Foreign Organization that it was inconceivable that the booklet be printed only in French at the concert of a German master.13 In February 1942 Goebbels met with German sculptor Arno Breker, who impressed on the Reichsminister what was a fundamental obstacle to German propaganda in Paris: I discussed the situation in Paris with Breker. He returned from a visit of several weeks in France and believes that at the moment there is very much for us to do there. It is obvious that our military agencies are hardly adequate to have a lasting effect on the French mindset. He enumerated hair-raising details to me. And Schmidtke cannot accomplish it in the long-run, as a military man, to settle into psychological problems of national leadership. The disposition in Paris itself is not negative toward us. However, the critical food situation stands between us and the French people. Were we in a position today to provide sufficient foodstuffs to the occupied territories, we could achieve moral successes without end. Cultural propaganda is still the best propaganda for the French. Therefore I shall strengthen it even more than heretofore.14

11 AA Paris 1380. Regensburger Domspatzen translates literally as “Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows.” Reports boasted an attendance of 6,000 for the Paris concert. 12 Extrait de l’Annuaire général du spectacle en France, Édition 1942–1943. BSB Ana 410. 13 AA Paris 1142Y. 14 Goebbels, Tagebücher, II, 3, 317. 15 February 1942. “Mit Breker bespreche ich die Lage in Paris. Er kommt von einem mehrwöchigen Besuch in Frankreich zurück und glaubt, daß im Augenblick dort für uns sehr viel zu machen sei. Allerdings sind unsere Militärdienststellen zu einer dauernden Einwirkung auf die französische Mentalität kaum geeignet. Er erzählt mir Einzelheiten darüber, die haarstäubend sind. Auch Schmidtke kann es auf die Dauer nicht fertigbringen, sich als Militär in psychologische Volksführungsprobleme einzuleben. Die Stimmung in Paris selbst ist uns gegenüber nicht negativ. Allerdings steht die krisenhafte Lebensmittellage zwischen uns und

271

And it appears that Goebbels did just that. Throughout 1942 National Socialist propaganda events in France became systematically organized by members of the Promi and grew in scale. Arno Breker was the center of one of the most touted cultural exhibitions in Paris. On 15 May 1942, an exhibition of Breker’s works opened in the Orangerie of the Place de la Concorde. Breker had taken the silver medal at the 1936 Olympics for his statue Decathlon Athlete.15 This sculpture and his Discus Thrower caught the attention of Adolf Hitler, who later chose Breker to sculpt the friezes for the Berlin Triumphal Arch sketched by the Führer himself and designed by Alber Speer.16 Vichy Minister without Portfolio Jacques Benoist-Méchin inaugurated the exhibition, and governmental officials, artists, military personnel, and press attended. These included Serge Lifar, Jean Cocteau, and actor and writer Sacha Guitry. Breker was described as a “representative of German monumental sculpturing” whose works adorned many party buildings, and the exhibition was the “first large display of works of a German sculptor” ever shown in France.17 Breker was an appropriate choice for France, since he had lived there in the 1920s. At the time, he was lover to writer Jean Cocteau, who published a “Salute to Breker” in the French newspaper Comoedia in conjunction with the opening. Cocteau’s ode began, “I salute you from the lofty realm of poets, a realm where nations exist only to the extent that they contribute to the artistic treasure of the nation.” Some viewed the “Salute” as embarrassing as Breker’s homoerotic sculptures, such as Comradeship, reproduced in Figure 7.1.18

dem französischen Volke. Wären wir heute in der Lage, den besetzten Gebieten ausreichend Nahrungsmittel zu geben, so könnten wir moralische Erfolge ohne Ende erreichen. Die Kulturpropaganda ist den Franzosen gegenüber immer noch die beste Propaganda. Ich werde sie deshalb noch mehr als bisher verstärken.” 15 Stanton, Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, 180. 16 Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (Woodstock and New York: The Overlook Press, 2009), 108. 17 German Art and Culture 5, May 1942. AA Paris 1219. 18 Spotts, The Shameful Peace, 44–45.

272

Figure 7.1. Arno Breker, Comradeship. http://www.hitler.org/art/breker/comradeship.jpg. Public domain.

As Frederic Spotts has pointed out, Breker’s sculptures “owed everything to size and exaggeration—shoulders too broad, hips too narrow, muscles too pronounced, stance too mannered. Such torsos, crowned with faces that were grim, arrogant and ruthless, were icons of

273

brutality.…” The images were also laden with a potential sexual fantasy, not innocent, but pushing sensuality to sadomasochism.19 This sentiment was echoed by Sacha Guitry, who told Cocteau at the opening, “if they all have erections, we won’t be able to move around.”20 Breker did have a penchant for grand scale, as this photograph of the artist in his studio reflects (see Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2. Sculptor Arno Breker in his studio. Source: http://www.meaus.com/1940-breker-atelier.JPEG. Public domain.

During a visit to Breker’s home and workshops in August 1943, the artist confided in Serge Lifar. Breker did sculpt according to a monumental style, and this style became more pronounced as the sculptures passed from Breker’s workshops to the factory, where they were reproduced on physically monumental scale for decoration of official buildings. In return for a house, a gift from the Führer, Breker gave the New Germany his art. Breker commented to Lifar, “This is the ransom. They’ve stolen the soul of my works from me.…” On the same trip,

19 Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, 185–6. 20 Alan Riding, And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 177.

274

Lifar enlisted Breker to create his bust.21 Werner Egk would do the same thirty-five years later.22 The Breker exhibition closed with a concert. Pianists Wilhelm Kempff and Alfred Cortot played the Mozart Sonata in D Major, K. 448, and the Andante and Variations, op. 46 of Schumann, both for two pianos; Germaine Lubin sang French folksongs accompanied by the German Kempff and German folksongs accompanied by Frenchman Cortot.23 After a run of two and a half months, the exhibition had drawn 60,000 visitors and an additional 45,000 German military.24 The May 1942 Berlin Philharmonic tour of Unoccupied France did not enjoy such a congenial reception. The orchestra concertized in Marseille on 17 May and in Lyon on 18 May. After the intermission in Marseille, a tear-gas device was deployed. The audience refused to leave their places and instead applauded their reprobation for the act and their support of the orchestra. For the Lyon performance, much stricter security measures were taken. After a few individuals purchased a majority of the tickets, the ticket sale was annulled. A second ticket sale yielded a rapidly sold-out house, and many were turned away. Police cordoned off the vicinity of the hall one and a half hours before the concert start. Despite the perimeter, people in passing cars shouted, “Down with the Krauts!” Others distributed flyers calling for a stop to the concert. The French police were rather unconcerned, some even pleased. Despite the demonstration, the concert was a success.25 The demonstrations were blamed on the usual suspects, Communists and Jews who wanted to sabotage the concert by boycott or disruption.26 By late 1942 German cultural propaganda underwent more systematic organization. In a German Embassy memorandum of 6 August 1942, the German Institute planned four performances of Hans Pfitzner’s opera Palestrina starting September 1942; eight performances of Joan von Zarissa under Egk’s direction starting in October; and a performance of Strauss’s

21 Lifar, Ma Vie, 250. 22 Breker created a bust of Egk in August 1978; the bust was cast in January 1979. The bust is housed at the Werner Egk Begegnungsstätte in Donauwörth, Germany. 23 Report to Abetz, 15 July 1942. AA Paris 1380. 24 Spotts, The Shameful Peace, 45. Spotts regards these figures as “derisory” and notes that the military were “no doubt encouraged to visit.” 25 Rabuse to Epting, 19 May 1942. AA Paris 1215. The French cry was “A bas les Boches!” 26 Abschrift, Konzert des Berliner Philharmonischen Orchesters. AA Paris 1216.

275

Der Rosenkavalier under Wetzelsberger with German soloists for January 1943. Concerts featuring the Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra under Wolfgang Fortner, the Cologne Chamber Trio for Early Music under professor K. M. Schwammberger, and pianist Elly Ney were planned for November and December 1942. An “Evening of Song” featuring Lore Fischer and Hermann Reutter was planned for Paris in late January or early February 1943, with plans to extend the tour to the Vichy France. Apparently there were few concerns regarding a repeat of the Lyon demonstration of the previous May. The Cologne Chamber Orchestra under Erich Kraack was scheduled for Paris in late March; the Peter-Quartet, for May. This group, too, was to concertize in Unoccupied France, with a Bruckner program. Unlike the German-centric concerts of the German Institute, the Propaganda Staff of Paris scheduled its own series of ten “Master Concerts” featuring both French and German conductors. In addition to these music and theater performances, numerous lectures were planned on topics including, art, literature, law, history, journalism, medicine, and economics. 27 From at least March 1943 large-scale calendars of German cultural propaganda events in Italy, Switzerland, and France were published for German use, all marked “Streng Vertraulich!” strictly confidential. Extant broadsides from 5 September 1942 list events planned through November 1942; those from 15 March 1943, events planned through June 1943; those from 25 March, 25 April, and 25 May 1944, events planned through June 1944. In these broadsides, two works that enjoyed great success in Paris are conspicuously absent: Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina and Werner Egk’s Joan von Zarissa.28 The two are included on only one broadside, that of 5 September 1942. Unlike the neatly printed broadsides above that contain many finalized engagements, this sheet is a working copy, typed and replete with tentative events. Joan von Zarissa is listed in only one other place among extant German Embassy materials. Among the broadsides, there is a report titled “Compilation of the cultural propaganda events that have been carried out since the arrival of specialists of the Reich Propaganda Ministry at the German Embassy Paris.” The document details events through

27 AA Paris 1205. Memorandum to the German Embassy Paris, 6 August 1942. The memorandum bears many pencil notations and emendations: for the Pfitzner, “September” is overwritten with “Okt;” for the Egk, “Oktober” is scratched out and “30.9.” is noted; and for the Strauss, “Januar 1943” is crossed out and “1 Dez. Hälfte” (1st half of December [1942]) is written beneath. The numbers of performances are written in pencil. 28 AA Paris 1115X.

276

the end of July 1943, and it reveals that the majority of events planned above were carried out. The entry for 10 July 1942 reads “French premiere of the ballet Joan von Zarissa by Werner Egk under the leadership of the composer at the Paris Opéra. The ballet has had fifteen performances to date.” So, in the year from July 1942 to July 1943, Joan von Zarissa was performed fifteen times in Occupied Paris. The entry directly below this, for 17 October 1942, reads “Repeat performance of Palestrina by Hans Pfitzner at the Paris Opéra with the composer in attendance. Palestrina has had twelve performances in Paris to date.”29 The series of concerts given by Berlin Cathedral organist Fritz Heitmann in July 1943 deserves closer attention. Between 3 July and 17 July, Heitmann gave recitals in Nancy, Dijon, Paris, Amiens, Tours, Poitiers, and Bordeaux.30 The programs included the Prelude and Fugue in B Minor of Nicholas Bruhns; the Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue of J. S. Bach; the Chorale in A Minor of César Franck, and the Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Sagen of Franz Liszt.31 The last work is based on “the basso-continuo of the first movement of the cantata ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, Angst und Not sind des Christen Tränenbrot’ and the ‘Crucifixus’ of the B-Minor Mass by Sebastian Bach.”32 A report made to Dr. Fritz Piersig of the German Embassy in Paris indicated that the tour was an “extraordinarily great success.” According to the report, Heitmann played for approximately 2,000 in Nancy; 1,200 in Dijon; 4,000 at Notre Dame de Paris; 2,000 in Amiens; 1,500 in Tours; 1,500 in Poitiers; and 200 in Bordeaux; for an astounding total of approximately 12,400 people. The report explained: All concerts were given free of admission charge. They were very substantially attended by ecclesiastical and less affluent circles, who as an audience were not otherwise very

29 AA Paris 1115X. “10. VIII. Franz. Erstaufführung des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ von Werner Egk unter Leitung des Komponisten an der Pariser Grossen Oper. Das Ballett hat bisher 15 Aufführungen erlebt. 17. Oktober: Wiederaufnahme des „Palestrina“ von Hans Pfitzner an der Pariser Oper in Anwesenheit des Komponisten. Der „Palestrina“ hat bisher 12 Aufführungen in Paris erlebt.” This document is included in its entirety in Appendix D. 30 Ibid. 31 AA Paris 1142Y. Clippings from Soldat im Westen, 11 July 1943; Echo de Nancy, 5 July 1943; and Le Matin 11 July 1943. 32 Franz Liszt, Organ Works, Vol. 1 (New York: Edwin F. Kalmus, n.d.), 4.

277

effectively reached by our cultural propaganda. Thus, the numbers cited above carry special weight.33 True, the audience numbers were large, but the impact of the recitals was not likely so great. Heitmann was carrying coals to Newcastle. The most obvious example was playing Franck before a French audience, though one could argue that Heitmann took advantage of the chance to play the work on organs for which it was intended. The German composers seem to better fit a typical propaganda mold: a German artist performing German before a French public. However, Bruhns, Liszt, and even Bach were so many coals. At the time, the French Organ School had long been world-renowned, culminating in the artistry of Marcel Dupré, then Professor of Organ at the Conservatory, which had remained in Paris. The School and Dupré could trace a pedagogical lineage back to Bach himself.34 Dupré had also created a transcription of the Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue for organ and orchestra. Liszt was well known to French organists, and Dupré had made an organ-and-orchestra transcription of the Liszt work, as well. As for Bruhns, Dupré likely heard his teacher Guilmant play Bruhns’s works during the elder’s twenty-year-long organ series at the Trocadero. Early music featured prominently in Guilmant’s series.35 Given the renown of the French Organ School, German organ music propaganda was likely to elicit little effect on the French consciousness. Organ music was also a requisite feature of a “German Week” scheduled for the second half of November 1943 in Unoccupied Marseilles. A reflection of the Entartete Kunst or Entartete Musik exhibitions, this event was to be headlined as the “Défense et richesse de la

33 Report to Dr. Piersig, 20 July 1943. AA Paris 1142Y. “Saemtliche Konzerte fanden bei freiem Eintritt statt. [Sie] waren sehr wesentlich von kirchlichen und weniger bemittel[ten] Kreisen besucht, die als Publikum von unserer kulturpropa[gan]distischen Arbeit sonst nicht allzu stark erfasst werden. [Die] oben angefuehrten Zahlen bekommen damit besonderes Gewich[t.]” 34 Marcel Dupré (1886–1971) was a pupil of Louis Victor Jules Vierne (1830–1937) in organ (improvisation) and a pupil of Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937) in fugue (composition) at the Paris Conservatory. Vierne himself was pupil of Widor (organ) at Paris Conservatory. The Frenchman Widor was a pupil of Jaak Nikolaas Lemmens (Belgian, 1823–1881) in Brussels. Lemmens was a pupil of Adolf Friedrich Hesse (1809–1863) in Breslau. Hesse was a pupil of Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck (German, 1770–1846) for six months in 1828–29. Rinck was a pupil of Johann Christian Kittel (1732–1809) in Erfurt, 1786–89. Kittel was a pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, 1748–50. 35 Michael Murray, Marcel Dupré:: The Work of a Master Organist (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985), 39, 131. Dupré also created a transcription of the Bach work for organ and orchestra.

278

culture européenne contre la barbarie bolchevique,” the defense and richness of European culture against Bolshevist barbarity. Among the cultural events planned for the German Week were a concert of a German symphony orchestra or singer; an organ concert in a large Marseilles church; an economic presentation by the anti-Communist Professor Seraphim from Breslau; and a literary presentation. In addition, a troupe from the Paris Opéra was to perform Wagner’s Lohengrin.36 The opening night of an October 1943 Anti-Bolshevist Exhibition in Marseille had been wildly successful, according to a report to the German Embassy.37 Here again, German artists were to bring the National Socialist Weltanschauung to the French. In addition, various concerts were planned solely for German military personnel. The choir of Holy Cross Church, Dresden (Dresdner Kreuzchor), attempted to make such a tour of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in September 1943, claiming that morale-building concerts of leading German choirs for the Wehrmacht had been desired for a great while. In January 1944, the choir was given permission to do so.38 The institution of Wehrmacht concerts begs the questions of for what audience propaganda events in Paris were intended and of just who was attending them. The Paris Opéra was a favorite destination of both Germans and French. In the early days of the Occupation, twenty percent of the Opéra seats were reserved for German military personnel, and remaining tickets were available to them for half-price. Estimates put German attendance at fifty percent of available seats. By November 1943 the Wehrmacht reserved 639 Opéra seats, one-third of the house. Certain events were limited to Wehrmacht-only crowds.39 Paris Opéra Director Jacques Rouché saw not only an increase in German uniforms in the Opéra’s seats but also an increase of German costumes on the Opéra’s stage. He was pressed to increase the number of German works in the Opéra repertoire, so after the Palais Garnier reopened with a gala performance of Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust on 24 August 1940, its next work would be Beethoven’s Fidelio, not Rouché’s choice. As the Occupation continued, Rouché sought to derail the admission of German works to the repertoire, mostly by perpetual delay. In the end, Rouché was rather successful, admitting only four new German works:

36 AA Paris 1142Z. 37 AA Paris 1138. 38 Gerlach to Piersig, 13 Spetember 1943; Piersig to Dresdner Kreuzchor, 15 January 1944. AA Paris 1215. 39 Spotts, The Shameful Peace, 205.

279

Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, Palestrina by Hans Pfitzner, and Peer Gynt and Joan von Zarissa by Werner Egk. Rouché’s was one of the first trials of artistic personae after the liberation of France. For his work with the Germans, and no thanks to his wife’s indiscretions with the same, he was dismissed from the Paris Opéra in April 1945.40 According to two reports from the Security Service of the SS, German propaganda had failed to make clear progress in France by late 1943. According to the report from 18 October 1943 a great majority of the French had become hostile to the Germans and reacted negatively toward any German propaganda efforts. Through a series of mistakes, German propaganda had failed to establish a successful connection with the average French citizen. The Germans had essentially missed their opportunity to win over the French public, and few possibilities remained. Among the issues enumerated was that German propaganda was proceeding too much according to German concepts and methods and did not take into account particular conditions for success in France. The primary condition was the intellectual independence on which Parisians prided themselves and against which the German campaign of “clamant posters, buzzword-type slogans, and ready-made propaganda statements” had the opposite of the intended effect. German propaganda lacked a clear goal and had failed to educate the French populace on the New Germany and National Socialism. Instead of a positive introduction to National Socialism, the French were confronted by a mysterious specter against which it was easy to rally. Further, the Germans were losing a radio propaganda war to Britain, the adopted home of Charles de Gaulle. Pro-French broadcasts provided a further catalyst for anti-German sentiment. Even such a gesture as surrendering power in spheres of limited influence in an effort to foster a sense of French autonomy had not improved the situation. Instead, French opposition was growing bold and launching terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage.41 The Security Service report of 25 October 1943 was dedicated to the “resistance to the performance of German works on the French stage.” The primary complaint was simply that fewer German works were being performed on the French stage than before the war began. The blame for the decline was placed squarely on “hostile attitude of the director of the Opéra, J.

40 Ibid., 205–07. 41 “SD-Berichte zu Inlandsfragen vom 18 Oktober 1943 (Rote Serie),” Meldungen aus dem Reich, ed. Heinz Boberach, vol. 15 (Herrsching: Pawlak Verlag, 1984), 5887–5889. These two reports are included in Appendix E.

280

Rouché.”42 Others held that German activities at the Opéra should proceed first from a propaganda agenda and only subordinately from an artistic one. That is, it was not the job of the Germans to “raise the artistic niveau” of the Opéra but rather to place before the Parisian public a series of German works in which the French could glimpse the “greatness and perfection of German art” and be impressed. Unfortunately for the Germans, the looming prospect of an Anglo-American landing in France simultaneously kindled a hope of liberation and an utter aversion to German propaganda. Theater directors were reluctant to endorse German works and prevented such a German cultural parade. Under the “guise of personnel, technical, and sundry difficulties,” directors sought to postpone interminably the production of German works. Rouché was primary among them. The Paris Opéra’s production of Egk’s Peer Gynt was cited as an example, its premiere delayed by almost a year from the original schedule.43 The same had happened with Joan von Zarissa.

Joan von Zarissa as Cultural Propaganda

Lucht reported that plans to bring the work to the Paris Opéra stage had begun in late summer 1941, but the work did not premiere until almost a year later, July 1942, and then it was given only two performances before the end of the season.44 Rouché’s stall tactics seem to have worked: after the substantial preparatory period, the premiere was postponed incrementally from April to July 1944, and later performances were likewise delayed. Based on this protraction, it appears that Rouché’s opinion of Joan von Zarissa was that it was another product of cultural propaganda aimed at the French. The Propaganda Staff of Paris likewise regarded Joan von Zarissa as a propaganda tool, allowing the Opéra to choose the work from those placed at its disposal. In contrast to Pfitzner’s Palestrina, a model of the culmination of romantic German masterworks, Joan von Zarissa was, in its “fundamental theatricality and genuine dynamism, a testimony for contemporary solidarity, propensity for progress and the health of the New German cultural will in the arena of music drama compositions.” Joan von Zarissa was successful beyond other propaganda attempts, and

42 Even so, Rouché was among the first tried and punished (by dismissal) for his collaboration with the Nazis. 43 SD-Berichte zu Inlandsfragen vom 25 Oktober 1943 (Rote Serie),” Meldungen aus dem Reich, ed. Heinz Boberach, vol. 15 (Herrsching: Pawlak Verlag, 1984), 5922–5925. 44 Lucht, Bericht, 28 July 1942. AA Paris 1215.

281

reviews were positive. Egk had become a household name in Paris, something that he could not accomplish within the Reich, Lucht claims, citing the fact that Joan von Zarissa had yet to be performed in Munich, Egk’s hometown. 45 And although Joan von Zarissa is often absent from German propaganda calendars, it does make at least two important appearances, confirming that it was part of an overall propaganda campaign. Werner Egk himself was rather quiet on the point of whether or not Joan von Zarissa constituted cultural propaganda. The unnamed musicologist of Die Zeit wartet nicht asked Egk a leading question on the topic: “Paris? For some time, it was said that the Propaganda Ministry turned the Paris Opéra on to you. This appears untrue to me. Instead, if I’m not mistaken, Dr. Piersig did that. What role did he play?” Egk answered that Dr. Fritz Piersig created his own Music Department within the Propaganda Staff of Paris and operated of his own volition. For example, Piersig wanted to perform Arthur Honegger’s Pacific 231 in observance of the composer’s fiftieth birthday, but the piece was designated “unerwünscht” in Germany. Piersig reportedly told Honegger that the work could present difficulties as it was “machine music.” Honegger offered an out: print “Theme and Variations” in the program and play Pacific 231 under this title. By relating the account, Egk attempted to separate himself from the activities of the Reich Propaganda Ministry. He aligned the Paris performance of Joan von Zarissa with the more independent Music Department of Piersig that had clandestinely performed the risqué Pacific 231. Egk continued that Piersig requested scores of new ballets from German publishers and forwarded them to the Paris Opéra. These included Der Kirmes von Delft by Hermann Reutter, Das Fest im Süden by Boris Blacher, and the Josephslegende of Richard Strauss, along with Joan von Zarissa. From these, Rouché and Lifar chose Joan von Zarissa. The Propaganda Ministry only learned of the selection later.46 This course had already been plotted in late

45 Ibid. 46 Egk, Die Zeit, 349–350. “Frage: Paris? Vor einiger Zeit wurde darüber geredet, daß das Propagandaministerium Sie der Pariser Oper aufgedreht habe. Das scheint mir nicht wahr zu sein. Das hat doch, wenn ich nicht irre, Herr Dr. Piersig gemacht. Was für eine Rolle hat er gespielt? Antwort: Dr. Fritz Piersig war Organist und Musikwissenschaftler, hatte den Westfeldzug mitgemacht und wurde als Leutnant in Paris auf Empfehlung von Hans Joachim Moser in die Propagandastaffel, eine militärische Einrichtung, abkommandiert. Er baute ein Musikreferat auf und arbeitete auf seine Weise. Als Arthur Honegger seinen fünfzigsten Geburtstag feierte, sollte auch „Pacific 231“ gespielt werden. Das Stück war in Deutschland

282

Summer 1941 by the Propaganda Staff of Paris, as recounted in Lieutenant Lucht’s report. Though Hitler had decided in August 1940 that propaganda duties fell to the German Embassy in Paris, the Wehrmacht Propaganda Staff did not cease its activities. Egk’s account confirms that the Propaganda Staff’s original goal of giving the impression that the Paris Opéra was acting autonomously was accomplished. Other evidence indicates that Egk had knowledge of the propaganda goals of his sojourn to Paris. A party operative identified only as Krüger met with Egk after his arrival in Paris. During the course of their conversation, it came to light that most artists sent abroad by the Reich Propaganda Ministry sent reports back to the Propaganda Ministry detailing their propagandistic efficacy. Compliance was voluntary, and no mechanisms ensured the artists’ cooperation.47 That Egk entered into conversation on such a topic indicates that he was aware of the connection of himself and other artists to the Reich Propaganda Ministry. This does not necessarily mean that Egk fulfilled the request. On 27 August 1942, Krüger again wrote to the Berlin Foreign

„unerwünscht“. Piersig: „Hören Sie, Herr Honegger, mit diesem Stück könnte es vielleicht Schwierigkeiten geben. Es gilt as ‚Maschinenmusik’. Spielen Sie doch etwas anderes.“ Honegger: „Ich weiß einen besseren Ausweg: Wir schreiben einfach, ‚Thema mit Variationen’ in das Programm und spielen unter diesem Titel ‚Pacific 231’.“ So wurde es auch gemacht.—Die Geschichte der Annahme des „Zarissa“ an der Pariser Oper ist geklärt. Piersig ließ sich „in eigener Verantwortung“, wie er sich ausdrückte, von den deutschen Verlagen Partituren neuerer Ballette schicke und gab vier davon an die Pariser Oper weiter: „Zarissa“ von Egk, „Die Kirmes von Delft“ von Reutter, „Das Fest im Süden“ von Blacher und „Josephslegende“ von Strauss. Der Administrator der Oper, Jacques Rouché, ein prachtvoller alter Herr, wählte mit seinem Ballettmeister Serge Lifar „Joan von Zarissa“ zur Aufführung aus. Das Propagandaministerium erfuhr erst später davon.” Egk does not mentions Pfitzner’s Palestrina, ostensibly because the work was not a ballet. 47 Krüger to Berlin Foreign Office, 15 July 1942. “Aus einem Gespräch mit Komponisten Egk anlässlich seines Aufenthalts in Paris ergab sich, dass die Mehrzahl der massgebenden vom Reichpropagandaministerium ins Ausland entsandten Künstler an das Propagandaministerium Reiseberichte mit stark kulturpolitischem Einschlag einsenden. Würde es grundsätzlich für wünschenswert halten, wenn mit Propagandaministerium eine ähnliche Regelung getroffen werden könnte, wie sie mit Reichserziehungsministerium besteht, das bei Wissenschaftlern derartige Berichte dem Auswärtigen Amt und über dieses den jeweils interessierten Reichvertretungen zur Verfügung stellt. Krüger”

283

Office inquiring whether or not Egk had filed such a report, as he indicated he would at their meeting.48 No further mention of the report exists. Financial records provide another link between the Promi and Egk’s activities in Paris. Egk received a letter of 14 August 1942 informing him that the Promi had directed the Foreign Office for Theater to pay him the remainder of the RM 2,500 owed him for rehearsing and conducting two performances of Joan von Zarissa in Paris. Egk earned no pay from his position as Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Chamber of Music, and his income as a Kapellmeister was paid to him by the Staatsoper Berlin, under the direction of Prussian Minister- President Hermann Göring.49 It was the Promi who paid Egk’s bills in France. It is naive to think that Egk, the Leader of the Composers Section of the Reich Chamber of Music, whose supervisor was Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, would be unaware of the Reich Propaganda Ministry’s hand in such affairs. An element critical to the success of Egk’s Joan von Zarissa as propaganda was that Germany found a zealous collaborator in Serge Lifar. Lifar enthusiastically embraced Egk’s work, not least for the dance and dramatic possibilities its production afforded, especially to Lifar himself, as its lead dancer. Lucht reports that the Culture Department of the Propaganda Staff of Paris could “not have wished for a more intensive advocate” for the ballet, and that Lifar’s advocacy removed virtually all obstacles to the orchestra’s cooperation with Egk. The German propaganda establishment did little to propagate Joan von Zarissa other than providing for press coverage of rehearsals and allowing contact with the composer.50 It did not need to. Lifar enjoyed celebrity status and represented the historical institutions of the Paris Opéra and French Ballet—there was no better champion nor Judas goat. Lifar’s promotion of Joan von Zarissa may explain its large-scale absence from the records of the Germans, who needed only allow Lifar to disseminate their propaganda for them. Lifar’s own account of his part in Joan von Zarissa, at least before the summer of 1944, is one of artistic triumph. At the post-premiere party at the Hotel Ritz, Lifar counted himself, as

48 Krüger to Berlin Foreign Office, 27 August 1942. “Es wird um Mitteilung gebeten, ob der Reisebericht, den seinerzeit der Komponist EGK über seinen Aufenthalt in Frankreich beim Reichspropagandaministerium einreichen wollte, inzwischen erstattet worden ist. Krüger” 49 StAM, Ka 339. 50 Lucht, Bericht, AA Paris 1215.

284

Egk’s artistic interpreter “to some degree, and with the author [composer], the hero of the evening.”51 While producing Joan von Zarissa, Lifar also produced Le Jour by composer Maurice Jaubert, who died defending France in June 1940. Lifar procured the necessary authorization to have the words “died for France” printed under the composer’s name in the program. Lifar counted this permission as a concession by the Germans to the man who had assured the triumph of Joan von Zarissa. According to Lifar, Rouché redacted the epithet out of fear of an adverse German reaction. 52 That might have upset the careful balancing act Rouché had accomplished. Lifar also provides a foil by which to evaluate the Security Service’s assessment that the failure of German propaganda in Paris was due to perpetual delay on the part of Rouché. Perhaps this was not always the case. While Joan von Zarissa was in production, the stagehands of the Paris Opéra presented to its administration a list of grievances that had not been addressed in a timely fashion. In response, the stagehands struck, delaying a Joan von Zarissa performance for half an hour. According to Lifar, the furious Germans mistook the strike for a politically- motivated one and threatened to close the Opéra and deport its staff, administration, dancers, and stagehands alike. Lifar, in his messianic manner, had to intervene. He told the Germans that “it was all a terrible misunderstanding, that it would be most tactless [for the Germans] to make claims against the French authorities on an evening when the performance was devoted to the work of a German author [composer].” The intercession worked, and the production continued.53 It would likely have continued regardless, since interrupting the most successful tool of National Socialist propaganda in France would have been grossly counterproductive to an already failing effort. Regardless of Lifar’s motivation in its production, Joan von Zarissa would not have been as successful in France were it not for his involvement. According to German reports, Joan von Zarissa continued to elicit excitement from the French public throughout 1942. Reports from the German Embassy from October and November were transmitted to both the Foreign Office and the Reich Propaganda Ministry, who

51 Lifar, Ma Vie, 232. 52 Ibid., 239. In Lifar’s words, “This was a reward from the Germans in whose eyes I had the great merit of putting on Joan de Zarizza and assuring its triumph.” 53 Ibid., 266–67.

285

saw additional propaganda potential in Lifar. On 16 August 1943, Lifar was summoned to the Reich Chancellery for a meeting with Adolf Hitler. Lifar relates that Hitler spoke in a familiar, almost paternal, manner, with a slight smile and in the least official way possible. I had not time to reply before he went on to tell me how highly he appreciated the work I was doing at the Paris Opéra which he considered was of a nature greatly to aid in furthering Franco-German understanding. “I have learned,” he went on, “of the great success Herbert von Karajan, Arno Breker and Werner Egk have had in France … the privileges of Art,” he murmured in a musing tone.54 The Führer proceeded to inform Lifar that he would accompany him to Moscow on 20 August, the day on which the city would fall, Stalin already having left the capital. Lifar was to be witness to Hitler’s “triumphant entry into Moscow” and his guide around the city. That entry did not occur, and Lifar was spared, as was Hitler, whom Lifar had resolved to assassinate before he set foot in the city.55 German Ambassador Abetz also had further plans for Lifar and Joan von Zarissa. In a 21 April 1944 telegram to the German Embassy in Madrid, Abetz suggested a guest appearance of the Paris Opéra Ballet to “counter Anglo-American rhetoric regarding the suppression of French culture under German occupation.” Works on the program were to include various French works and the “Spanish premiere of the ballet Joan von Zarissa by German composer Werner Egk.”56 Egk was also to be present. A few days earlier, on 17 April 1944, an operative named Bargen reported to Piersig that a tour had been arranged for Serge Lifar and sixty-two others to travel to Spain from 6 May to 5 June 1944 and that Egk was to be “pressed for personal

54 Ibid., 247. 55 Ibid., 247–48. 56 Abetz to German Embassy in Madrid, 21 April 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Auf Drahtbericht ^erlass^ Nr. 1986 ^vom A.A.^ vom 18.4. wird mitgeteilt, daß es sich bei in Aussicht genommenen Ballettgastspiel nicht um russisches, sondern um Ballett der Pariser Oper handelt. Durch Gastspiel würde anglo-amerikanischer Propagandaparole bezüglich Unterdrückung französischer Kultur unter deutscher Besatzung entgegengewirkt. Ballett der Pariser Oper vorsieht im übrigen neben Darbietung französischer Werke spanische Erstaufführung des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ des deutschen Komponisten Werner Egk. Abetz.” The foregoing diplomatic transcription (and that which follows) reflects amendments written in blue ink in the original.

286

involvement.”57 Egk had already been solicited, in a telegram two days earlier. He was also asked to recommend what to do with the interstitial choruses for the Spanish productions.58 Apparently, these would be translated into Spanish. Lifar had also worked to make the Spanish tour come to fruition. In return for the tour, Lifar accepted a Vichy engagement for the Ballet to perform in Berlin for the tenth anniversary of the Strength through Joy organization. Before the November 1943 performance, Lifar recalled, “the first large-scale bombardment of the Reich capital took place. The performance was called off. The honour of the Opéra was safe.”59 One could argue that Rouché had compromised the honor of the Opéra in late Summer 1941, when he decided on Joan von Zarissa. Lifar had already done so in September 1940. At the German embassy, Lifar danced to commemorate the successful German campaign in France. On 29 April 1944 the Berlin Foreign Office was informed that the embassy in Madrid declined the Paris Opéra Ballet tour “for political reasons.”60 According to an operative named Six, innumerable Spanish officials had allied themselves with the de Gaulle movement, and only a marginal remnant remained faithful to Vichy. The Embassy warned of dangers that the work of the ensemble would be interrupted and that the de Gaullists would attempt to get the lot to defect, in which case, the entire tour would have been effective enemy propaganda. The

57 Bargen to Piersig, 17 April 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Ballett Pariser Oper beabsichtigt mit Serge Lifar und 62 Personen 6. Mai–5. Juni Spanien-Gastspiel. Neben französischen Werken soll Werner Egks „Zarissa“ möglichst mit Dirigent am Pult mehrmals in Barcelona und Madrid aufgeführt werden.|| Französischerseits wird zugunsten Genehmigung geltend gemacht, dass Durchführung des Gastspiels wertvoll gegen angloamerikanisches Propaganda- Argument ^[illegible, “bisher” (?)]^ französisches Kulturleben sei unter Deutscher Besetzung geknebelt.|| Botschaft befürwortet Genehmigung angesichts Zusage massgeblicher Berücksichtugung des Egkschen Werkes im Gastspielplan, ^und^ bittet jedoch bei Komponisten auf ^persönliche^ Mitwirkung zu dringen. Drahtentscheidung erbeten. Bargen.” 58 Bargen to Egk, 15 April 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Pariser Opernballet [sic] rechnet für geplantes Spanien-Gastspiel auf Ihre Mitwirkung als „Zarissa“-Dirigent ab 16. Mai Barcelona, anschließend etwa ab 25. Mai Madrid. Eintreffen Barcelona wäre spätestens 14. Mai notwendig. Erbitten umgehende Drahtstellungnahme auch bezüglich besprochener Zwischenspieländerungen. Bargen” 59 Lifar, Ma Vie, 272. 60 Six to Foreign Office, 29 April 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Botschaft Madrid ablehnt aus politischen Gründen.”

287 practical issue was the large size of the group, and Six instead recommended visits by French soloists or small troupes of up to five or eight persons.61 The Madrid refusal did not diminish the German desire to show the world that cultural life in Occupied Paris was alive and well. On 26 May 1944 Bargen arranged for Lifar and twenty-five dancers to travel to Zurich instead. The goal was the same, “an argument against Anglo-American propaganda that French cultural life is being suppressed under the German occupation.”62 The Zurich tour was confirmed on 2 June 1944.63 Four days later, the Allies invaded Normandy. Understanding the implications of the landing, Zurich inquired on 12 June whether the tour was still viable. Eight days later, German Ambassador Abetz informed the Foreign Office that the tour had to be postponed.64 The postponement was indefinite and terminal. On 25 August 1944 the German garrison in Paris surrendered, and Paris was liberated.

61 Six to Foreign Office, 28 April 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Die Deutsche Botschaft in Madrid teilt auf Rückfrage hinsichtlich des Einsatzes des Balletts der Grand Opera Paris folgendes mit: Zahlreiche Mitglieder der in Spanien tätigen amtlichen Vertretungen, darunter auch der französischen Kulturinstitute und der französischen Kolonie haben sich der de-Gaulle-Bewegung angeschlossen. Vichy-treue Anhänger sind nur im geringen Prozentsatz vorhanden. Die Botschaft hält es deshalb für notwendig, auf die Gefahren hinzuweisen, denen ein so grosses Ensemble in politischer Hinsicht in Spanien ausgesetzt sein wird. Es ist anzunehmen, daß die de-Gaullisten alles daran setzen werden, möglichst das ganze Ensemble in das andere Lager zu ziehen, womit die propagandistische Wirkung zu Gunsten der Vichy-Regierung zunichte gemacht würde. Sollte das Ensemble in das gaullistische Lager übertreten, würde die Feindpropaganda dieses als Erfolg für sich buchen. Das Auswärtige Amt schliesst sich dieser Auffassung an und hält den Einsatz des Balletts der Grand Opera Paris nicht für zweckmässig und schlägt statt dessen vorläufig den Einsatz von französischen Solisten und kleineren Ensembles bis zu 5 bis 8 Personen vor.” 62 Bargen to Piersig, 26 May 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Ballet Pariser Oper erbittet für Serge Lifar und etwa 25 Mitglieder Ausreisegenehmigung nach Zürich zu Teilnahme an Züricher Festspielen zwischen 20. und 28. Juni. Botschaft befürwortet Genehmigung unter Hinwies auf Bedeutung des Gastspiels als wirksames Argument gegen angloamerikanische Propaganda, daß französisches Kulturleben durch deutsche Besatzung bedrückt wird. Botschaft verweist jedoch auf hiesige augenblickliche Verkehrslage, die deutsche kulturpropagandistische Aktivität bereits stark einengt und bittet gegebenenfalls um Anweisung, bei Militärbefehlshaber für Genehmigung der Gastspielreise nachdrücklich einzutreten. Bargen.” 63 Schattenfroh to Berlin Foreign Office, 2 June 1944. AA Paris 1215. “Mit Gastspiel Pariser Opernballetts Zürich einverstanden. Bitte alles zur Durchführung der Reise veranlassen.” 64 Schattenfroh (via courier due to power outage), 12 June 1944; Abetz to Berlin Foreign Office, 20 June 1944. AA Paris 1215.

288

After the liberation, Lifar’s attitude toward Joan von Zarissa changed. In September 1944 Russian Ambassador Gousovsky invited Lifar to a party to celebrate the liberation and to honor several Soviet generals then in Paris. Lifar recollected the merry, music-filled evening curiously: Sometimes from out of the bottom of my glass a strange little voice would squeak and this is what it said to me: “The evening of Joan de Zarizza … Goebbels on the steps of the Opéra … the British chasing your plane … Hitler, Hitler …” How far off that voice seemed! There had never been any war. Stalin had never met Ribbentrop.65 Before, Lifar had embraced Joan von Zarissa in a spirit of collaboration, seeking to merge the French and German schools of dance in a celebration of ages-old culture and new progress. At the end of the occupation, Lifar disavowed Joan von Zarissa. Not only did Lifar lump the work with the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the war, Goebbels, and Hitler—he placed Joan von Zarissa at the head of that list. Joan von Zarissa had become, again, distinctly German. Like Egk, Lifar knew what he was doing. He collaborated with the Germans for the betterment of his career. Both collaboration and career were over.66 While Joan von Zarissa functioned as cultural propaganda in Occupied France, it did not do so in the more usual way of the Berlin Philharmonic’s tour, of Breker’s exhibition of sculpture, or of Heitmann’s organ recitals. In these cases, German artists were bringing German works before a French audience. In the case of Joan von Zarissa, the Frenchman Lifar had a hand in its production. This surely mitigated the impact of the work as propaganda, since perhaps its most German element, that of Ausdruckstanz, was itself attenuated. Joan von Zarissa’s Burgundian setting and choruses did the same. This does not mean that Joan von Zarissa was not successful—the contrary is true. However, it is difficult to pinpoint the origin of that success. It lay perhaps in Egk’s music, with its various French influences; perhaps in the Burgundian setting of the work, reinforced by Brayer’s set designs and costumes; perhaps in the wunderkind Lifar’s choreography and reputation; perhaps in that it was a production of the

65 Lifar, Ma Vie, 288–290. During a previous trip to Berlin, Lifar’s German plane had been pursued by an English fighter. 66 On 13 November 1944, Lifar was excluded from the Opéra and all State theaters for life. The ban was short- lived, and Lifar returned to the Opéra in January 1949. In the end, he had been found a collaborator, but not a Nazi.

289 iconic Paris Opéra and offered a diversion from daily life; or perhaps in that the character Joan von Zarissa, as usurper, found some resonance among the French. The hybrid German-French nature of Joan von Zarissa created a perfect propaganda work. In Germany, the work’s Ausdrucktanz, performed by German dancers, asserted the work’s German identity. While elements of the work were French, its composer, though pleasantly disposed toward the French, remained German. The National Socialists used Joan von Zarissa in a propaganda campaign in Occupied France that was ultimately unsuccessful in winning over the French. While Joan von Zarissa enjoyed success in the particular circumstances of the Occupation, the work remained one of appeasement. In producing Joan von Zarissa, Jacques Rouché satisfied the German occupiers. Further, he kept the stage occupied with a palatable work, thereby preventing production of some perhaps more insidious propaganda. Ultimately, Joan von Zarissa never gained true acceptance into the French canon and after the war, was never again performed in France.

290

CHAPTER EIGHT

A READING OF JOAN VON ZARISSA AS SUBVERSION

Various incongruities in the physical and dramatic structures and the choruses of Joan von Zarissa beg the question of whether there was a potential subtext in the work, especially considering the wartime context in which it premiered. Egk’s experience of Weimar-Era Berlin and his association with the Gellhorn Circle afforded the composer access to cabaret, whose productions were consistently laced with social commentary. Knowing Egk’s experience with cabaret culture, it is plausible to consider whether Joan von Zarissa might function as social commentary, as well. German occupiers in Paris were aware of and often prosecuted cases in which cabarettists had offended authorities through the demonstration of anti-German or overtly pro-French sentiment. For example, Cabaret Eve came under scrutiny in May 1941 because two songs had been well received by its audiences, but not by German officials. An operative named Schleier had received reports that two songs sung in a May program were objectionable: “Je suis swing” was “a chanson with a purported pro-English leaning,” while “L’oiseau de Paris” had a “purported Gaulistic leaning.”1 After an investigation almost one month later, Schleier’s complaint was dismissed, not based on the actual message of the songs, but on their general nature. L. R. Buscher, who ruled on the matter, found the two songs in question to be “dull and kitschy and above all, absolutely inconsequential from a political regard.”2 Someone had found subversive messages in them and notified Schleier, but Buscher simply dismissed those allegations, apparently because the songs were not high-brow art music. An off-hand dismissal was an arrogant move, considering that Josef Goebbels thought U-Music to be more effective for propaganda than E-music, and cabaret belonged to the former category. Not only did Egk’s association with Weimar theater and music culture allow for a similar social commentary within

1 Memo, Schleier 16 May 1942. AAPA 1215. 2 Buscher to Rahn, 11 June 1942. AAPA 1215. “Eine gelegentlich in geeigneter Form durchgeführte Überprüfung hat ergeben, dass die betreffenden Lieder stumpfsinnig und kitschig und vor allem absolut belanglos in politischer Hinsicht waren.”

291

Joan von Zarissa, but both the set and drama allowed physical and artistic space to be considered a vessel for containing such a subtext as well. Joan von Zarissa is a physically and dramatically bifurcated work. The most obvious physical interstice is created by Egk’s initial stage directions. A secondary dramatic plane, the platform, hovers above the stage, the primary dramatic plane. In scenes such as the Pantomime, this presents no problem: the eyes of the cast are fixed on the pantomime unfolding on the platform above, and the gaze of the cast directs that of the audience. No. 5, “The Honor Dance” is a different case. Here, two dramas unfold simultaneously: Joan and Isabeau on the main stage; and Lefou and Perette on the platform above. The dramas are of two different degrees. The serious drama below will lead to the death of the Iron Duke, while the lovers’ spat above will end in an ultimately harmless slap. Additionally, the characters of the work allow for concurrent plots. Joan is perpetually accompanied by Lefou, his comic relief. This pairing allows simultaneous dramas to unfold, an attribute not lost on French critics. The critic of Paris-Midi wrote: The character of the buffoon allowed Lifar to create a plot that is parallel to the principal plot. At the end of the ballet, these two plots, the dramatic one and the farcical one, join in a way that is full of meaning.3 The parallel plots converge in the Wine and Dice Game scene, when Florence is transferred from Joan’s hands to Lefou’s; and in the final Apparitions scene of the work, when Lefou takes his lord’s rapier. Early in the drama, however, the plots had diverged and a subtext was created at the point where an initial conflict of the work was introduced, the murder of the Iron Duke. Between the two planes of the stage, a physical gulf exists; between the simultaneous plots and characterizations, an intellectual one emerges. Because of these interstices, the audience is cued not to take the primary dramatic plot at face value. Only through intellectual effort are the physical and intellectual gulfs in the drama bridged, and as they are, the two plots of the drama coalesce into one in the mind of the audience. The interstices in Joan von Zarissa provide a vehicle for subtext. Since the audience must perpetually traverse the gaps in order to assemble the drama, it must also decipher whatever subtextual messages lie in them.

3 Paris-Midi, 16 July 1942. “Le personnage du bouffon a permis à Lifar de mener une action parallèle à l’action principale ; à la fin du ballet ces deux actions, la dramatique et la bouffonne, se rejoignant d’une manière chargée de sens.”

292

Further, Joan von Zarissa is dominated by an icon of deception. As noted earlier, Egk describes the drop against which the work opens: “Odysseus lashed to the mast and surrounded by the Sirens in the form of great birds in the manner of an Old French tapestry.” Against this backdrop, the narrator expounds on the indulgent nature of Joan, the incarnate decline of noble culture. Then, in a separate stanza, the audience receives the following imperative: Contemplate this image of the poor lord Of Ithaca and how he to the mast Of his own ship is bound, Lest he blindly follow the song. Consider that only the strongest fetter of bondage Spared Ulysses a wicked fate.4 The prologue continues with another stanza admonishing the audience to have compassion for Joan and reflect on their own sins before flatly condemning Joan for his. In the epilogue, after the drama has run its course, the narrator reveals that “impetuous lust” is the evil magic of the sirens. Its holy antipode is true love. The audience receives Egk’s benediction via the Speaker: Thus shun always impetuous lust, The evil charm of the Sirens ever, However, the holy enchantment does not flee, The blessing-bestowing, of love!5 But in Homer’s Odyssey, the Sirens’ magic has nothing to do with lust or love. As Circe warns Odysseus about the upcoming trials along his homeward journey, she forewarns him, First you will raise the island of the Sirens, those creatures who spellbind any man alive, whoever comes their way. Whoever draws too close, Off guard, and catches the Sirens’ voices in the air– no sailing home for him, no wife rising to meet him, no happy children beaming up at their father’s face.

4 Egk, JvZ, orig. version, [13]. 5 Ibid., [251].

293

The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him, Lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses rotting away, rags of skin shriveling on their bones … Race straight past that coast! Soften some beeswax and stop your shipmates’ ears so none can hear, none of the crew, but if you are bent on hearing, have them tie you hand and foot in the swift ship, erect at the mast-block, lashed by ropes to the mast so you can hear the Sirens’ song to your heart’s content. But if you plead, commanding your men to set you free, then they must lash you faster, rope on rope.6 Circe mentions nothing of love. While wife and children are connected to the homeward-bound sailor by love, the loss he would experience, should he fall victim to the Sirens, is not the loss of that love for family. It is the loss of homecoming. The song is thrilling and transfixes those who hear it, but there is no mention by Circe that it arouses lust. When Odysseus recounts Circe’s prophecy to his men, he mentions only that they must avoid the Sirens’ “enchanting song, their meadow starred with flowers.” The physical island of the Sirens is also enticing. As the men approach the island, the Sirens sing to Odysseus: “Come closer, famous Odysseus–Achaea’s pride and glory– moor your ship on our coast so you can hear our song! Never has any sailor passed our shores in his black craft until he has heard the honeyed voices pouring from our lips, and once he hears to his heart’s content sails on, a wiser man. We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so– all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!”7 The sirens do not attempt to seduce Odysseus with their bodily sensuality. Instead they offer their supremely sensuous song and knowledge. Lust and love are absent. Under the lure of wisdom, the sailor listens to the song. Once enchanted, the sailor is never sated.

6 Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Books, 1996) 12:44–60. 7 Ibid., 12:200–07.

294

Odysseus struggles to resist the song of the Sirens, not his own lust generated by their bodily sensuality. It seems inappropriate therefore that he should be the central image before which the battle between impetuous lust and true love in Joan von Zarissa is engaged. Further, if the drama is only about love and lust, why didn’t Egk make that clear in the prologue instead of writing an epiphany into the epilogue? And after the epiphany, the epilogue ends in a deception of its own. Egk expounds several paradoxes in his “play of life”: he who loses wins; demanding is called gifting; and taking is called giving. At its conclusion, Joan von Zarissa itself is revealed to be a deception. While the literal lesson of the work, as German audiences hearing the epilogue found out after the fact, may deal with love and lust, the figure of Odysseus calls the audience to question that message and look instead for what is behind it. In Paris, the audiences were even more at sea. Lucht reported that Egk’s prologue was cut from the Paris performances of Joan von Zarissa because of difficulties in translation. No narrator is listed in the program, so it follows that the epilogue was likewise cut. Without the narrator to explain the image of Odysseus, the Parisian audience was left only with the Oddysean drop, an icon of deception. The Sirens sang and were heard before they were seen. The only voices to sing in the ballet are those of the unseen choir. The audience does not know what to make of the song of the choir. And it is in the song of the choir, particularly in the imagery and question posed in the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” that the argument of subversion in Joan von Zarissa can be made. Conversely, it could be argued that the choruses are examples of Egk merely mimicking French composers. This reading stems from the perception of Werner Egk as Francophile, a position adopted by the late Andrew McCredie, a respected Egk scholar. Egk modeled his choruses on French songs and choral works, befitting the geographical and historical setting of the Joan von Zarissa. McCredie points out that the cori spezzati alternation of high and low voices in “C’est grant paine” is reminiscent of sixteenth-century French chansons such as those of Clement Janequin, namely “Le chant des oiseaux.” The tonic-dominant alternation and leaps of a fifth of the second chanson, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance” are reminiscent of Janequin’s La Guerre.8 These elements are typical of battaille pieces, and the argument that Egk took a depiction of war as inspiration for his own wartime work is a compelling one.

8 McCredie, Andrew D. “Werner Egks Frankophilia.” Werner Egk, eine universelle Begabung: Komponist, Schriftsteller, Interpret und Zeichner: Beiträge zum 1. Werner-Egk-Symposium Donauwörth, 12.–14. November

295

In addition to the antiquarian elements congruent with the setting of the work, McCredie points out that Egk’s choruses are reminiscent of choral music by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Both composers set d’Orléans texts for choir. In “Quand j’ai ouï le tabourin,” of Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans, drumbeat “la-la-las” accompany the contralto solo.9 Other models featuring prominent vocables include Ravel’s “Ronde” from Trois Chansons; two separate songs, “Cancion Española” and “Chanson Espagnole”; “L’énigme éternelle” from Deux mélodies hébraïques; and “Tripatos.” Dramatic music presents yet another, albeit earlier, model: George Bizet’s opera Carmen, specifically Carmen’s arias “Tra-la-la, coupe-moi, brûle-moi” and “Les triangle des sistres tintaient.” By using similar vocables and harmonic language as Debussy and Ravel, Egk gives his choir a distinctly French accent. In comparing Egk to these precursors, however, complication once again arises. Vocables are used in one of two primary ways in the French models. In the Ravel examples and in Bizet’s “Les triangle des sistres tintaient,” vocables portray an unfamiliar nation’s or people’s music in the context of vernacular song. Egk’s choruses do not do this. Debussy’s “Quand j’ai ouï le tabourin” and Bizet’s “Tra-la-la, coupe-moi, brûle-moi,” also employ vocables as markers of folksong; however, these are sung in contexts of deception with later revelations of truth. Debussy’s speaker remains abed amidst joyful maying activities, not because she is tired, as the listener is told in the first stanza, but rather because, as the second stanza reveals, she has bedded a neighbor in whose company she would rather remain. Under her breath, Carmen sings blatant defiance of Lieutenant Zuniga, guarding her clandestine love for José. Such a juxtaposition of vocables and ironic message points to another plausible reading of Egk’s choruses. According to this reading, Egk took advantage of a language foreign to his German audience to project a subversive, anti-Nazi message subsequently embraced by the French. The gravity of the commentary contained in the first chanson, “C’est grant paine,” is surprising when compared with the events immediately preceding it. Joan’s pursuit of Isabeau had been mimicked in real time by the fool Lefou and Perette on the raised platform. Lefou’s advances end with a relatively harmless slap and add a comic counterfoil to the tragic death of the Iron Duke below. Since neither Joan nor Isabeau was especially virtuous prior to the chorus,

1999 (Donauwörth, Stadt Donauwörth, 2004). McCredie does not discuss the rondeau-finale of Joan von Zarissa, referring to the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” as the “closing rondeau.” 9 The tabourin is a drum from Provence, similar to the tabor.

296

however, the choir’s moral seems askew. As opposed to being a direct commentary on the action of the ballet, this chanson describes the joy and pain of living in the world, especially poignant to an audience in Occupied France, but also to a German people and larger world engulfed in war. The second chanson, “D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance,” is sung after Joan has professed his fervent love and devotion and enveloped a reluctant, rigid Isabeau. The refulgence to which the chanson refers emanates from Joan and dazzles Isabeau, who succumbs to Joan’s advances. Why would Isabeau fall in love with the man who just killed her husband? She does, but Joan’s love is later proven false, and Isabeau commits suicide. Joan’s love is false love, the light emanating from him, false light. The chanson is deceptive. The chanson revolves around two primary images, the sun and an eclipse. The second appearance of the radiant sun is distinctly different from the first. The pedal points on which many parts remain after presenting the descending solar motive give way to bass leaps of fifths. As McCredie observed, these elements are reminiscent of battailles such as Janequin’s La Guerre. The leaps are further emphasized by the parallel movement of the two bottom voices in fifths. The Women II part presents a strong march-like rhythm, marked to be sung marcato:

| 6/8 | | … |. This reinforces the bellicose subtext of the chanson. The women    first present the eclipse, by means of an expanding cluster that grows as they sing “There is not an eclipse, so help me God.” The men provide the rest of the text, “that has the power to obscure it,” in a distinctly different character. Their succession of open fifths under an A pedal point imparts an ominous organum-like character to the music, a striking contrast to the cascades of notes descending from the upper voices through the lower voices at each instance of the A section of the chanson. What do these images of sun and eclipse represent? For Egk’s German audience, this radiant sun may have been identified not only with love but also with the Third Reich and its Führer, bringers of light to the world. Hitler had reminded those around him of this at the opening of the House of German Art. Light and flame were central images at the 1934 Nuremberg Party Rally and the 1936 Olympic Games, and lightning was central to the German Blitzkrieg that overran France.10 Considering the work as German cultural propaganda, Joan von

10 These have been discussed more fully in Chapter 4.

297

Zarissa brings the light of German culture to France, dazzling the French before whom it was paraded. Egk’s Parisian audience could easily have interpreted the subtext differently, though. France is the sun—after all, French ballet had flourished under the “Sun King” Louis XIV. Germany was the eclipse. The eclipse in the chanson may then represent the marching German army, which, though it might occupy France, would never conquer France. The final choral interlude, the rondeau “Vous y fiez vous?” is sung after Joan, the insatiable lover, has turned his eyes from Isabeau toward Florence, a maid; and Lefou has incurred Perette’s wrath by dancing with two other kitchen maids, for which he must endure a hail of Perette’s slaps. The choral response is again ironic. Its interrogation of the larger world may reflect Isabeau’s desperation and suicide of two scenes earlier, the dissolution of her entire world. However, it certainly does not match the farcical reflection of that scene in the interaction between Lefou and Perette that lies between Isabeau’s suicide and the choral rondeau. The incongruity is compounded by the intervening comic relief. In the rondeau, the choir repeatedly asks, “Do you put your trust in this world?” For German audiences, the National Socialist regime was at the center of that world. Egk uses d’Orléans’s poetry to call that regime into question. In addition, the image of a world that speaks from both sides of its mouth asserts deception and fosters distrust of the National Socialist world, of which France had just become part. Egk’s two strings of one hundred sixty-five “la-la-las” add further ironic levity to the commentary. They may represent the friendly side of the world’s mouth, but they also serve another purpose. In their surprising joviality, Egk’s three hundred thirty la-la-las distract the listener from the preceding subversion. They reveal a composer surreptitiously questioning the power of the National Socialists, but afterward whistling as a guilty schoolboy might at the approach of his teacher. Should that not be enough, a spectacular finale distracts any suspicious members of the audience with a dazzling banishment of worry and care. Egk’s potential subversion is mitigated by his setting of the text. The exhortation is issued by an unseen choir singing in French, an ethereal moralizing voice craftily separated from Egk’s own. Prior to the 5 February 1942 performance of Joan von Zarissa in Vienna, the choir remained off-stage, and the choruses, according to critics, were unintelligible. No translations of the choruses were provided until the Stuttgart premiere of 27 February 1941, and then only translations of the first two chansons, the least overtly subversive, were provided. Summaries of

298

the choruses were included for the Weimar premiere of 13 December 1943, but these allowed for no examination beyond the interpretation they imposed, and the audience members who could not comprehend the French choruses were confined to that interpretation. In the Paris performances Egk’s subtextual message was the same, but now easily discernible by the French public, in whose own language the choir was singing. The performance context was obviously different. The eyes of National Socialism were not so omnipresent in Paris as in Berlin. Accordingly, Egk’s entr’actes did not need cloaking in France as they had in Germany. Here, Egk could stand in close proximity to the choir as it sang, acknowledging his voice in its own. True, the choir had been deployed onstage once before, for the 1941 Vienna performance. But in Vienna, translations were again absent, and importantly, Egk did not conduct the performance. This subversive reading of Joan von Zarissa is complicated by the absence of the description of the work as such during Egk’s denazification proceedings and in his autobiography. If Egk had intended Joan von Zarissa as passive resistance, why did he not proclaim the work as such in an attempt to exonerate himself? The answer lies in defensibility: given that Nazi Germany was creating cultural propaganda for France and Egk went to France to conduct Joan von Zarissa, it would have been impossible to win the argument that the work was, in fact, resistance. German propaganda officers did not view the work as subversive. On the contrary, it could be cited as one of the most successful of German cultural propaganda efforts. But German cultural propaganda was simply ineffective in Occupied France, and Joan von Zarissa certainly was not effective, since Lifar and Rouché were in control of its ultimate production. Egk’s denazification instead focused on Peer Gynt, a much easier example by which to show Egk’s refusal to adopt a Nazi Weltanschauung. Given the opera’s negative reviews in the Nazi press and attempts to designate it as degenerate and Egk as culturally Bolshevistic, Peer Gynt afforded Egk higher ground than Joan von Zarissa. The latter was a work that Egk himself successfully conducted within the Reich, in Occupied Paris, and elsewhere outside the Reich, thereby gaining international fame. An examination of the structure of and models for Werner Egk’s Joan von Zarissa provides the foundation for understanding how this ballet functioned both as National Socialist propaganda in Occupied Paris and as a vehicle for subverting the National Socialist regime. Joan von Zarissa is thoroughly French, though its music was composed by a German. The

299

influences of Jean Fouquet, Philip the Good, and Raimond van Marle are pervasive. Egk’s models not only place the Don Juan saga in a distinctly French context, they also place it in a context of war. Philip the Good and Charles d’Orléans were engulfed by war, as were Egk and his audiences. Its French characteristics allowed Joan von Zarissa to function as cultural propaganda when it was exported to Paris in July 1942. The “impartial and chivalrous” Joan von Zarissa was anything but. The ballet became an ultimately unsuccessful tool with which National Socialists attempted to curry favor among their newly conquered neighbors. On the other hand, Egk created a framework for subtextual interpretation in the many bifurcated elements of the ballet. These include the dual-platform stage with its physical distances, on which different actions occurred simultaneously; the image of Odysseus and the Sirens, which caused an observer to question what was being presented, especially by the choir behind it; and the parallel nature of the drama of Joan von Zarissa itself. The presence of a subversive subtext is confirmed in the use of effervescent elements that mitigate the problematic material preceding them. These incongruous traits invite a reading of the ballet as subversion. As Fouquet interrogates his observers by staring at them from out of the canvas, Egk addresses his audience in the words of the choir. By employing an unseen choir singing in French, Egk literally distances its voice from his own. Through it, he exhorts the audience to “ask everyone” about the world, a world dominated by National Socialism and war. Egk asked his contemporary audiences, “Do you put your trust in this [Nazi] world?” and then mitigates the tension of the question with a few hundred cheerful la-la-las. At the end of Joan von Zarissa, grandiose spectacle dissolves the tragedy of the drama and, along with it, any residual discomfort left by Egk’s question. Joan von Zarissa becomes an analogy for a greater tragedy, that of a Germany and Occupied France dominated by another Don Juan figure, a charismatic leader of questionable genealogy and base motivation.

300

CHAPTER NINE

WERNER EGK’S DENAZIFICATION

After the end of World War II, Egk was called to account for his actions as an artist in the Third Reich in three separate denazification proceedings. The first of these occurred in October 1945 under the American Military Government. The second and third trials were at the hands of his fellow countrymen. The denazification process was an arduous one, marred by confusion, competing jurisdictions, oppositional interpretations of the law, flimsy evidence, and weak arguments on both sides. While a neighbor’s quip could become grounds for condemnation, a casual affirmation could serve as cause for exoneration during the course of a denazification investigation. Prosecutorial allegations were neutralized by defense refutations, and a flurry of witness testimony and affidavits made for a paper blizzard that enveloped the truth. In the end, Egk was blacklisted by the Americans; exonerated by the Germans; un-exonerated by a single German prosecutor; retried; and re-exonerated, only to have a fourth round of proceedings initiated against him. During the proceedings, prosecutorial allegations centered on Egk’s Reich Music Chamber post, his Olympic medal, his income, his exemption from military service, his political connections, and his trips to Occupied Paris. The defense argued Egk’s inculpability under the law, his antifascist attitude, and his resistance work. Numerous ancillary allegations also arose, many of which were based on circumstantial evidence or hearsay. Of all Egk’s compositions, Peer Gynt was most cited during his denazification. The controversy surrounding the opera was often cited in Egk’s defense. Joan von Zarissa, however, was Janus-faced. The work served to incriminate Egk in Nazi cultural propaganda activities at the same time that its international nature reflected Egk’s antifascist attitudes. In the end, Egk prevailed, but not until he had undergone two and a half years of proceedings, first initiated by the United States Military Government of Germany (OMGUS) Egk was first screened by the 6871st District Information Services Control Command (DISCC) of the Information Control Division, OMGUS. OMGUS controlled the south German states of Bavaria and Hesse and the northern portion of Baden-Württemberg after the war. The American goals of denazification were the simultaneous eradication of Nazi culture and the

301

reinstitution of a German culture free from the racial and nationalistic trappings of National Socialism. With this reinstitution came restitution: Germans whose careers flourished under National Socialism were to be shunned, while quality artists driven out of National Socialist culture were to be given new opportunities.1 All Germans of note completed questionnaires, or Fragebogen. Questionnaires were reviewed, interviews held, and decisions then made regarding the acceptability of the artists in question. They were placed on lists: white, i.e., acceptable in post-war Germany; grey; or black, i.e. unacceptable. The white list was subdivided into two categories. Those with impeccable records qualified for licensing or employment in leading positions in controlled information media: press, radio, theater, film, and music. Marginally compromised artists qualified for licensing or employment except in press, publishing, or film production. The grey list was likewise subdivided into two categories: acceptable for employment “except policy-making, executive, or creative positions or as a personnel officer,” but not suitable for licensing; and unacceptable for employment except for “ordinary labor.”2 Ordinary labor, whether skilled or unskilled, restricted persons to menial employment.3 Those on the black list were not suitable for employment in any controlled media.4 The OMGUS questionnaire consisted of 131 questions in areas from biographical information to education to employment. Fifty-five questions comprised a list of National Socialist organizations for which the applicant had to specify membership, duration of membership, and membership number. The first listed was the NSDAP, and the Reich Culture Chamber and its member chambers were also included. Applicants were asked how they voted in the November 1932 election, that before which Hitler assumed power, and what their party

1 See David Monod, Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945–1953 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005). 2 Intelligence Branch, Office of the Director of Information Control, Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.), White, Grey, and Black List for Information Control Purposes, 1 April 1946, [ii]. (Accessed 4 August 2011). 3 (Accessed 12 August 2011). “Ordinary Labor” was defined by Military Government – United States Zone Law No. 8 as “work or service, whether skilled, unskilled or clerical, in an inferior position in which the worker does not act in any supervisory, managerial or organizing capacity whatsoever, or participate in hiring or discharging others, or in setting employment or other policies.” 4 White, Grey, and Black List, 1 April 1946, [ii].

302

affiliation was. Applicants were to account for their income and its sources for the years 1931 through 1945. In addition to the questionnaire, applicants submitted appendices of clarifications and various affidavits (eidesstattliche Erklärungen) solicited from colleagues and friends who vouched for the applicant’s character.5 On 16 October 1945 Egk traveled to Frankfurt to face his first denazification proceedings—and to bring the score of his new opera Circe to Schott publishers.6 Egk submitted his questionnaire and an eight-page appendix further detailing his responses. He appears to have been forthcoming with his responses: Egk reported a run-in with the law from about 1921. He was fined RM 300 for “swimming without swimming trunks” in Würzburg. In the questionnaire, Egk described his career in three phases: from 1931 to 1936, as a freelance composer; from 1936 to 1940, as a Kapellmeister at the Staatsoper Berlin, a position terminated of Egk’s own accord; and from 1940 to 1945, again as a freelance composer. Egk clearly stated that he was not a member of the NSDAP, though he was a member of three other organizations enumerated in the questionnaire. From September 1936 through September 1940, Egk was member number 60187 of the Reich Theater Chamber. Egk’s membership in this chamber was required as part of his job as Kapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera. Egk’s membership in the Theater Chamber ended in 1940, the last year of his contract with the Opera. From 1938, Egk had been member number 11736856 of the National Socialist People’s Welfare organization that provided help for the less fortunate. From 1939, Egk had also been a member of the Reich Air Defense Organization. Reich Air Force Minister Hermann Göring had declared that the “understanding cooperation of the entire population was a prerequisite for success” from the start of the war. The entire German population was, therefore, enlisted in this organization.7

5 Military Government of Germany Fragebogen, 16 October 1945. StAM Ka 339. A copy of the Questionnaire and its attachment are included in Appendix G. Egk’s file at the StAM is in microform format and is in exceptional disarray. Various affidavits and portions of documents appear to have been lost, and numerous documents are barely legible. The extensive attachments, replete with affidavits, are difficult to reconstruct, as is a precise chronology of the submission of various documents to the courts. 6 Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 7 Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des National Sozialismus, s.vv. “NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt),” “Reichsluftschutzbund (RLB).”

303

Egk was not a member of the Reich Music Chamber, though he noted that he was the unpaid head of its Composers Section from 7 June 1941. Egk explained that his refusal to become a member was based a “fundamentally practiced passive resistance to National Socialist orders.” It was for this same reason that Egk refused to submit his Proof of Aryan Lineage (Ariernachweis), required for membership in the Chamber. Despite his non-member status, Egk was elected Head of the Composers Section. He accepted the position in order to work against the Nazis on behalf of his colleagues. Egk clarified that the position brought with it neither income nor power to make important decisions. Such Music Chamber duties, cultural propaganda functions primary among them, had been transferred to the Promi prior to 1941. Egk described his Music Chamber position as one of handling contracts, plagiarism issues, and welfare activities such as administering help to widows and children of German composers or sending manuscript paper to bombed-out composers.8 According to his questionnaire, Egk was not a member of any political party at the time of the November 1932 election, but voted for the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Egk did not cast a vote in the March 1933 election, the last free election in Germany until after the end of National Socialism. Egk claimed he was a member of the Austrian Resistance Movement from 1942 and also explained his membership in the Gellhorn Circle. He pointed out that he had worked against the National Socialists in the few cases that had presented themselves while he was at his Reich

8 Anlagen zum Fragebogen, 16 October 1945. StAM Ka 339. “Ich wurde nicht Mitglied der Reichsmusikkammer, da ich im Zug eines grundsätzlich geübte passiven Widerstandes gegen nationalsozialistische Anordnungen auch den Ariernachweis nicht erbrachte. Trotzdem wurde ich 1941 zum Fachschaftsleiter Komponisten ernannt. Dieser Ernennung widersetzte ich mich nicht, in der [An]sicht im Interesse meiner Kollegen den Nazis entgegen zu arbeiten. Mit der Stellung des Fachschaftsleiters war weder ein Einkommen noch die Befugnis verbunden, wichtige Entscheidungen zu treffen, nachdem sämtliche wesentliche Funktionen schon vor 1941 von der Reichsmusikkammer an das Propagandaministerium übergegangen waren, vor allem auch die Kulturpolitischen. Der Tätigkeitsbereich der Fachschaft umfasste die Erteilung berufliche Auskünftige über Autorenverträge, Plagiatsangelegenheiten und ähnliches. Ferner die Verwaltung der Witwen- und Waisenkasse der Versorgensstiftung deutscher Komponisten unter einem Kurat und verschiedene soziale Hilfseinrichtungen wie z.B. die Bereitstellung von Notenpapier an ausgebombte Komponisten und dergleichen mehr, bis dann auch diese letzteren Tätigkeiten von der Musikabteilung des Ministeriums übernommen wurden.” Egk’s description of his duties parallels Graener’s description of the same. See Chapter 2.

304

Music Chamber post. The most important of these were Egk’s work to displace the Nazi Gau personnel Dr. Sachsse of Munich and Dr. Bayer of Vienna, after which their positions remained unfilled; and Egk’s work to prevent Goebbels’s removal of Stagma rules to benefit composers of E-music. Egk’s reported income was modest in the years 1931 through 1935, hovering around RM 4,000. Egk’s income spiked somewhat in 1935 and 1936, and reached a peak in 1942, when Egk reported an income of RM 74,969 (see Table 9.1).

Table 9.1. Egk’s income, 1931–1944.

Year Income Income Source 1931 RM 3,000 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1932 RM 4,000 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1933 RM 4,000 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1934 RM 4,400 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1935 RM 3,341 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1936 RM 11,084 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1937 RM 39,887 Kapellmeister, Berlin State Opera; Composition and Direction of Own Works 1938 RM 18,702 Kapellmeister, Berlin State Opera; Composition and Direction of Own Works 1939 RM 26,597 Kapellmeister, Berlin State Opera; Composition and Direction of Own Works 1940 RM 22,062 Kapellmeister, Berlin State Opera; Composition and Direction of Own Works 1941 RM 24,798 Kapellmeister, Berlin State Opera; Composition and Direction of Own Works 1942 RM 74,969 Guest Engagements; Berlin State Opera; Composition and Direction of Own Works 1943 RM 42,682 Composition and Direction of Own Works 1944 RM 23,000 Composition and Direction of Own Works

Source: OMGUS Questionnaire, 16 October 1945. StAM Ka 339.

Egk’s income increased after the success of Die Zaubergeige and again after his showing at the 1936 Olympics. It did not increase appreciably after the premiere of Peer Gynt. The increase of over RM 50,000 between 1941 and 1942 is likely due to the number of Egk’s works in performance, including Joan von Zarissa, and his domestic and foreign conducting engagements. This growth would later be mistakenly credited to Egk’s appointment as Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Chamber of Music, for which Egk actually received no pay. In an affidavit 305 of 10 March 1946, Egk testified that he “refused pay for his efforts on behalf of his colleagues.” He pointed out that his predecessor, Paul Graener, received an annual salary of RM 12,000 for the same position, under the title of Vice President of the Reich Music Chamber.9 Understandably, Egk’s income shrank as Germany’s defeat drew near and its cultural activities were restricted.10 Regarding the performance of his works outside Germany, Egk stated that they were “in no way proposed or effected by the Ministry, but only tolerated.”11 This sentiment was echoed in an affidavit by Theodor Seeger, Advisor to the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber and staff member of the Music Department of the Promi. As an important cultural figure, Egk was exempted from military service in 1941. An exemption from service, if on account of National Socialist affiliation, however, could serve to classifying an applicant as an offender. But Seeger reported that Promi officials came to regard Egk as “unusable for the ‘high cultural goals of the Nazis’” and his exemption was to be revoked.12

9 Werner Egk, Eidesstattliche Erklärung. StAM Ka 339. “Ich habe die Tätigkeit als Leiter der Fachschaft Komponisten in der RMK nur unter dem ausdrücklichen Vorbehalt angenommen, dass mir für meine Bemühungen im Interesse der Kollegen kein Entgelt bezahlt würde. Mein Vorgänger bezog für die gleiche Tätigkeit m.W. ein Jahreseinkommen von 12000.-- Mark unter dem Titel eines Vizepräsidenten der RMK.” 10 Fragebogen and Anlagen zum Fragebogen, 16 October 1945. StAM Ka 339. 11 Anlagen zum Fragebogen, 16 October 1945. StAM Ka 339. “Die Aufführungen meiner Werke im Ausland wurden in keinem Fall vom Ministerium vorgeschlagen oder bewirkt, sondern nur geduldet.” Here Egk runs counter to the circumstances presented in Chapter 7 surrounding the use of Joan von Zarissa as propaganda in Occupied Paris. 12 Bestätigung, Theodor Seeger, 7 April 1946. StAM Ka 339. “Ich habe als Referent der Fachschaft Komponisten und durch meine Abkommandierung in die Musik-Abteilung des Propagandaministeriums Gelegenheit gehabt, sowohl Werner Egk als auch die Einstellung des Propagandaministeriums zu ihm genau kennen zu lernen. Der Abteilungsleiter Musik im Propagandaministerium wie auch seine Trabanten kannten die antifaschistische Einstellung des Komponisten Egk genau und es genügte schon etwa in einer Referentenbesprechung den Namen Egk zu nennen, um den Unwillen dieser Herrn zu erregen. Die UK-Stellung Egks als Komponist sollte wiederholt aufgehoben werden, wahrscheinlich, weil es zu bekannt war, dass Egk für die „hohen Kulturziele der Nazis“ unbrauchbar war. Es war auch bekannt, dass Egk sowohl bei Stagma-Besprechungen als auch bei anderen Gelegenheiten aus seiner antifaschistischen Gesinnung nie einen Hehl gemacht hatte. Egk ging in seiner Offenheit häufig zu wert, dass ich oft Angst für ihn hatte.” UK-Stellung is an abbreviation for Unabkömmlichstellung, “exemption from military service.” This was referred to in the 5 March 1946 Gesetz No. 104 Zur die Befreiung vom

306

On 19 November 1945 the American proceedings against Werner Egk concluded. Egk reported in his appointment book that he was given an “o.k.” by the 6871st DISCC and that he could do as he pleased: “compose, have works performed, conduct, write books, write newspaper articles, and be played on the radio.”13 Regardless, Egk was placed on the 1 April 1946 black list, category Film-Theater-Music, of the OMGUS White, Grey, and Black List for Information Control Purposes.14 As such, he was unsuitable for employment in press, radio, or film, theater, or music.15 Egk related in a letter to composer Theodor Mackeben that this was done as a precautionary measure.16 He remained on the U.S. black list through March 1947, the last date on which such a list was published.17 In January 1946 a general transition of denazification proceedings from U.S. jurisdiction to German authorities had begun.18 On 5 March 1946 German Law No. 104 for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism was promulgated. Under the Law for Liberation, Trial Courts first reviewed the questionnaire required of every German eighteen years or older; exchanged correspondence with the defendant or his counsel; held public trials; and judged complicity in the National Socialist machine. Defendants could be classified into one of five

Nationalsozialismus und Militarismus, discussed below, as Freistellung vom Wehrdienst, and, if on account of Nazi bearing (Haltung), was criterion for classification as Offender – Activist (Gruppe II. Belastete, Aktivist). 13 Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. Egk’s bequest contains no appointment book for 1945, since “there were no appointment books to be found in 1945.” In the 1946 book, Egk reconstructs fourteen entries for important events in 1945. “In Frankfurt Beendigung des „screening“ bei der 6871. DiSCC mit dem [illegible] „o.k.“ „Sie können tun, was Sie wollen: Musik schreiben, Musik aufführen lassen, dirigieren, Bücher schreiben, in Zeitungen schreiben, im Rundfunk gespielt werden u.s.w.“” 14 White, Grey, and Black List for Information Control Purposes, 1 April 1946, 84. The entry reads as follows: Egk, Werner; Munich Locham [sic]; Born c. 1901; Composer, Official of Reichsmusikkammer. The category of Film- Theater-Music is often referred to simply as “Theater.” 15 White, Grey, and Black List, 1 April 1946, [ii]. 16 Egk to Mackeben, 8 February 1947. BSB Ana 410. “Bei den Amerikanern stehe ich vorsorglich solange auf der schwarzen Liste, bis irgend jemand ernstlich etwas dagegen unternimmt.” 17 Intelligence Branch, Office of the Director of Information Control, Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.), White, Grey, and Black List for Information Control Purposes, 1 March 1947, 30. (Accessed 4 August 2011). Egk was included on the black lists published on 1 April, 1 June, and 1 August 1946; and on 1 March 1947. Egk was not included on any of the lists published on 1 November 1946. 18 Monod, Settling Scores, 140–42.

307

categories: Primary Culprits; Offenders, further divided into Activists, Militarists, and Profiteers; Minor Offenders, a probationary designation; Followers; or Exonerated. Disputed cases proceeded to an Appellate Court for further review.19 Several judgment criteria were especially germane to Egk’s case, and by these, Egk could have conceivably been sentenced as either an Offender-Activist or Offender-Profiteer. According to the inventory of organizations provided in the Appendix to the Law for Liberation, holding a position of president, vice-president, or manager in one of the Reich Culture Chambers was a Class I offense and grounds for classification as a Primary Culprit. Serving as an officer in any of the Reich Culture Chambers was Class II offense and was grounds for classification as an Offender. The law was written as follows (intervening text omitted):

H. Other Nazi Organizations Class I 5. Reich Culture Chambers – All presidents, vice-presidents, and managers. Class II 5. Reich Culture Chambers, etc. and Support and Local Branches (Reich Literature Chamber, Reich Press Chamber, Reich Radio Chamber)—All public officers not falling under Class I.20 Egk, as Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Chamber of music, held a position as a public officer and therefore was subject to the Law for Liberation. As Egk’s attorney would argue later, however, the Reich Music Chamber was not specifically listed as were the Chambers

19 Gesetz Nr. 104 Zur Befreiung von Nationalsozialismus und Militarismus vom 5. März 1946. (Accessed 2 August 2011). Hereafter, “Gesetz vom 5. März 1946.” The German titles for the five categories are: Hauptschuldige, Belastete (Aktivisten, Militaristen, Nutznießer), Minderbelastete (Bewährungsgruppe), Mitläufer, Entlastete. 20 Ibid. Anlage. “H. Andere Nazi-Organisationen Klasse I 5. Reichskulturkammern – Alle Präsidenten, Vizepräsidenten und Geschäftsführer. Klasse II 5. Reichskulturkammern usw. und Hilfs- und Zweigstellen (Reichsschrifttumskammer, Reichspressekammer, Reichsrundfunkkammer) – Alle Amtsträger, soweit sie nicht unter Klasse I fallen.”

308

of Literature, Press, and Radio. According to this reading of the Law for Liberation, Egk was not subject to it. Exemption from military service, if based on National Socialist affiliation, was grounds for classification as an Offender-Activist.21 As a leading artist, Egk was exempt from military service from 1941. In 1944 he had been conscripted for the Volkssturm, the last-ditch effort to defend Germany, but he did not report for duty. The portion of the law most often brought to bear in Egk’s case was that pertaining to Offender-Profiteers. Article 9 of the Law for Liberation read: Article 9.I. A Profiteer is: Whoever gained, through his political position or his political connections, personal or commercial advantages for himself or others from the tyranny of the NSDAP, from the rearmament, or from the war in a self-serving manner. II. A Profiteer is particularly, insofar as he is not a Primary Culprit: 1. Whoever, for reasons of this affiliation with the NSDAP, was appointed to an office or a position or favorably promoted; 2. Whoever received material benefit from the NSDAP, its members or affiliated organizations; 3. Whoever sought or secured excessive gains for himself or others at the expense of the politically, religiously, or racially persecuted, indirectly or directly, particularly in connections with expropriation, forced sales, and the like; 4. Whoever, from the rearmament or war transactions, realized gains conspicuously disproportionate to his accomplishments; 5. Whoever unfairly gained wealth in connection with the administration of former occupied territories;

21 Ibid. Artikel 7.II.11. “Artikel 7.I. Aktivist ist: 11. wer die Freistellung vom Wehrdienst (UK-Stellung) oder vom Frontdienst wegen nationalsozialistischer Haltung begünstigt oder die Einziehung zum Wehrdienst oder Versetzung zum Frontdienst wegen Gegnerschaft zum Nationalsozialismus herbeigeführt oder dies versucht hat.”

309

6. Whoever, as an adherent of National Socialism, through the exploitation of personal or political connections, or by admission to the NSDAP, extracted themselves from military service or combat duty.22 The Public Prosecutors of both the Trial and Appellate Courts, therefore, had various access points through which to charge Egk as an Offender: his membership in the Reich Theater Chamber, his position in the Reich Music Chamber, his exemption from military service, and the increase in his income during the “Twelve-Year Period.”23 If one was found guilty as an Offender, the punishments were severe. They included incarceration in a labor camp for up to five years; community service; confiscation of assets; prohibition from holding public office; loss of claim to a paid pension; loss of the right to vote or to be member of any political party; prohibition of membership in a labor union or professional organization; residence restrictions; and loss of all licensure and entitlements, including the right to own a motor vehicle. Offenders were confronted with prohibitions on work as well. For a minimum of five years, Offenders were forbidden from practicing an independent profession; from taking part in any commercial business; and from exercising control of any commercial

22 Ibid., Artikel 9. “Artikel 9. I. Nutznießer ist:Wer aus der Gewaltherrschaft der NSDAP, aus der Aufrüstung oder aus dem Kriege durch seine politische Stellung oder seine politischen Beziehungen für sich oder andere persönliche oder wirtschaftliche Vorteile in eigensüchtiger Weise herausgeschlagen hat. II. Nutznießer ist insbesondere, soweit er nicht Hauptschuldiger ist: 1. Wer nur auf Grund seiner Zugehörigkeit zur NSDAP in ein Amt oder eine Stellung berufen oder bevorzugt befördert wurde; 2. wer erhebliche Zuwendungen von der NSDAP, ihren Gliederungen oder angeschlossenen Verbänden erhielt; 3. wer auf Kosten der politisch, religiös oder rassisch Verfolgten unmittelbar oder mittelbar, insbesondere im Zusammenhang mit Enteignungen, Zwangsverkäufen und dergleichen übermäßige Vorteile für sich oder andere erlangte oder erstrebte; 4. wer bei der Aufrüstung oder bei Kriegsgeschäften Gewinne erzielte, die in einem auffallenden Mißverhältnis zu seinen Leistungen standen; 5. wer sich im Zusammenhang mit der Verwaltung ehemals besetzter Gebiete unbillig bereicherte; 6. wer als Anhänger des Nationalsozialismus durch Ausnützung persönlicher oder politischer Beziehungen. oder durch Eintritt in die NSDAP es erreichte, sich dem Wehrdienst oder dem Frontdienst zu entziehen.” 23 After the war, the National Socialist period was often referred to as the “Twelve-Year Period.” In this way, Germans could avoid using words like “Nazi” or “National Socialism.”

310 business. They were also forbidden from serving as teachers, preachers, editors, writers, or radio commentators. Finally, Offenders were not allowed to be employed in an independent post outside ordinary labor.24 This last sentence would effectively end a composer’s career. Egk must have foreseen problems with the transfer of denazification proceedings to German tribunals. In a letter of 10 March 1946, the composer expressed his confusion upon reading the Appendix to the Law for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism and explained, It is not completely clear whether I, as former Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber (the Reich Music Chamber is not mentioned) am considered as an Offender or not. As a precaution, I am submitting an exoneration application.… Egk was likely confident of exoneration, since he had been, at least in his estimation, exculpated by the OMGUS, and he listed his exoneration as the first of his reasons in his submission. He

24 Ibid., Artikel 16. “Artikel 16. Sühnemaßnahmen gegen Belastete: 1. Sie können auf die Dauer bis zu 5 Jahren in ein Arbeitslager eingewiesen werden, um Wiedergutmachungs- und Aufbauarbeiten zu verrichten. Politische Haft nach dem 8. Mai 1945 kann angerechnet werden; 2. sie sind zu Sonderarbeiten für die Allgemeinheit heranzuziehen, sofern sie nicht in ein Arbeitslager eingewiesen werden; 3. ihr Vermögen ist als Beitrag zur Wiedergutmachung ganz oder teilweise einzuziehen. Bei vollständiger Einziehung ist gemäß Artikel 15 Nr. 2 Satz 2 zu verfahren. Bei teilweiser Einziehung des Vermögens sind. insbesondere die Sachwerte einzuziehen. Es sind ihnen die notwendigsten Gebrauchsgegenstände zu belassen; 4. sie sind dauernd unfähig, ein öffentliches Amt einschließlich des Notariats und der Anwaltschaft zu bekleiden; 5. sie verlieren ihre Rechtsansprüche auf eine aus öffentlichen Mitteln zahlbare Pension oder Rente; 6. sie verlieren das Wahlrecht, die Wählbarkeit und das Recht, sich irgendwie politisch zu betätigen und einer politischen Partei als Mitglied anzugehören; 7. sie dürfen weder Mitglied einer Gewerkschaft noch einer wirtschaftlichen oder beruflichen Vereinigung sein; 8. es ist ihnen auf die Dauer von mindestens 5 Jahren untersagt, a), in einem freien Beruf oder selbständig in einem Unternehmen oder gewerblichen Betrieb jeglicher Art tätig zu sein, sich daran zu beteiligen oder die Aufsicht oder Kontrolle hierüber auszuüben; b) in nicht selbständiger Stellung anders als in gewöhnlicher Arbeit beschäftigt zu sein; c) als Lehrer, Prediger, Redakteur, Schriftsteller oder Rundfunk-Kommentator tätig zu sein. 9. sie unterliegen Wohnungs- und Aufenthaltsbeschränkungen;10. sie verlieren alle ihnen erteilten Approbationen, Konzessionen und Berechtigungen sowie das Recht, einen Kraftwagen zu halten.” Regarding ordinary labor, see fn. 4.

311

added that in January 1946 his music had been broadcast by Radio Frankfurt. This is striking, since Egk would appear on the 1 April Black List and broadcasts of his works would be forbidden. Egk stated further that he was never a member of the NSDAP; that his weltanschauung was contrary to that of National Socialism; and that he worked against the regime to his own detriment. He closed his letter with a request for the cessation of proceedings against him and confirmation of the same.25 On 21 March 1946 Werner Egk was tried in absentia in a meeting of the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture Kommission für Kulturschaffende (Commission for Those Engaged in the Cultural Sector). The Kommission was the first German governmental organization to handle Egk’s case. It did so just over two weeks after the 5 March promulgation of the Law No. 104 for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism and ostensibly before Trial and Appellate Courts mandated by that law were organized in Bavaria. The Chair of the six-person Committee was one Dr. Albert Stenzel, who wrote the eight-point charge. As his leading argument, Stenzel cited Egk’s June 1941 appointment as Head of the Composers Section of the RMK. He declared, “Everyone knows that the Propaganda Ministry conferred such posts only on certain men who were politically unobjectionable according to the Nazi Weltanschauung.” He continued that Egk, unlike countless of his colleagues, was exempted from military service, a testament to his importance to the Promi. According to Stenzel, Egk had utilized the Nazi press to publish his views and took part in a Cultural Conference of the Hitler Youth in Salzburg, Austria. Egk had accepted the Olympic gold medal, an award orchestrated by Josef Goebbels. Egk’s income had increased greatly during the course of National Socialism. Egk had reported the success of Die Zaubergeige and Joan von Zarissa as causes for the increase. These were, according to Egk, antithetical to the failure of Peer Gynt and the staged Columbus, works incongruent with acceptable National Socialist ideals that were denigrated in

25 Egk to an unspecified recipient, 10.3.46. StAM Ka 339. “Aus dem Wortlaut der Anlage zum „Gesetz zur Befreiung von Nationalsozialismus und Militarismus“ H, Klasse II, Ziffer 5 („Reichskulturkammern u.s.w. und Hilfs und Zweigstellen (Reichsschrifttumskammer, Reichspressekammer, Reichrundfunkkammer): alle Amtsträger, die nicht unter Klasse I fallen.“) geht nicht klar hervor ob ich als egemaliger Leiter der Fachschaft komponisten in der Reichsmusikkammer (die Reichsmusikkammer ist nicht aufgeführt) als belastet gelte oder nicht. Vorsorglich stelle ich daher Entlastungsantrag.…” Emphasis in original.

312 the Nazi press. Stenzel instead blamed the failures on the inferior quality of the works themselves. In his most developed argument, Stenzel seized upon Egk’s numerous trips to France from 1941 to 1944. Stenzel pointed out: Egk claims that these foreign trips were “at most tolerated” by the Propaganda Ministry. But everyone knows, that during the war, such trips were never possible by mere tolerance. Egk himself rehearsed and directed his Peer Gynt, Columbus, and Zarissa. That the Propaganda Ministry raised no objection to this lies much more in the interest of this Ministry to place contemporary German works before the French public. Egk should have known that a German anti-fascist should refuse to impose his works on the people of an occupied territory with the assistance of the Propaganda Ministry and should have acted accordingly. A German anti-fascist would have waited for another time to present his works to a non-German audience for free appraisal and not as a means of coercion. In the years 1943 and 1944, Egk should have already heard of a French resistance movement. Through its influence, his works would not have been performed under any circumstances. The facts state the contrary, that Egk very easily imposed his works on the French by exploiting the circumstances of German occupation.26

26 Staatsministerium für Unterricht und Kultus Kommission für Kulturschaffende, Protokoll der Sitzung vom 21. März 1946. StAM Ka 339. “Jedermann weiss, dass das Propagandaministerium derartige Posten nur solchen Männern übertrug, die ihm genehm waren und die politisch im Sinne der Nazi-Weltanschauung einwandfrei waren.” “Egk hat während des Krieges ausser in die Tschechoslowakei in den Jahren 1941–1944 besonders zahlreiche Reisen nach Frankreich zur Vorbereitung und Aufführung seiner Werke “Zarissa” und “Peer Gynt”, sowie “Columbus” unternommen. Egk behauptet, dass diese Auslandsreisen vom Propagandaministerium „höchstens geduldet“ worden seien Aber jedermann weiss, das gerade während des Krieges mit einer blossen Duldung derartige Reisen niemals möglich gewesen sind. Egk hat in Frankreich seinen „Peer Gynt“, Columbus“ und „Zarissa“ selbst einstudiert und geleitet. Das Propagandaministerium hat dagegen keinen Einspruch erhoben, es lag vielmehr im Interesse dieses Ministeriums, dem französischen Publikum deutsche Musik der Gegenwart vorzusetzen. Egk hätte wissen und darnach [sic] handeln müssen, dass ein deutscher Antifaschist es ablehnen muss, seine Werke unter Mithilfe des Propagandaministeriums der Bevölkerung eines besetzten Landes aufzuzwingen. Ein deutscher Antifaschist hätte andere Zeiten abwarten müssen, bis er seine Werke einem nichtdeutschen Publikum ohne Zwangsmittel zur freien Begutachtung vorlegen kann. In den Jahren 1943 und 1944 dürfte auch Egk schon von einer französischer Widerstandsbewegung gehört haben. Durch deren Einfluss sind seine Werke jedenfalls

313

And in his final argument, Stenzel countered witness testimony that Egk thought the Nazis would be defeated and instead cited other testimony that Egk took part in celebrations hosted by Hermann Göring and Josef Goebbels. Stenzel concluded that “No doubt, Egk was inwardly no devout National Socialist, but he understood very well how to exploit Nazi-favoritism to his own ends.” Stenzel classified Egk as an Offender-Profiteer.27 On 30 March 1946 Dr. Boris von Borresholm of the analogous Berlin Commission sent Egk a letter stating that no reservations to his continued artistic work remained. On the contrary, evidence had been presented that confirmed Egk’s anti-fascist attitude and activity. Borresholm warmly welcomed Egk back into German cultural circles.28 Borresholm wrote to Stenzel on 12 July 1946, testifying to Egk’s anti-Nazi position. Borresholm stated: Egk was not the type of artist who believes that art has nothing to do with politics. His artistic works were always an appeal to public conscience. Every one of his performances, wherever they took place, had this sense and surely this effect as well. Egk is the only musician who dared to practice the sharpest criticism of the Nazi Weltanschauung from the stage, an activity that did not remain hidden from the leading Nazis and that, in the case of Peer Gynt, for instance, would lead a hair’s breadth from personal catastrophe, had Hitler not misunderstood this opera and therefore accepted it out of sentimentality for Ibsen’s work.29

nicht aufgeführt worden. Tatsache ist dagegen, dass Egk seine Musik den Franzosen unter Ausnützung der deutschen Besetzungsverhältnisse ganz einfach aufgezwungen hat.” 27 Ibid., “Egk war wohl innerlich kein überzeugter Nationalsozialist, aber er hat es sehr gut verstanden, die Nazi- Günstlingswirtschaft für seine eigenen Zwecke auszunutzen.” 28 Borresholm to Egk, 30 March 1946. StAM Ka 339. It is unclear how the Berlin Kommission für Kulturschaffende became involved, though the Commission may have been notified by some non-extant correspondence from Stenzel. Egk’s denazification proceedings were localized to Frankfurt and Munich. 29 Borresholm to Herrn Beauftragten des Ministers für Sonderaufgaben, 12 July 1946. “Egks Antinazismus ist grundsätzlicher Natur und Ergebnis seiner hohen moralischen und künstlerischen Rechtschaffenheit. Egk ist nicht der Typus des Künstlers, der glaubt, Kunst habe nichts mit Politik zu tun. Sein Kunstschaffen war immer ein Appel an das öffentliche Gewissen. Jede seiner Aufführungen hatte, wo immer, diesen Sinn und sicher auch diese Wirkung. Egk ist der einziger Musiker, der es gewagt hat, von der Bühne herab schärfste Kritik an der Weltanschauung des Nazismus zu üben, eine Tatsache, die den führenden Nazis nicht verborgen blieb, und die z.B. im Fall „Peer Gynt“ um Haaresbreite zu einer persönlichen Katastrophe geführt hätte, wenn nicht Hitler, as Sentimentalität gegenüber dem Ibsenschen Stoff, diese Oper mißverstanden und darum akzeptiert hätte.”

314

Borresholm explained that much of Egk’s anti-Nazi activity consisted in helping those artists who encountered trouble with the regime.30 In the meantime, Stenzel had forwarded Egk’s file to the Public Prosecutor of the Trial Court in Munich. He related that Egk had been declared a Profiteer by his Commission and that he had been blacklisted by OMGUS. Nevertheless, Stenzel claimed, Egk had continued to attempt to procure work permits for the American Zone from incompetent American and German government officials. For this reason, Stenzel concluded that an expedient resolution of the case lay in the public interest.31 On 3 August 1946 Egk was called for questioning before the Trial Court of Munich. Among the items Egk was asked to clarify was whether or not he received a monetary prize as part of his Olympic laurels. Egk stated that he had not, but he had received an honorarium of RM 2,000 to compose the music for Niedecken-Gebhardt’s pageant. Other questions pertained to Egk’s name change; his contract with the Frankfurt Opera; his attendance at party rallies; and his contributions to National Socialist journals and newspapers. Egk was further questioned about his resistance activities. Egk replied that he participated in a resistance movement before the war and one in 1942. Egk also claimed to have transmitted information about concentration camps and crimes against humanity. When questioned about his purported “snowball organization” and why five separate affidavits pertaining to it were worded practically identically, Egk responded that “the facts pertaining to the sharply defined activities of the organization were the same in every case.” The activities of this snowball organization consisted of one primary effort. According to Egk, just after the American entry into his hometown of Gräfelfing, he drew up and circulated a petition demanding that all Nazis in town be pressed into public work and continue to be identified by the swastika.32 Apparently Egk worked to make sure that all the Nazis in Gräfelfing were branded with a swastika of some sort, an activity

30 Ibid. 31 Stenzel to Öffentlicher Ankläger, 27 June 1946. StAM Ka 339. 32 Minutes of the 3 August 1946 Questioning of Werner Egk. StAM Ka 339. “Sofort nach dem Einmarsch der Amerikant entwarf ich ausserdem einen Schriftsatz, der unter anderem die umgehende Heranziehung aller Ortsnazis zu öffentlichen Arbeiten und ihre andauernde Kennzeichnung durch das Hakenkreuz forderte. Ich und eine Reiche von Helfern sammelten mehrere Hundert Unterschriften unter diese Petition und übergaben sie dem damaligen Bürgermeisters. Ich war durchaus bereit auch weiterhin aktive gegen die Nazis vorzugehen. Durch die damals in Gräfelfing herrschen den Verh’ltnisse aber wurden alle derartigen Bestrebungen schon im Keine erstickt.”

315

surprisingly reminiscent of Jews being forced to wear a prominent yellow Star of David to disclose themselves under the National Socialist regime. Egk’s assertions of resistance efforts were among the weakest arguments in his case. Cited instances often contained no specific details concerning the nature of activities, names of those involved, or dates. Pertaining to the snowball system, for example, at least four of the affidavits submitted were, as the questioner had noted, worded identically, excepting only the names of the persons submitting them. None of them contained details about what activities the organization undertook.33 Hubert Schonger, who had hidden Egk so that he could avoid Volkssturm duty, testified that Egk “was tied to an anti-fascist group” and he himself joined the same organization. Together, he and Egk “worked against the Nazi regime through active propaganda and for the rapid end of the war.”34 However, Schonger does not specify which group, its location, or its activities. The affidavit of Ignatz Deschauer, former neighbor to Egk, was presented as evidence of Egk’s Nazi affiliation. A model of the various readings presented in just one affidavit, it provides a case study in the flexibility with which Nazi laws were enforced and in what activities could be counted as passive resistance to the National Socialist regime. Deschauer recounted, On the occasion of Hitler’s birthday in 1942, I received the order from the NSDAP town unit of Gräfelfing to see who on our block, from which I was ordered to collect dues, had not put up a flag. In this way, I also came to the house of Mr. Werner Egk, Lochham, Lindenstrasse 1. I asked Mr. Egk why he had not put up a flag; Mr. Egk said he would have very well put up a flag, but he couldn’t find the flag. I then explained to Mr. Egk that the town unit leader would want to report this to the Gauleiter, to which Egk answered, “What do you think, I live off of the party; why would I have a reason not to put up a flag? After the last flagging, my son put away the flag, and we don’t know where to look for it.” At that, I refrained from making a report to the town unit.

33 Eidesstattliche Erklärungen. StAM Ka 339. The affidavits of Gertrud Orff, Hans Eckstein, Klaus Eckstein (who lived at the same address as Hans), and Fritz Schultes are worded identically. 34 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Hubert Schonger, 1 July 1946. StAM Ka 339. “Ich habe dann Egk in den Monaten März-April 1945 bei mir aufgenommen und versteckt gehalten, da er sich weigerte dem Volkssturm beizutreten. Er stand in Verbindung mit einer antifaschistischen Gruppe und ich chloss mich auf seine Aufforderung mit an. Wir haben durch tätige Propaganda gegen das naziregime und für rasche Beendigung des Krieges gearbeitet.”

316

On another occasion, probably in 1941, while Mr. Egk was in Berlin, I asked Mrs. Egk if her husband was a Party member. Mrs. Egk responded that, of course, her husband was a member of the NSDAP, but paid his dues in Berlin, and said almost verbatim, “What do you think? My husband is friends with Göring and Goebbels.” At that I was content. Had Deschauer been a more fastidious enforcer, Egk might not have gotten by with the excuse of not knowing where to look for his flag and might have suffered retribution for not displaying his support of the Führer. Instead, this lack of flagging, while potentially truly because Egk could not locate the flag, becomes elevated to an act of passive resistance in a de-Nazification case. Deschauer was clearly a party operative, but he does not appear to have been an overly zealous one. An alternate reading is that he may have been no real friend to the Party, forced instead to do its work, and happy to find on his block someone brave enough to refuse a Nazi edict. Elizabeth Egk’s statement is more problematic. On the one hand, she dodges Deschauer’s question by saying that her husband paid his dues in Berlin. This was not true, since Egk was not a member of the NSDAP and paid no dues. Elizabeth seems to have betted on Deschauer not confirming her statement. Her comment that Werner was friend to Göring and Goebbels would serve two purposes. Initially, it allayed Deschauer’s questions about Egk’s membership. Later, it would serve as proof to the Public Prosecutor of the Munich Trial Court that Egk indeed subscribed to a Nazi Weltanschauung, had political connections high in the organization, and was a Profiteer.35

35 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Ignatz Deschauer, 4 August 1946. StAM Ka 339. “Anlässlich des Geburtstages Hitlers im Jahre 1942 bekam ich von der ortsgruppe Gräfelfing die aufforderung nachzuschauen, wer in dem Block, in dem ich die Beiträge befohlener zu kassieren hatte, nicht geflaggt hatte. Auf diesem Wege kam ich auch dem Hause des Werner Egk, Lochham, Lindenstrasse 1. Ich fragte Herrn Egk warum er nicht geflaggt hätte, Herr Egk antowrtete mir, dass er wohl flaggen würde, aber die Flagge nicht fände. Ich habe dann Hernn Egk erklärt, dass der damalige Orgsgruppenleiter es dem damaligen Gauleiter melden wolle. Hierauf antwortete Egk: „Was denken Sie denn, ich leben doch von der Partei, was hätte ich demnach für einen Grund, nicht zu flaggen. Mein Sohn hat bei der letzten Flaggung die Flagge aufgehoben, und wir wissen nicht, wo wir sie suchen sollen.“ Ich habe daraufhin von einer Meldung an die Ortsgruppe Abstand genommen. Bei einer weiteren Gelegenheit, wahrscheinlich im Jahre 1941, als Herr Egk in Berlin war, fragte ich Frau Egk, ob ihr Mann nicht Parteimitglied sei; Frau Egk hat mir erwidert, dass ihr Mann selbstverständlich Mitglied der N.S.D.A.P. sei, aber seine Beiträge in Berlin entrichte, und sagte fast wörtlich: „Was denken Sie denn, Mein Mann ist doch mit Göring und Goebbels gut befreundet.“ Hiermit gab ich mich zufrieden.”

317

In light of Stenzel’s verdict that he was an Offender-Profiteer, Egk enlisted the help of attorney Dr. Karl Beisler. In a letter of 23 August 1946 Beisler responded to Stenzel’s charge. Beisler asserted that Egk was not punishable under the Law for Liberation, since the officers designated as Class II in the Appendix did not include the various Group Leaders of the Reich Music Chamber. Beisler called for a cessation to the proceedings against Egk or at the least, that the prosecution make the proceeding files public. Beisler countered Stenzel’s charge that Egk had not reported the RM 2,000 honorarium for composing the music for Olympische Jugend on his questionnaire. Beisler fired back, In the questionnaire, only what was asked could be answered. Questions were asked regarding orders and decorations by the Party or those in some of the associated organizations. The Olympic Medal does not belong to these groups.36 Beisler was correct that the Law for Liberation did not count medals from the 1936 Olympics as Nazi decorations.37 One month later, on 23 September 1946, Beisler again wrote to the Public Prosecutor in Munich. Beisler cited Egk’s 10 March statement that he submitted his questionnaire as a precautionary measure and immediately withdrew the application, filed under false premises, on behalf of the composer. Beisler further called for an official statement that “the Law of 5 March 1946 is not applicable to Werner Egk.” Beisler also adjusted the income figures Egk submitted for the years 1936 to 1944, citing that the composer sometimes quoted gross income, sometimes net income. Table 9.2 shows the revised income figures.38

36 Beisler to Öffentlicher Kläger der Spruchkammer München-Land, 23 August 1946. StAM Ka 339. “Im Fragebogen war nut das zu beantworten, wonach gefragt war. Gefragt war nach orden und Ehrenzeichen der Partei oder der im einzelnen dort angeführten Organisationen. Dazu gehörte die Olympische Medaille nicht. Die obengenannte „Rang- und Organisationsliste“ ergibt klar und eindeutig, daß die Olympische Medaille nicht unter die irgend belastenden Orden und Auszeichnungen fällt.” Emphasis Beisler’s. 37 Appendix to Gesetz vom 5. März, I. Die Naziparteiorden. 38 Beisler to Öffentlicher Kläger der Spruchkammer München-Land, 23 September 1946. “Den unter falscher Voraussetzung gestellten Antrag nehme ich hiermit zurück. Gleichzeitig berichtige ich hiermit den eingereichten Meldebogen Werner Egk dahin, dass es richtig heissen muss: „Das Gesetz vom 5. März 1946 findet auf Werner Egk keine Anwendung.” Emphasis Beisler’s.

318

Table 9.2. Egk’s revised income report.

Year Income Reported by Egk Income Revised by Beisler 1931 RM 3,000 -- 1932 RM 4,000 -- 1933 RM 4,000 -- 1934 RM 4,400 -- 1935 RM 3,341 -- 1936 RM 11,084 RM 11,084 1937 RM 39,887 RM 18,258 1938 RM 18,702 RM 18,702 1939 RM 26,597 RM 26,597 1940 RM 22,062 RM 22,062 1941 RM 24,798 RM 14,927 1942 RM 74,969 RM 59,125 1943 RM 42,682 RM 27,410 1944 RM 23,000 RM 16,039

Source: Beisler to Öffentlicher Kläger der Spruchkammer München-Land, 23 September 1946. StAM Ka 339.

Though Beisler’s revision decreased Egk’s overall income, the trends described earlier were still present. On 25 September 1946 Public Prosecutor Micklei of the Trial Court in München reviewed the proceedings against Egk thus far and identified three issues that required investigation. Because of Deschauer’s affidavit, originally meant to help exonerate Egk, Micklei was suspicious that Egk was in fact a member of the NSDAP and had paid his dues in Berlin, though Egk had claimed he was not a Party member. Egk’s change of name and appointment to his Reich Music Chamber post were also of concern. On 7 November Micklei developed his argument in a report of inquiry. Among the prosecutor’s allegations were several that Stenzel had expounded previously: that Egk gave a presentation to the Hitler Youth in Salzburg; that he wrote National Socialist articles for newspapers; and that he was chosen for his RMK post

319

because he cooperated with the Promi.39 Micklei presented new charges as well: that Egk’s name change allowed for advantages provided by the Ministry of the Interior; that Egk received a RM 20,000 [sic] prize as part of the 1936 Olympic gold medal award; that Egk attended numerous Party rallies; that he received extra food allotments; and that he donated large sums to the Winter Welfare Program and the Hitler Youth. Additionally, Micklei furnished excerpts from Egk’s own affidavit that refuted his own charges, and accounts from witnesses that again reaffirmed them. Micklei forwarded his statement to the Document Center of the Military Government in Berlin in November.40 On 6 March 1947 Beisler submitted copies of ten affidavits, letters, and excerpts from journals testifying to Egk’s anti-fascist attitude to the Trial Court of Munich. Egk himself wrote a letter to one Weidinger of the Trial Court. Facing a two-year work prohibition, Egk appealed to Weidinger in the name of anti-fascist solidarity and pleaded his case once more.41 On 2 May 1947 the same Weidinger signed a Decision of Cessation of Egk’s case. He concluded that after exhaustive inquiry and after review of the files, nothing incriminating can be established to that effect. Numerous affidavits confirm that the concerned party in no way avowed Nazi ideology.42 Egk had been exonerated. On 16 May 1947 Chairman Becher of the Kommission für Kulturschaffende forwarded Stenzel’s original 21 March 1946 findings to Public Prosecutor Herf of the Appellate Court of

39 In his appointment book for 1942, Egk notes “Salzburg H.J. Kulturtagung Vortrag,” Salzburg Hitler Youth Cultural Convention Presentation on 16 May 1942. Egk traveled to Salzburg on 15 May and returned to Munich on 16 May. 40 Report Transcription of 25 November 1946 and Ermittlungsbericht, 7 November 1946. StAM, Ka 339. Micklei’s reference to a RM 20,000 Olympic prize is incorrect. According to information submitted prior, an honorarium in the amount of RM 2,000 was paid Egk for composing the music for Olympische Jugend. 41 Egk to Weidinger, 29 March 1947. StAM, Ka 339. Weidinger’s connection to Egk’s proceedings is unclear. Weidinger was not a member of the Kultur für Kulturschaffende who originally reviewed Egk’s case, and the name does not appear before the 29 March letter. 42 Einstellungsbeschluß, 2 May 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “Der Betroffene wurde beschuldigt, dass er ein Nutzniesser des 3. Reiches gewesen wäre. Nach eingehender Untersuchung und nach Überprüfung der Aktenlage konnte in dieser Hinsicht nichts Bleastendes Festgestellt werden. Eine grosse Anzahl eidesstattlicher Erklärungen bestätigen, dass der Betroffene in keiner Weise der Nazi-Ideologie nahestand.”

320

Munich.43 Herf then requested the swift transmission of Egk’s file from the Trial Court.44 Stenzel contacted the Trial Court as well. He had heard that the Appellate Court prosecutor was seeking a repeal of Egk’s exoneration and requested written confirmation, should that happen.45 Stenzel’s perpetual presence surrounding Egk’s proceedings begs the question of whether he had a personal vendetta against the composer or was a dogged Nazi-hunter. In a letter of 7 July Herf informed Egk that “in his supervisory position,” he had abrogated the exoneration of 2 May 1947 and was bringing charges against the composer anew under the Law for Liberation. On 7 July 1947 Herf filed charges classifying Egk as an Offender-Profiteer. Herf’s case stemmed from similar grounds as did Stenzel’s original. Herf charged that Egk would not have been appointed Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber were he not endorsed by the Promi. He explained, It has been established that, particularly at the point of time in question, from the side of the Propaganda Ministry, a post such as this was conferred only on a person who was politically unobjectionable according to National Socialism and by whom oppositional activity would not be undertaken nor from whom it could be expected. Herf also cited Egk’s Olympic gold medal and position as Kapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera as rewards for Egk’s political connections, not for his musical talent. Similarly qualified composers objectionable to the regime did not enjoy such success. Herf again cited Egk’s numerous trips to France to rehearse and conduct his own works as sanctioned and supported by the National Socialist administration. And as did Stenzel, Herf credited Egk’s substantial increase in income during the Third Reich not to Egk’s flourishing career and quality of work, but to profiteering. Herf concluded that Egk “lent propagandistic support to National Socialism through his occupation; that the cultural façade of tyranny was erected with the help of his name.”46

43 Becher to Herf, 16 May 1947. StAM, Ka 339. 44 Herf to Spruchkammer München-Land, 21 May 1947. StAM, Ka 339. 45 Stenzel to Öffentlicher Kläger München-Land, 6 June 1947. StAM, Ka 339. 46 Klageschrift, 7 July 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “Es ist bekannt, dass zumal in jenem fraglichen Zeitpunkt seitens des propagandaministeriums ein derartiger Posten nur einem Mann übertragen worden ist, der politisch im Sinne des Nationalsozialismus einwandfrei war und von dem nicht eine gegneriche Betätigung angenommen oder erwartet werden konnte.”

321

Egk received the charges on 11 July 1947 and within the week appealed to the Court of Cassation, to no avail.47 Beisler did the same in a letter of 18 August. In the procedural portion of this complaint, Beisler reminded the Court that the 2 May 1947 exoneration became binding two weeks after the conclusion of proceedings. Herf did not bring a new case within this period, and so the statute of limitations had expired. Beisler pointed out that such a reversal could be effected only in the case of new evidence, which Herf had failed to present, and that regardless of his supervisory position, Herf had acted beyond his purview. Regarding the facts of the case, Beisler again explained that Egk’s Reich Music Chamber position was an apolitical one for which Egk was not remunerated. Unlike his predecessor Paul Graener, Egk was not an NSDAP member and enjoyed the support of the colleagues on whose behalf he accepted the position. Beisler reminded the Court of Cassation that Olympic medals were not Nazi decorations. He reported that while Egk on one occasion welcomed field-gray composers to a concert, he had never used the words “National Socialism,” “Führer,” or “Third Reich” in public. Beisler further detailed those portions of Egk’s income specifically scrutinized by the Law for Liberation: income from radio, from presentations of the KdF, from tours to the Wehrmacht, and from the Stagma remuneration fund for Party functions. Egk’s income from radio comprised less than one percent of his income during the Twelve-Year Period, and the composer had received a total of RM 300 from the KdF during that time. Egk had made no tours to the Wehrmacht, nor had he received any monies from the Stagma fund. And regarding Egk’s alleged contribution to the Nazi cultural façade, Beisler argued that Egk was no more complicit than the numerous singers, composers, conductors, soloists or other artists who decided to remain in Nazi Germany and attempted to make careers for themselves.48 On 9 September 1947 Egk was again called for a hearing before the Trial Court of Munich. In the meantime, Rudolf Keilhold, the Chair of the Trial Court had received notice that the Court of Cassation would allow the proceedings to continue. Among the now usual

“Der Betroffene ist damit als Nutznießer im Sinne des Art. 9 des Gesetzes anzusehen. Er hat dem Nationalsozialismus auch insofern durch seine Tätigkeit eine propagandistische Unterstützung geliehen, als mit seinem Namen die Kulturfassade der Gewaltherrschaft mit errichtet worden ist.” 47 Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. The Court of Cassation was the appellate court of highest instance. 48 Beisler to Kassationshof, 18 August 1947. StAM, Ka 339. Beisler’s letter comprises eleven pages in the file and is incomplete.

322 questions about Egk’s Reich Music Chamber position, journal articles, exemption from military service, and position as Kapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera, some new evidence came to light. Egk was questioned about emphatically greeting Hermann Göring with the Nazi salute when the Minister-President attended a Berlin State Opera performance of Verdi’s Don Carlos. Egk countered that the two were never introduced—just at the moment that Göring had leaned forward to better see the new conductor, Egk had raised his hand for a cue to the horns. He did not greet the Minister-President, nor did he know him. Egk did know Hermann Scherchen, whose name was brought up by Chairman Keilhold. According to Egk, Scherchen had advised a group of composers in Darmstadt to emigrate as he had, or at the least to “shoot down this dog (Hitler).” Scherchen told Egk that he and those composers bore the fault for the misery that had overcome Germany. Surprisingly, Scherchen also reportedly recommended that Egk join the NSDAP, since as a member, he could better work against prevailing politics. In an almost comical retort, the Chair asked if it were true that Scherchen had promised to box Egk on the ears at their next meeting. “That could be,” replied Egk, explaining that Scherchen bore a similar attitude toward all composers who had remained in Germany. Egk concluded the discussion on a positive note, confident that Scherchen was again ready to work with him as he had in Weimar Germany.49 While Egk did not join the NSDAP as Scherchen recommended, he did attend Party meetings on two occasions. Egk’s attendance at a 1922 Party meeting instilled in him his aversion to National Socialism and its ruffians. At a much later 1944 Party meeting to muster the Volkssturm of Gräfelfing, Egk was informed of the upcoming wonder-weapon that would ensure German victory. During the course of the hearing, Egk confirmed that his presentation before the Hitler Youth was confined to musical problems; Egk had not greeted them, nor had he mentioned Goebbels or Hitler. Egk also provided further information about his snowball system. The goal of the resistance group was to place information pertaining to the worst Nazis in the hands of the American liberators. The group’s efforts were negated by the Allied proclamation of the collective guilt of the German people. Egk also furnished more detailed information regarding his rehearsal and direction of Joan von Zarissa in Paris. According to Egk, Fourestier elected

49 Hermann Scherchen’s name is recorded as “Cherchen” in the minutes of the hearing.

323

not to direct the work because he had a Jewish wife and his activity would be viewed by the Germans as an attempt at ingratiation. Egk was also asked about negotiating adversarial relationships among leading regime officers as part of his Reich Music Chamber position, specifically the rivalry between Goebbels and Rosenberg. Egk responded that the real difficulties lay among officials within the Promi. Some found Peer Gynt acceptable, others not.50 Heinz Tietjen’s affidavit of 13 August 1947 reveals a consortium united against Egk. Rosenberg, Bormann, and Goebbels wanted to have Egk’s opera declared degenerate. Hitler himself was to undertake action against both Egk and Tietjen. The leader of the Music Department of the Promi, Dr. Heinz Drewes, intervened and prevented action against the two.51 Beisler submitted Tietjen’s affidavit to the Trial Court on 10 October 1947, along with twelve other pieces of similar testimony in preparation for the most extensive of Egk’s hearings that would take place on Friday, 17 October. A letter from Maurits Frank requested that Egk compose a string quartet for the Amsterdam String Quartet, a testament to the quality of Egk’s music and its perception outside Germany. From a similar etic perspective, former ballet mistress of the Prague National Theater, E. Nikolna, testified to the international and therefore non-Nazi nature of Joan von Zarissa. Nikolna reported, In the circles of the Czech national Theater in Prague, Werner Egk was known as an opponent of National Socialism. In conjunction with the performance of his Joan von Zarissa in Prague, the universal feeling was that his music in no way adhered to that of official Nazi Germany. The libretto deals with international material, the Don Juan saga; the entr’actes are French choruses by Charles d’Orléans. The music has an international niveau. I am Russian and represent the great tradition of classical ballet. At any time, I would seize the opportunity to produce Egk’s Zarissa again in whatever country.52

50 Verhandlung Werner Egk am 9. September 47. StAM, Ka 339. 51 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, 13 August 1947, Archiv des Akademie der Künste, Tietjen, Heinz. 52 Beisler to Spruchkammer München-Land, 10 October 1947 and attachments. StAM, Ka 339. Eidesstattliche Erklärung E. Nikolna, 7 September 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “In den Kreisen des tschechischen nationaltheaters in Prag galt Werner Egk als ein Gegener des Nationalsozialismus. Anlässlich der Aufführung seines „Joan von Zarissa“ in Prag hatte nad darüber hinaus allgemein das Gefühl, dass seine Musik in keiner Weise mit dem offiziellen Nazideutschland zusammenhing. Das Libretto behandelt einen internationalen Stoff, die Don- Juan-Sage, die Entre-actes sind in französischer Sprache komponierte Chöre von Charles d’Orleans. Die Musik hat

324

Former Melos editor Heinrich Strobel recounted that Joan von Zarissa “came from the especially despised milieu of French-Burgundian culture.… The use of Old-French chansons as intermedi were provocation against the Germanic-Nazistic racial conceit during the war.” The international nature of Joan von Zarissa, its matter and music, did not comply with a National Socialist Weltanschauung. Strobel continued that Egk’s music was reminiscent of the music of Ravel, Stravinsky, and de Falla, outlawed after the start of the Western Offensive. This led the French before whom the music was presented to characterize it immediately as anti-Nazi.53 Music critic Karl Heinz Ruppel became Director of the Wurttemberg State Theater after the war and provided an extensive affidavit in Egk’s defense. Ruppel said of Egk’s presentation on contemporary music to a 1942 Vienna Festival of Contemporary Music that it would be fun for those with open ears but would make the Promi seethe with anger. Ruppel stated that no one could have better embodied musical opposition to National Socialism than Werner Egk. Ruppel relished that Egk, whose authority as a leading German composer the Nazis believed they could mold for their own purposes, but which instead he used in word and work to voice his oppositional standpoint. Because the weapon of irony stood to so extensive a degree at his disposal, those things he and his friends represented served them well; the Nazis, completely unprepared for this sort of polemic, were helpless against it.54

internationales Niveau. Ich bin Russin und vertrete die hohe Tradition des klassischen Ballettes. Ich würde jederzeit jede Gelegenheit ergreifen, um Egks „Zarissa“ glecihgütig in welchem Land wieder zur Aufführung zu bringen.” 53 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Heinrich Strobel, 12 September 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “Egks nächstes Werk kommt aus dem den Nazis besonders verhassten Stoffkreis der franzoesisch-burgundischen Kultur: es ist das Ballett „Joan von Zarissa“. Die Verwendung von alt-franzoesischen Chansons als Intermedien wirkte in den Jahren des Krieges geradezu als Provokation des germanisch-nazistischen Rassenduenkels.” “Die Nazis verlangten von der Musik, dass sie volkstuemlich und allgemein verstaendlich sei, dass sie den Verstand einschlaefere und durch die Wucht eines verlogenen Pathos auf das Unterangemeut wirke. Werner Egks Musik ist von einer scharfen Intelligenz geformt, sie ist technisch raffiniert, sie vermeidet jede nazistisch-popularisierende Ohrenfaengerei und ist ausserdem stark nach der Kunst unserer westlichen Nachbarn (Ravel, Strawinsky, de Falla) orientiert. Die letzt genannte Tatsache erklaert nicht zuletzt die grosse Beachtung, die Werner Egk in Frankreich fand. Die Franzosen bemerkten sofort den anti-nazistischen Charakter dieser Musik.” 54 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, K. H. Ruppel, 11 October 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “Wir waren uns darüber einig, daß die Sache der geistigen Opposition in Musikdingen bei niemand besser aufgehoben sein konnte als bei Werner Egk,

325

Perhaps Ruppel had Joan von Zarissa in mind when he wrote of Egk’s powerful irony. Ruppel noted that Herbert Gerigk, the critic of the Völkischer Beobachter and the editor of the journal Musik, had worked to ensure that Egk’s works were never performed in his hometown of Königsberg, as he had also done with the works of Carl Orff, Rudolf Wagner-Régeny, and Boris Blacher. Ruppel concluded that Egk’s artistic talent alone, completely independent of and incompatible with a Nazi Weltanschauung, accounted for his success. On 13 October Beisler submitted six more affidavits and letters to the Trial Court. Among these was an affidavit by the Editor of Der Kurier, Paul Bourdin. Bourdin attested, Even after the conquest of France, he [Egk] never doubted the eventual collapse of the regime. During all his visits to Paris, where I was then correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung, he withdrew from the tributes by National Socialist Occupation agencies and did not allow himself to be caught up in National Socialist propaganda. He showed the greatest possible reluctance and confined himself to his artistic work and found acceptance far beyond French collaborationist circles. He also did not avoid meeting with emigrants and Jews in Paris with me, at which opportunities he openly avowed his enmity toward the National Socialist regime. I am strongly convinced that the numerous friends and admirers he made outside collaborationist France are also prepared to testify to the respectability of his character.55

dessen Autorität als führender deutscher Komponist die Nazis für ihre Zwecke einspannen zu können glaubten, der sie aber in Wort und Werk stets zur Betonung seines oppositionellen Standpunkts benutzte. Daß ihm dabei die Waffe der Ironie in so hervorragendem Maß zu Gebote stand, kam der von ihm und seinen Freunden vertretenen Sachen zugut; die Nazis, auf diese Art von Polemik überhaupt nicht eingestellt, waren dagegen hilflos.” 5555 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Paul Bourdin, 30 September 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “Ich kenne Herrn Werner Egk seit fast einem Jahrzehnt und bin in der Lage, zu versichern, dass er in zahlreichen Gesprächen, die ich mit ihm hatte, niemals die leiseste nationalsozialistische Regung bekundet hat. Auch nach der Eroberung Frankreichs hat er nie an dem schliesslichen Zusammenbruch des Regimes gezweifelt. Bei all seinen Besuchen in Paris, wo ich damals Korrespondent der Frankfurter Zeitung war, hat er sich den Ehrungen der nationalsizialisischen [sic] Besatzungsstellen möglichst entzogen und sich nicht in die nationalsozialistische Propaganda einspannen lassen. Er zeigte die grösstmögliche Zurückhaltung und beschränkte sich auf seine künstlerische Arbeit und fand weit über die französischen kollaborationisrischen [sic] Kreise hinaus Anerkennung. Er scheute sich auch nicht, zusammen mit mir mit Emigranten und Juden in Paris zusammenzukommen, bei welchen Gelegenheiten er offen seine Feindschaft gegen das nationalsozialistische Regime bekannte. Ich bin fest davon überzeugt, dass die zahlreichen Freunde und

326

Bourdin’s affidavit was among the last contributed to Egk’s case. In an affidavit of 15 October, the celebrated conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hitler’s favorite, testified that Egk had worked against the National Socialists and helped his colleagues who had run into trouble with the Propaganda Ministry.56 These included Tatjana Gsovsky, who would serve as the choreographer for Joan von Zarissa in Frankfurt and Munich in the 1950s and 1960s. In July 1946, Gsovsky had thanked Egk for intervening on her behalf to counter the slander brought against her in 1943 and 1944 by the Promi. She credited Egk with saving not only her career but probably her life, as well. Gsovsky also counted Egk among those involved in a strong resistance movement that ran its press out of her home.57 Agathe von Tiedemann also provided an affidavit on 15 October 1947, in which she explained the correspondence between Egk and Head of the Hitler Youth and Gauleiter of Vienna Baldur von Schirach. Egk had been attempting to get Wilhelm Furtwängler to take part in a 1941 meeting of composers in Vienna. Goebbels prevented the event and forbade Egk from contacting Schirach, with whom Goebbels did not get along.58 These final two affidavits of Egk’s file continued to show that Egk had consistently proven himself not the unobjectionable Leader of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber that many thought him to be. On 17 October 1947 Egk was again called before the Trial Court in Munich. At the hearing, the allegations against Egk were again enumerated and refuted. Egk had not been an NSDAP member, nor had he submitted his Ariernachweis. Egk had in fact conducted his opera Die Zaubergeige prior to his engagement as a Kapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera, so his appointment was attributed to musical ability, not political connections. While he was ex officio

Bewunderer, die er in dem nicht kollaborationistischen Frankreich gewonnen hat, auch heute bereit sind, für die Anständigkeit seiner Gesinnung zu zeugen.” 56 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Wilhelm Furtwängler, 15 October 1947. StAM, Ka 339. 57 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Tatjana Gsovsky, 10 July 1946. StAM, Ka 339. “Ich erkläre hiermit an Eides statt, daß ich den Komponisten Werner Egk während vieler Jahre als einen erbitterten und niemals schwankenden Gegner des Naziregimes kennen und schätzen gelernt habe. Ich verdanke seinem persönlichen und unerschrockenen Protest gegen die Anwürfe des Promi in den Jahren 43 und 44 meine künstlerische Behauptung und wahrscheinlich sogar mein Leben. Mir ist bekannt, daß Egk aktiv mit der stärksten Berliner Widerstandsgruppe, deren Druckerei in meinem Hause untergebracht war, arbeitete.” 58 Eidesstattliche Erklärung, Agathe von Tiedemann, 15 October 1947. StAM, Ka 339.

327

a member of the Reich Theater Chamber during the course of his Berlin State Opera contract, he had not actually joined the Reich Music Chamber, even when he was appointed to a leadership position within it. While he had been appointed Head of the Composers Section of the Reich Music Chamber, he had not received remuneration for the duties he performed in that position. While Egk had received an Olympic gold medal, it was not a Nazi decoration, nor was the prize orchestrated by Goebbels. While Egk’s career flourished under National Socialism, Egk had run afoul of various National Socialists, especially at the press conference before the premiere of Peer Gynt. While Egk’s income had grown considerably during the National Socialist Regime, this growth was due to the popularity of Egk’s music, not because of his political connections. As had been the case at earlier proceedings, various witnesses testified on Egk’s behalf, and one of them proved extremely valuable in evaluating Egk’s activities in Occupied Paris. Michael Crochot, Head of the Department of Theater and Music of the French Military Government in Germany, explained the difference between a work like Pfitzner’s Palestrina and Egk’s Joan von Zarissa: Pfitzner’s Palestrina was dismissed as Nazi Propaganda. But not because the music as such was pro-Nazi, rather because the composer had the reputation as an anti- Semite. Therefore, Palestrina had only six to eight performances to a half-empty hall. On the contrary, Egk’s Zarissa was played twenty-five times to a full house, making for a total of some 50,000 audience members. I was unaware that the performance of the Egk works was made possible by the help of the Propaganda Staff. Incidentally, that had no influence on the audience. There were those within the Propaganda Staff who sympathized with the French resistance.59 Crochot went on to explain that Egk had also provided a review for the arts newspaper Comœdia. He explained that Comœdia had refused to print pro-National Socialist articles outside its

59 Zeugenaussagen zum Protokoll Werner Egk [17 October 1947]. StAM, Ka 339. “Pfitzners „Palestrina“ wurde als Nazi-Propaganda abgelehnt. Aber nicht deshalb, weil die Musik als solche proßnazistische war, sondern weil der Komponist den Ruf einen Antisemiten hatte. Deshalb hat „Palestrina“ nur 6 -8 Aufführungen bei halbleerem Saal gehabt. Dagegen wurde Egks „Zarissa“ 25 mal vor vollem Haus gespielt, was insgesamt ungefähr 50 000 Zuschauer ausmacht. Es war mir nicht bekannt, dass die Aufführung der Egk’schen Opern mit hilfe der Propaganda-Staffel zustande gkommen ist. Das hätte im übrigen keinen Einfluss auf das Publikum gehabt. Es hat innerhalb der pro. Staffel Leute gegeben, die mit Widerstandsfranzosen sympathisiert haben.”

328

“European Page.” Further, the paper enjoyed the greatest circulation of Occupied Paris newspapers and was viewed by the French as at least somewhat independent. Its director, Crochot pointed out, had not been persecuted by the French purge committee after the liberation. Comœdia asked Egk to provide a first-page review of the ardent anti-Nazi Jean Cocteau’s play Antigone, and Egk did so. Crochot judged that Egk’s 6 February 1943 review was not propaganda for the aesthetics of the Third Reich—it was a critical review. But that didn’t mean it was apolitical. In response to Antigone’s burial of her brother in direct violation of King Creon’s command, Egk had written, “This is the likeness of that which threatens us today.”60 Crochot took this to be a statement against the Nazi regime by Egk, who was working on the side of the conquered, not the conquerors. At the end of the eleven-hour proceeding, an exhausted Egk made the following statement to the Court: I have comprehended that the intent of the Law for Liberation is to eradicate National Socialism and Militarism. If you have been left with the impression today that an Activist stands before you, one who has earned the same penalty as a Gauleiter, then convict me. But one cannot so twist the facts of the case through an artificial construction that he condemns an anti-fascist who has always acted consistent with his views. Should you do that, I no longer understand the world and do not want to live anymore. I want to live in a world where there is justice. Please consider carefully what you are doing. If you pronounce a classification as Offender or as Minor Offender, in

60 Ibid. Antigone’s burial of her brother, who died in battle against the state, was a direct violation King Creon’s edict that his death was not even to be mourned. “Die einzige Zeitung der Besatzungszeit, die den Weisungen der Deutschen—soweit möglich—Widerstand entgegenstellte, war die Zeitschrift „Comedia“, eine Spezialzeitung für Musik und Theater. Diese Zeitung hat sich geweigert, nationalsozialistisch inspirierte Artikel zu bringen, ausser auf einer Seite, die die „Europäische Seite“ hiess. Diese Zeitung hat Herrn Egk gebeten einen Artikel auf der ersten Seite zu schreiben. Dieser Artikel war nicht eine Propaganda für die Ästhetik des 3. Reiches, sondern eine Besprechung über „Antigone“ von Cocteau, eines Künstlers, der tief antinazistisch eingestellt war. Egk wagte es in diesem Artikel anlässlich des Kampfes von Antigone zu schreiben: „Das ist das Bild dessen, was uns gegenwärtig bedroht.“ „Comedia“ hatte während der Besatzungszeit die stärkste Auflage von allen französischen Wochenzeitschriften, vor allem deshalb, weil sie vom Publikum für halbwegs frei angesehen wurde. Der Herausgeber dieser Zeitung war der einzige Zeitungsdirektor, der durch das Säuberungs-Kommittee [sic] nicht belangt wurde.” Emphasis original.

329

both cases I stand before the world as a National Socialist Activist. For me, there is only one just judgment: I am not punishable under this law. I ask you to end the epoch of lack of rights that lies behind us and to speak justice.61 Trial Court Chairman Keilhold ruled that Egk was, in fact, not punishable under the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism, but he was quick to add, Everyone who placed his name and work at the disposal of National Socialism has heaped guilt upon himself. And Egk cannot be spared from this allegation. But because his entire demeanor and his uncontested resistance to National Socialism strengthened many others in resistance, the Trial Court cannot find a charge under the law in his case. For a second time, Egk was exonerated.62 After his exoneration, Egk wrote to the Frankfurt General Director Hans Meissner, who had given Egk’s career its start by producing Die Zaubergeige. Egk reprimanded Meissner for allowing his most recent work, Circe, to be cancelled entirely while the proceedings against Egk were ongoing. Egk reported that the charge of “helping to erect a cultural facade that would

61 Protokoll der Öffentlichen Sitzung am 17 Oktober 47 Kei/Mo. StAM Ka 339. “Ich habe begriffen, daß der Sinn d. Befr. Ges. darin besteht, den Nat.-Soz. u. den Militarismus auszurotten. Wenn Sie heute den Eindruck gehabt habem daß ein Aktivist vor Ihnen steht, einer, der die gleich Strafe verdient wie ein Gauleiter, dann verurteilen Sie mich. Man kann aber nicht durch eine künstliche Konstruktion den Tatbestand so verdrehen, daß man einen Antifashisten, der stets in Konsequenz seine Anschauungen gehandelt hat, verurteilt. Wenn Sie das tun, verstehe ich die Welt nicht mehr und will nicht mehr leben. Ich will in einer Welt leben, in der es Gerechtigkeit gibt. Bitte überlegen Sie genau, was Sie tun. Ob sie eine Einstufung als Belasteter oder als Minderbelasteter aussprechen, in beiden Fällen stehe ich vor der Welt als NS-Aktivist. Für mich gibt es nur einen gerechten Spruch: Ich bin vom Gesetz nicht betroffen. Ich fordere Sie auf die Epoche der Rechtlosigkeit, die hinter uns liegt, zu beenden und Recht zu sprechen.” 62 Final Judgment, Spruchkammer München-Land, 17 October 1947. StAM, Ka 339. “Jeder, der seine Leistung und seinen Namen dem National-Sozialismus zur Verfügung stellte, hat damit eine Schuld auf sich geladen. Auch Egk kann dieser Vorwurf nicht erspart werden. Da aber sein gesamtes Verhalten und sein unbestrittener Widerstand gegen den National-Sozialismus auch viele andere im Widerstand bestärkte, dann die Spruchkammer bei ihm eine Belastung im Sinne des Gesetzes nicht erkennen. Auch eine Nutzniesserschaft im Sinne des Art. 9 ist nicht gegeben. Die Steigerung des Einkommens beruht auf der zunehmenden Beliebtheit her Egk’schen Musik. Es kann nicht gesagt werden, dass er sie diurch seine politischen Beziehungen in eigensüchtiger Weise herausgeschlagen hat. Da auch eine nominelle Belastung nach des Wortlaut des Gesetzes nicht vorliegt, stellt die Kammer das Verfahren ein. Egk ist vom Gesetz nicht betroffen.”

330

camouflage the crematories of Dachau and Buchenwald” had been dismissed.63 But as it had been in 1946, Egk’s confidence would soon again be eroded. On 19 November 1947 Egk received a call from Beisler that new material had originated from such a credible source that Appellate Court Public Prosecutor Herf “could not ignore it.”64 Though Herf had again allowed the two-week statute of limitations on Egk’s exoneration to expire, he nevertheless overturned the 17 October decision of the Trial Court and initiated a third round of German proceedings against the composer. In a letter of 24 November to Eberhard Beckmann, the Director of Radio Frankfurt, Herf indicated that the Hessian State Minister for Special Functions reported that Egk had been granted considerable sums by important Frankfurt Nazis.65 Herf sent a similar letter to Public Prosecutor Müller of the Frankfurt Trial Court.66 On the same day, American journalist Kendall Foss reported that during a visit with Egk he had learned from the American military government agencies that the Hessian Minister in Wiesbaden possessed material pertinent to his denazification. Three days later, Rudolf Keilhold informed Egk that the Court was awaiting the material and that Herf was appealing the Court’s decision. On 8 December 1947 Egk was contacted by Willy Strecker of Schott Publishers, who informed the composer that no evidence from the Hessian Minister had thus far materialized.67 Beckmann never received Herf’s original letter, so Herf wrote again on 28 January 1948. In a letter of 16 February 1948 Beckmann responded to Herf that the Head of Radio Frankfurt Kurt Schröder had removed all Egk works from the station program. Schröder cited Egk’s close friendships with Hitler, Goebbels, and Göring as the reason for Egk’s success, and with those friendships, Egk hardly needed to be a member of the NSDAP. Beckmann referred Herf to Winfried Zillig, who would “confirm the connection between Hitler and Egk.”68 Zillig responded to Herf in a letter of 14 April 1948 in which he found it completely understandable that Egk should have had a career in the Third Reich. Zillig was strongly convinced that, for there to be an infraction, the infraction had to be borne eo ipso in the music. He did not find this

63 Egk to Meissner, 25 October 1947. BSB Ana 410. “Mithilfe an der Errichtung einer Kulturfassade, durch die die Krematorien von Dachau und Buchenwald getarnt werden sollten.” 64 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 65 Herf to Beckmann, 24 November 1947. StAM Ka 339. 66 Herf to Müller, 24 November 1947. StAM Ka 339. 67 Egk, Terminkalender. BSB Ana 410. 68 Herf to Beckmann, 28 January 1948; Beckmann to Herf, 16 February 1948. StAM Ka 339.

331

in Egk’s works and apologized for probably not giving the Herf the answer he would have liked to hear.69 On 30 April 1948 Herf reinstated the Trial Court’s 17 October 1947 decision.70 Egk was finally exonerated. By that time, the Americans, under whom the denazification program had begun, had started to refocus their efforts from dismantling the Nazi cultural facade to peeking behind the Iron Curtain the Russians were hanging in the east. The Germans were moving forward, and the Twelve-Year Period was receding into a common willful forgetfulness. The inevitable question: was Werner Egk a Nazi? Egk’s non-membership in the NSDAP went largely unquestioned during the course of his denazification, with the exception of Micklei’s interpretation of the Deschauer affidavit. Approximately eighty percent of NSDAP membership cards survived the war, both from individual Gaue and central Party headquarters. Among these, there is none for Werner Egk. The complete files of the Reich Music Chamber were destroyed in bombing raids on Berlin on 22 November 1943. Accordingly, Egk’s non- membership in the Chamber cannot be confirmed.71 There is no doubt that Egk actively pursued a career within the infrastructure of National Socialism, because that infrastructure was the only one available to a composer who wished to remain in Germany during the Twelve-Year Period. Egk’s awareness of National Socialist propaganda seems undeniable, but his actual complicity in that propaganda remains elusive, and the Nazi propaganda was hardly successful. Works like Columbus, Peer Gynt, and Joan von Zarissa are simply illogical choices for a composer wishing to espouse the tenets of National Socialism. Of course, these works are balanced by Bayerische Fahnen, Das große Totenspiel, Job, der Deutsche, and Die hohen Zeichen, works that seem to do exactly that. But then again, Egk himself had referred to the first three of these as “nationalistic kitsch,” and he had not made Die Zaubergeige a work of National Socialistic kitsch. The antifascist attitude Egk asserted in the course of his denazification proceedings is borne out in at least some of his works. Not deserving of the definite black with which the Americans painted Egk, and also undeserving of

69 Zillig to Herf, 14 April 1948. StAM Ka 339. 70 Herf to Berufungskammer München, 30 April 1948. StAM Ka 339. 71 See Ottmar Seuffert, “Werner-Egk-Recherche in Bundesarchiv zu Berlin 2001,” Der unbekannte Werner Egk: Beiträge zum 2. Werner-Egk-Symposium Donauwörth, 17.–19. Mai 2001 (Donauwörth: Verlag der Stadt Donauwörth, 2007): 140–150.

332 an untenable and naïve whitewash, Egk is left in the expansive field of grey between. Like countless others who survived Nazi Germany, Egk had made a life for himself and his family, and while he chose compromise, he never embraced National Socialism.

333

CHAPTER TEN

ENCORE!

Throughout the course of his denazification proceedings, Egk continued conducting and composing as he was able, and Joan von Zarissa continued to be performed. The work opened in Berlin in June 1947 and in Mönchen-Gladbach on 17 October 1947, the day of Egk’s second exoneration by the Trial Court of Munich. Unfortunately, Joan von Zarissa was beyond the ballet company of the Mönchen-Gladbach Weeks of Modern Art festival in conjunction with which the work was performed. Critics again lodged a familiar complaint: the choruses were unintelligible from behind the “sound-swallowing curtain.”1 On 6 June 1948 Egk’s Faustian ballet Abraxas premiered in Munich. The opening, though wildly successful, was the beginning of Egk’s first postwar scandal, reminiscent of those surrounding Peer Gynt. In the libretto booklet to be sold to the audience, Egk described the third act as a “Black Mass,” and because of that label, the management of the Bavarian State opera refused to sell the booklets. The scene was instead described as a “infernal ceremony,” although everything else remained unchanged. Bavarian Minister of Education, Dr. Alois Hundhammer, a devout Catholic and cofounder of the conservative Catholic Social Union of Bavaria political party, prohibited any further performance of the ballet.2 The Bavarian ban only assured the ballet’s later success in Berlin, where it premiered on 9 October 1949. Many critics saw Abraxas as the natural successor to Joan von Zarissa, and by the end of 1953 Abraxas boasted over 200 performances on German stages alone.3 In 1949 amid the Abraxas scandal, Joan von Zarissa was performed in Braunschweig and Freiburg im Breisgau. Ironically, Egk was awarded the Munich Art Prize—Abraxas remained

1 Rheinische Post, 18 October 1947. “Werk als Ganzes für das M.-Gladbacher Ballett—trotz Neuengagements—ein Mißgriff. Es übersteig abermals die Kräfte. Außer dem gereiften tänzerischen Können mangelte der Regie (Elisabeth Schaffrath) an räumlicher Disposition. Man kann auch die wichtigen Zwischenaktschöre nicht hinter einem klangschluckenden Stoffvorhang nicht abwürgen.” 2 Ulrike Stoll, “Freiheit der Kunst? Der Fall Abraxas” in Werner Egk: Eine Debatte zwischen Ästhetik und Politik, 134–146. An in-depth discussion of this scandal lies beyond the purview of this document. 3 Werner Egk 1901–1983: Ausstellung zum Werner-Egk-Jahr 2001, (Donauwörth: Stadt Donauwörth, 2001), 27.

334

under ban— the same year.4 Two years after his exoneration, Egk’s career had regained substantial momentum. Egk would surely not have continued to flourish after the war, had his success during the National Socialist period been due to his political connections alone. His enduring popularity arose from his works, which continued to enjoy the support of the German public and music critics. In 1950 Egk became Full Professor and Director of the Conservatory of Music (Hochschule für Musik) in Berlin, a short-lived appointment. In 1952 he encountered problems with the Board of Directors, and in 1953 he resigned his post to composer Boris Blacher, citing too little time to devote to composition. In the meantime, Joan von Zarissa had been performed in Innsbruck, Cologne, Kassel, Dortmund, Bremen, and Buenos Aires. Abraxas had returned to the stages of Munich. Joan von Zarissa appeared again in Munich in 1953, alongside Egk’s most recent ballet, Die chinesische Nachtigall (The Chinese Nightingale). Tatjana Gsovsky’s new choreography for Joan von Zarissa was successful, and critic Walter Eichner noted that even then the work had not yet found its equal. Unfortunately, the choruses were anything but successful—they were described as lethargic and criticized for interrupting the drama instead of providing an interwoven moral commentary. What was more, the onstage chorus members had sung from scores.5 In 1955 the Egks relocated to Inning am Ammersee, where the couple would live out their lives. Throughout the 1950s Egk reestablished relationships with many important figures from his past, among them Hermann Scherchen, Jean Cocteau, Arthur Honegger, Igor Stravinsky, and not least, Heinz Tietjen. Additionally, Egk forged new international relationships with musicians such as Pierre Boulez, Dmitri Mitropoulos, and Leonard Bernstein.6

4 Egk, DZ, 557. 5 Die Abendzeitung, 12 May 1953. “Wie Tatjana Gsovsky die burgundische Legende mit allem Prunk und höfischen Zeremoniell in die weiträumigen, farblich genial abgestuften Bilder von Jürgens einbaute und in Details gliederte, war von großartig Eindringlichkeit.… Doch im gesamten gesehen, blieb die große einheitliche Wirkung aus, weil die Chöre die dramatische Handlung zerrissen, anstatt ihre einzelnen Stationen miteinander zu verzahnen. Sie wurden gar nicht in den szenischen Ablauf einbezogen, sondern sangen jeweils in einer jämmerlichen Zwischenakt-Gruppierung stumpf und schwerfällig ihre Betrachtungen vom Notenblatt (!)” 6 Egk, DZ, 557–61.

335

In 1961 and 1962 Joan von Zarissa was produced for German television.7 Egk, who had successfully experimented with the medium of radio while it was still young, now took advantage of the new medium of color television, whose spectacle could match that of Joan von Zarissa. A testament to its enduring internationalism, Joan von Zarissa was scheduled once again for performance at the Paris Opéra in 1963. Serge Lifar had been reappointed to his post as Balletmaster in 1962 and promptly added Egk’s work to the playbill. Unfortunately, Lifar elected not to renew his contract with the Opéra for 1963 and instead left the Opéra, taking Joan von Zarissa and six other ballets with him.8 Joan von Zarissa would never return to its most famous—or infamous—venue. Throughout the 1960s Joan von Zarissa was produced in thirteen cities, from Bremen to Lausanne to Belgrade to Buenos Aires. The Frankfurt performances of March 1965 met with a lukewarm reception.9 The critic of the Welser Zeitung reported on the very simple version of Joan von Zarissa performed in Linz, where a pair of soloists had replaced the ten-voice chorus. He raised another familiar question: why were the texts of the choral interludes not included in the program?10 In December 1965 Joan von Zarissa was performed in Essen, again with the duet versions of the interludes, again unintelligible, and without the prologue, epilog, or finale. In response, critic Herbert Gerigk asked, “Are we hearing an authentic new version of the work from 1940?”11 Understandably, the simplification of Joan von Zarissa had robbed it of its spectacle and its power.

7 BSB Ana 410. 8 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 3 October 1963. “Der bekannte Choreograph Serge Lifar, der vor einem Jahr von dem neuen Generalintendanten der Pariser Oper als Ballettmeister wieder engagiert war, hat seinen Vertrag nicht erneuert. Er erklärte, es herrsche in der Oper eine gewisse Anarchie, die eine fruchtbare Arbeit unmöglich mache. Seine sieben vorbereiteten Ballette, unter anderem Johann von Zarissa von Werner Egk, hätten nicht aufgeführt werden können.” 9 Duisberger General-Anzeiger, 30 March 1965. 10 Welser Zeitung, 23 March 1967. “… von Egks „Joan von Zarissa“ gab es eine sehr vereinfachte Fassung. [Ballettmeister Robert] Roberti verzeichnete auf Prolog und Epilog und auf den Sprecher; der Singchor wurde durch zwei Solosänger (Mary O’Brien und Hans Lättgen) ersetzt. Nebenbei: Es ist unverzeihlich, daß Programm über den Sinn der Chansons zwischen den einzelnen Bildern uninformiert ließ.” 11 Westfalen-Post, 6 December 1967. “Hörte man wohl eine authentische Neufassung des Werkes aus dem Jahre 1940? Anstelle der meditierenden Chöre standen mit Annik Simon und Karl-Heinz Lippe zwei hervorragende Sänger zwischen den vier Bildern vor dem Vorhang, die französische Texte aus dem 15. Jahrhundert sangen, wovon

336

In 1967 B. Schott’s Söhne publishers announced that Egk’s works would be performed on thirteen stages in the coming season. The most requested work was Joan von Zarissa.12 In the same year, the village of Auchesheim, Egk’s birthplace, bestowed honorary citizenship on the composer, erected a bust of Egk, and planted a commemorative tree in the newly-dubbed Werner-Egk-Platz.13 In September 1969 Tatjana Gsovsky took Joan von Zarissa to Buenos Aires, where the work was danced fifteen times through August 1971. In 1971 the City Theater of Augsburg, the city where Egk received his first formal music education, unveiled a bust of Egk in its foyer. The same year saw the first and, to date, only performance of Joan von Zarissa in the United States by the Alabama Ballet in Birmingham, Alabama.14 The following year, Egk would receive honorary citizenship from the city of Donauwörth, which had since incorporated Auchesheim. In 1973 the City of Donauwörth instituted the Donauwörth Werner Egk Culture Prize, bestowing the first laurel on conductor Eugen Jochum.15 In 1976 Egk was elected president of the Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Auteurs et Compositeurs (International Confederation of the Society of Authors and Composers, CISAC). Egk had attended a meeting of this organization in Paris in 1937, an activity for which he stood accused of representing Nazi Germany in his denazification proceedings.16 Egk’s CISAC presidency was the last in a series of posts from which Egk sought to help his fellow musicians. The first was, arguably, his Reich Music Chamber position, though his work with STAGMA predated his 1941 appointment. Egk had not stopped working since. From 1950 to 1958 Egk was President of the Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights (Die Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische

man leider nichts verstand. Übriggeblieben ist jetzt die reine Handlung zu der kraftvollen Musik, ohne Prolog, Epilog und Finale.…” 12 Fränkische Tagespost 29 November 1967. “Opern und Ballettwerke von Werner Egk kommen in der laufenden Spielzeit am 13 Bühnen heraus. Wie der Mainzer Schott-Verlag mitteilte, ist das Ballett „Joan von Zarissa“ am meisten gefragt.” 13 Egk, DZ 563–64. 14 Records of B. Schott’s Söhne at the Stadtarchiv Donauwörth. 15 Alfred Böswald, Die Seele Suchen: Werner Egk und der Donauwörther Kulturpreis (Verlag der Stadt Donauwörth, 1994). Other prize recipients are listed in Appendix H. 16 Ermittlungsbericht zu Werner Egk, 7 November 1946. StAM Ka 339.

337

Vervielfältigungsrechte, or GEMA), a logical continuation of his STAGMA work. From 1954 to 1971 Egk was president of the German Association of Composers (Deutscher Komponistenverband), and from 1968 to 1971 Egk served as President of the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat). In these positions, Egk not only worked for the rights of his fellow composers but promoted contemporary art music throughout Germany and the world. In 1973 Egk published his autobiography Die Zeit wartet nicht (Time does not wait), easily the most often cited source on the composer’s life and works.17 Meanwhile, Joan von Zarissa, or at least excerpts from the work, had been danced in cities from Seoul, South Korea, to Cairo, Egypt, to La Plata, Argentina.18 On 12 December 1978 Egk lost his Magic Violinist, his Zaubergeigerin Elisabeth. Joan von Zarissa was last performed in Lübeck, Germany, in 1980. The same year, the Stadt Donauwörth decided to create a Werner Egk museum. The Werner Egk Center (Werner Egk Begegnungsstätte) opened in 1982. The year before, Egk had received honorary citizenship from Munich. On 10 July 1983 Werner Egk died, having adroitly run his labyrinthine race.19

17 Werner Egk 1901–1983, 13. 18 BSB Ana 410. 19 Werner Egk 1901–1983, 4, 36.

338

APPENDIX A

JOAN VON ZARISSA LIBRETTO

Original version, except where otherwise indicated

Page Text Translation

i Werner Egk Werner Egk Joan von Zarissa Joan von Zarissa Ballett Ballet

B. Schott’s Söhne / Mainz B. Schott’s Söhne / Mainz Printed in Germany Printed in Germany

ii PERSONEN CHARACTERS Joan von Zarissa Joan von Zarissa Isabeau Isabeau Florence Florence Lefou Lefou Perette Perette

Der Eiserne Herzog The Iron Duke Ein hünenhafter Ritter A Gigantic Knight Die Schönste der gefangenen Maurinnen The Most Beautiful of the Imprisoned Moorish Women Ein Ungeheuer A Monster Ein junger Ritter A Young Knight Ein Flötenspieler A Flute Player Joans Ebenbild Joan’s Likeness

339

Page Text Translation

ii, Zwei Küchenmädchen / Ein gefangenes Fürstenpaar/ Two kitchen maids/ An imprisoned Prince and cont. Princess/ Einige greise Bürger / Sechs Frauen / Several old Townsfolk / Six Women / Maurinnen / Wilde / Bewaffnete / Hofstaat Moors / Savages / Men-at-Arms / Court

Ein Sprecher A Speaker Ein Singchor A Choir

th Zeit: Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts Time: Mid-15 Century Ort: Frankreich Place: France

iii INHALT CONTENTS [Not transcribed]

340

Page Text Translation

iv BESETZUNG DES ORCHESTERS DISPOSITION OF THE ORCHESTRA 3 große Flöten (2. und 3. auch kleine) 3 Flutes (2 & 3, also Piccolo) 3 Oboen (3. auch Englisch Horn) 3 Oboes (3, also English Horn) 3 Klarinetten in B (2. auch Es-Klarinette, 3. auch 3 B-flat Clarinets (2, also E-flat Clarinet; 3, also Baß-Klarinette) Bass Clarinet) 3 Fagotte (3. auch Kontrafagott) 3 Bassoons (3, also Contrabassoon) 4 Hörner in F 4 Horns in F 3 Trompeten in B 3 Trumpets in B-flat 3 Posaunen 3 Trombones Tuba Tuba 4 Pauken 4 Timpani Schlagzeug: Triangel, Zymbeln, 2 Glockenspiele, Percussion: Triangle, High cymbals, 2 Xylophon, Kastagnetten, Basseln, Tambourin, Glockenspiels, Xylophone, Castanets, 2 Rattles, Bolztrommel, kleine Trommel, ein hoher Gong, Tambourine, Wood blocks, Small drum, Gong, Tam- kleines Tamtam, Becken, große Trommel, großes tam, 2 Cymbals, Bass drum, Tubular bells Tamtam, Röhrenglocken Celesta Celesta Harfe Harp Streicher Strings

Bühnenmusik: Stage Music: 8 Trompeten in B 8 Trumpets in B-flat, on- and backstage Kleine Kichenglacken hinter der Szene Small Church Bell backstage großes Glockengleäut hinter der Szene Large Bell Peal backstage

1 JOAN VON ZARISSA JOAN VON ZARISSA Werner Egk Werner Egk

Vorspiel Prelude

341

Page Text Translation

[13] PROLOG PROLOGUE

Vor einem Zwischenvorhang, der in der Manier In front of a drop depicting Odysseus lashed to the eines altfranzösischen Gobelins Odysseus am mast and surrounded by the Sirens in the form of Mastbaum festgebunden und umschwebt von den great birds in the manner of an Old French tapestry, Sirenen in Gestalt großer Vögel darstellt, erscheint appears a magnificent structure with different ein prunkvoller Aufbau mit verschiedenen allegorical figures (Comedy, Tragedy, nymphs, allegorischen Figuren (Komödie, Tragödie, satyrs, etc.). Topmost, in the middle of these figures, Nymphen, Satyrn, etc.) Zuoberst, inmitten dieser an actor in period costume stands and speaks the Figuren steht ein Schauspieler im Kostüm der Zeit Prologue. und spricht den Prolog:

Im Jahre vierzehnhundertdreizehn kam In the year fourteen hundred thirteen, Kurz vor dem Fest des heiligen Martin Shortly before the Feast of St. Martin, Herr Joan von Zarissa auf die Welt. Lord Joan von Zarissa came into the world. Zur selben Stunde stand am Firmament At the very same hour appeared in the firmament Ein Stern, neunfach geschwänzt, furchtbar zu sehn, A star, nine-times tailed, dreadful to see, Und in Bewegung war der Erde Bau, And foundation of the earth was in motion, Die Wasser ungestüm und seltsam groß, The seas tumultuous and curiously heavy, Wie’s nur geschieht zum Zeichen seltnen Glücks As it only happens at signs of rare fortune Und ungewöhnlicher Begebenheit. And exceptional events. Ich weiß, daß viele diese Zeichen nicht I know that many of these signs were not Joans Geburt zuschreiben, daß man sagt, Ascribed to Joan’s birth, so one says, Selbst seine Herkunft wäre ungewiß, Even his ancestry would be unknown, Sein Stand nur angemaßt. Doch hört mich an: His class only presumed. Now listen: Sein Ursprung steckt im phrygischen Geschlecht His origins have root in the Phrygian race Des Paris, der die Helena geraubt, Of Paris, he who abducted Helen, Woraus sich leicht die feurige Natur Which readily portends the fiery nature Des spätgebornen Enkels deuten läßt. Of the late-born grandson. Er war sehr schön und kräftig, hoch gebaut, He was very beautiful and strong, tall, So licht sein Antlitz von vollkommner Form So clear his countenance of perfect form

342

Page Text Translation

[13, Und so begabt mit edler Eigenschaft, And so gifted with noble character, cont.] Daß rings, erliegend seiner Wirkung Kraft, That all around, defeated by the effect of his force, Von brennender Begierde ward verzehrt, Were consumed by burning lust, Selbst wer sein Leben lang ihn nie gesehn. Even those who had never seen him in their whole lives. Man sagt, doch scheint uns dieses ungewiß, It is said, though this seems dubious to us, Er habe das Buch Smagorad gekannt, That he knew the book Smagorad, Das Buch, aus dem sich Adam Trost geholt The book in which Adam took solace In seiner Trauer um des Abel Tod. In his sorrow at the death of Abel.

Er habe auch den Teufel aufgesucht He supposedly also sought out the devil Im wilden Schottland und ihn ausgeforscht, In wild Scotland and questioned him thoroughly, Des Orten kund zu werden, wo der Schatz To find out about the place, where the treasure Des Antichrist geheim verborgen sei. Of the antichrist allegedly lay hidden in secret. So viel ist sicher, daß er ohne Furcht So much is certain, that without fear he Jedwedes Abenteuer kühn bestand. Boldly faced any adventure. Kein Wunder also, wenn er Liebe fand No wonder therefore, that when he found love Bei mancher Schönen, die ihn kaum erblickt In some beauties who hardly noticed him Und jäh von heißem Liebesweh zerschmolz, And abruptly melted by the hot pain of love, Die nichts und nichts vermochte über sich, That could not change anything about itself, Weil nie ein Feuer heißer als die Glut, Because a flame is never hotter than the ember Die unerbittlich sie versengt, gebrannt. That unrelenting burns, scorched. Verhüt es Gott, daß Ihr ihm darum schmäht! God forbid, that one would defame him for this.

343

Page Text Translation

[13, Betrachtet dieses Bild des armen Herrn Contemplate this image of the poor lord cont.] Von Ithaka und wie er an dem Mast Of Ithaca and how he to the mast Des eignen Schiffes angebunden ist, Of his own ship is bound, Damit er blind nicht folge dem Gesang. Lest he blindly follow the song. Bedenkt, daß nur der stärksten Fessel Zwang Consider that only the strongest fetter of bondage Ein schlimmes Schicksal hat Ulyss erspart. Spared Ulysses a wicked fate.

Habt Mitleid mit Joan, der ohne Arg, Have compassion on Joan who, without malice, Verachtend jede Vorsicht, jeden Schutz, Spurned every precaution, every safeguard, Der Sinne Zauber nimmer widerstand! Never resisted the charm of sense! Doch wenn Ihr ungerührt, gerecht zu scheinen, But when you, unmoved, appear to be just, Hartherzig richten wollt die blinde Tat, Hardhearted, wish to judge the blind deeds, Dann geb ich Euch den wohlgemeinten Rat: Then I give you the well-intended advice: Vergeßt nicht Eure Sünden vor den seinen! Forget not your sins in the face of his!

344

Page Text Translation

14 ERSTES BILD FIRST TABLEAU

Bankett des Eisernen Herzogs Banquet of the Iron Duke

Eine mächtige Doppeltreppe führt im Mittelgrund A mighty double stair leads up from the left and the der Bühne von rechts und von links auf eine zweite right to a second platform above center stage. Above Spielfläche. Rechts und links oben, bei der right and left, at the confluence of the stairs, two Einmündung der Treppe, tragen zwei säulenförmige pillared pedestals bear far larger-than-life figures, Sockel die weit überlebensgroßen Figuren einer nur one with only a veiled woman and one a gigantic lion mit einem Schleier verhüllten Frau und eines ihr facing her, who in his raised paws carries a tablet zugewandten riesigen Löwen, der in seinen with the inscription: “Do not touch my lady.” The erhobenen Pranken eine Tafel mit der Inschrift: background is filled by a coat-of-arms; over it waves „Berühre meine Dame nicht“ trägt. Den a banner with the words “God and Faith.” The entire Hintergrund Füllt ein Wappen aus, über dem ein set has the effect of a huge emblem, wherein the Spruchband mit den Worten „Dieu et Foi“ schwebt great steps should be sensed as an ornamental base Die ganze Szene wirkt wie ein riesiges Emblem, for the coat-of-arms and the figures, its flanking wobei die große Treppe als ornamentale Basis des bearers. In the middle of the stage directly under the Wappens und die Figuren als dessen flankierende second platform between the two ascending stairs sit Träger empfunden werden sollen. In der Mitte der the Iron Duke and Isabeau, the Duchess, with their Bühne unmittelbar unter der zweiten Spielfläche court. On the upper platform, musicians and folk; in zwischen den beiden Treppenaufgängen sitzen der the space below, the entourage. Eiserne Herzog und Isabeau, die Herzogin, mit ihrem Hofstaat. Auf der oberen Spielfläche Spielleute und Volk, im unteren Raum Gefolge.

345

Page Text Translation

Nr. 1 No. 1 Aufmarsch Procession

Es folgt eine Darstellung des triumphalen Einzugs A representation of the triumphant entry of an eines Vorfahren des Eisernen Herzogs nach einem ancestor of the Iron Duke after a victory over the Sieg über die Heiden. Das Ganze muß durchaus heathen follows. The whole must appear thoroughly theatralisch und mit der Phantasie des 15. theatrical and with the fantasy of the fifteenth Jahrhunderts gesehen sein. century.

Einzug Bewaffneter mit erbeuteten Trophäen und Entry of men-at-arms with captured trophies and Seltsamkeiten. oddities.

17 Auftritt und Tanz einer Gruppe geketteter und Entrance and dance of a group of chained and beastly tierisch behaarter Wilder hairy savages.

20 Auftritt und Tanz eines gefangenen, trotz seiner Entrance and dance of a captured old prince and barbarischen Pracht kläglichen, alten Fürstenpaares. princess, deplorable despite their barbaric finery.

Kniefall und Bitte um Gnade Prostration and plea for mercy

21 Abermaliger Kniefall und Bitte um Gnade. Repeated prostration and plea for mercy

22 Es folgen weitere Bewaffnete, mit Feldzeichen, More men-at-arms follow, with standards, trophies, Trophäen und Fahnen. and flags.

346

Page Text Translation

25 Nr. 2 No. 2 Auftritt und Tanz der gefangenen Maurinnen Entrance and Dance of the Captured Moorish Women

Es werden die schönen Weiber hereingebracht, die The beautiful women who should have been carried der Sage nach im Feldzug erbeutet worden sein off by the sage after the campaign are brought in; in sollen, in ihrer Mitte ein riesiger Pfau. their midst a gigantic peacock.

29 Der Pfau öffnet sich, es entsteigt ihm ein The peacock unfurls its feathers; a gorgeous woman wunderschönes Weib, nahezu unbekleidet. steps out, nearly naked.

30 Die Schönste beginnt einen unschuldsvollen, süßen The most beautiful woman begins an innocent, sweet Tanz. dance.

32 Die Gefährtinnen beginnen sich allmählich an Tanz The female companions begin to join gradually in the zu beteiligen, der nun in den Ausdruck verhaltener dance, which becomes an expression of restrained Spannung übergeht. excitement.

34 Entsprechend dem jeweiligen Charakter der Musik Fitting the current character of the music, the dance nimmt der Tanz im Folgenden bald einen that follows soon takes on an unrestrained-wild, hemmungslos-wilden, bald einen leidenschaftlich- passionate-voluptuous character. The most beautiful wollüstigen Charakter an. Die Schönste wird immer is adorned with more and more jewelry and draped mehr mit Schmück behängt und mit Schleiern with veils. verhüllt.

347

Page Text Translation

49 Die Schönste wirft ihre Hüllen ab und steht nun The most beautiful casts off her veils and stands, gegenüber dem Anfang in völlig verwandelter, unlike the beginning, in fully transformed salacious aufreizender Nacktheit da. nakedness.

Die Schönste wird in ihrem Pfau und inmitten ihrer The most beautiful enters her peacock and is taken Gefährtinnen hinausgebracht. out in the midst of her female companions.

50 Nr. 3 No. 3 Tanz des Narren Dance of the Fools

In konischer Hast stürzt Lefou, ein narr, herein, um In comical haste, Lefou, a fool, rushes to follow the den schönen Mädchen nachzueilen. beautiful maidens.

51 Er wird von einem Knappen zurückgestoßen und He is repelled by a squire and then dances crudely tanzt nun derb komisch seine unerfüllte and comically his unfulfilled longing for love. Liebessehnsucht.

52 Von oben fliegt dem Narren eine lebensgroße, mit From above, a life-sized Puppet draped with colorful bunten Fetzen behängte Puppe in dem Arm. ribbons flies to the fool’s arms.

Er tanzt mit ihr. He dances with her.

54 Die Puppe wird ihm von oben weggezogen. The puppet is pulled away from him from above.

Der Narr trauert. The fool mourns.

Die Puppe fliegt ihm wieder in den Arm. The puppet flies again into his arms.

Er tanzt wieder mit ihr. He dances with her again.

348

Page Text Translation

57 Die Puppe wird endgültig hochgezogen. The puppet is finally withdrawn.

58 Lefou packt sie an den Füßen, wird ein Stück mit Lefou grasps it by the feet, is carried upward with the hochgezogen, bis er sich nicht mehr festhalten kann puppet a bit, until he can no longer maintain his grip und herabfällt. and falls.

59 Nun rollt er einen Läufer über die Bühne. He then unrolls a runner across the stage.

Lefou weist bedeutungsvoll in die Kulisse, um die Lefou points with determination to the wings, to Ankunft seines Herrn zu melden. announce his master’s arrival.

60 Nr. 4 No. 4 Der Zweikampf The Duel

Joan von Zarissa, prunkvoll modisch gekleidet, tritt Joan von Zarissa, pompously and fashionably attired, auf. appears.

In Vordergrund wird mit bewimpelten Lanzen ein In the foreground, a tournament arena is staked off Turnierplatz abgesteckt. with bannered lances.

Joan tritt vor das Herzogspaar. Joan steps before the duke and duchess.

Das Abstecken der Turnierplatzes ist beendet. The staking of the arena is finished.

349

Page Text Translation

61 Joan grüßt die Herzogin. Joan greets the duchess.

Joan grüßt den Herzog. Joan greets the duke.

Joan grüßt die Gäste. Joan greets the guests.

Ein hünenhafter, schwer gepanzerter Ritter geht zum A gigantic, heavily armored knight goes to the arena. Turnierplatz.

62 Er bezeigt seine Absicht zu kämpfen und wirft He shows his intention to duel and throws his glove seinen Handschuh in den Turnierplatz. into the arena.

Joan geht zum Turnierplatz. Joan goes to the arena.

63 Joan nimmt die Herausforderung an, hebt den Joan accepts the challenge, picks up the glove, and Handschuh auf und wirft ihn hinter sich. Man bringt throws it behind him. A person brings the same den gleichen schweren Zweihänder und die gleiche heavy two-hander [sword] and the same armor as the Rüstung, wie sie der Herausforderer trägt. challenger wears.

Joan weist Rüstung und Schwert zurück […] Joan refuses armor and two-hander […]

350

Page Text Translation

64 und begrüßt mit seinem Degen den Gegner, bereit, and hails the opponent with his sword, ready to duel nur mit dieser Waffe zu kämpfen. with only this weapon.

Der ungleich Kampf beginnt; der Ritter führt mit The lopsided battle begins; the knight delivers seinem schwere Zweihänder wuchtige Schläge; Joan massive blows with his heavy two-hander; Joan begegnet ihnen nur durch die Leichtigkeit und avoids them only by the lightness and quickness of Raschheit seiner Bewegungen. Allmählich aber his movements. But gradually he is able to direct the reißt er die Führung des Kampfes an sich und duel and confuses the enemy through feints and verwirrt den Gegner durch Finten und vorgetäuschte feigned parries. Paraden.

69 Joan wirft seinen Degen fort und umfaßt mit beiden Joan throws his sword away and grasps with both Händen den Griff eines unsichtbaren Zweihänders. hands the handle of a concealed two-hander. His Sein Gegner, vollkommen verwirrt, scheint die enemy, completely confused, appears to see the Waffe zu sehen. weapon.

Joan greift an. Joan attacks.

Der Ritter läßt sein Schwert fallen und weicht The knight lets his sword fall and falls back. zurück.

71 Der Ritter erliegt endlich einem gewaltigen The knight finally succumbs to a powerful overhead Luftstreich Joans. blow by Joan.

72 Nr. 5 No. 5 Der Ehrentanz (Quartett) The Honor-dance (Quartet)

Isabeau, durch den Kampf Joans fasziniert, erhebt Isabeau, enthralled throughout Joan’s duel, rises and sich und reicht ihm eine Blume, die sie von ihrem hands him a flower she has taken from her dress. Kleid nimmt.

351

Page Text Translation

74 Isabeau tanzt zeremoniös mit Joan um ihn als Sieger Isabeau dances ceremoniously with Joan to honor zu ehren auf dem Turnierplatz. Die Magd Perette, him as victor of the arena. The maid Perette, a ein etwas derbes, aber reizvolles Mädchen, tritt im somewhat coarse but attractive girl, appears in the Kostüm der Puppe auf der oberen Spielfläche auf. puppet’s costume on the upper platform. Lefou, Lefou, rasch entflammt, ist hinter ihr her. greatly enamored, is behind her.

75 Joan beginnt Isabeau zu bedrängen; Perette weiß Joan begins to hassle Isabeau; Perette manages again sich immer wieder dem sie verfolgenden Lefou zu and again to avoid the dogging Lefou. entziehen.

76 Perette kann Lefou nicht mehr entkommen. Perette cannot escape Lefou any longer.

77 Von hier an wiederholt sich gleichzeitig bei Lefou From here Lefou and Perette repeat, in their own und Perette auf ihre Weise alles, was zwischen Joan manner, what transpires between Joan and Isabeau. und Isabeau vorgeht.

79 Joan beginnt rücksichtslos seine Leidenschaft zu Joan begins unabashedly to show his passion, so that zeigen, sodaß es Isabeau kaum mehr möglich ist, ihn is it hardly possible for Isabeau to keep him in his in seine Grenzen zurückzuweisen. Der Herzog bounds. The duke observes the pair with growing beobachtet die Beiden mit wachsender Eifersucht. jealousy.

81 Auf das vierte Achtel dieses Taktes [R62+3] reißt On the fourth eighth-note of this bar [R62+3], Joan Joan Isabeau an sich und versucht sie zu Küssen; pulls Isabeau to himself and attempts to kiss her; Lefou versucht dasselbe mit Perette. Lefou tries the same with Perette.

Isabeau stößt Joan zurück, Perette gibt Lefou einen Isabeau pushes Joan back, Perette gives Lefou a kräftige Ohrfeige. Der Herzog dringt mit strong box on the ear. The duke advances on Joan gezogenem Degen auf Joan ein. with sword drawn.

352

Page Text Translation

82 Joan wehrt sich, Joan defends himself; er tötet den Herzog. he kills the duke.

In entstehenden Tumult entfliehen Joan und Lefou, In the ensuing tumult, Joan and Lefou escape, the die Bühne leert sich rasch. stage quickly empties.

Isabeau bricht über ihrem Gatten zusammen. Isabeau collapses over her spouse.

Ende des 1. Bildes End of the first tableau. Der Zwischenvorhang schließt sich; als rein The drop closes, as a purely musical interlude of the musikalisches Zwischenspiel wird von einem following Chanson is sung by an unseen choir. unsichtbaren Chor das folgende Chanson gesungen.

353

Page Text Translation

83 ff. Chanson [I] Chanson [I]

C’est grant paine que de vivre en ce monde Living in this world gives great trouble, Encore esse plus paine de mourir And dying even greater pain. Si convient il en vivant mal souffrir As we live, we must suffer death Et au derrain de morte passer la bonde. And, in the end, pass along the road of death. L’aucune fois joye ou plaisir abonde. If at times joy and pleasure abound, On ne les peut longuement retenir. They cannot be kept for long. C’est grant paine que de vivre en ce monde Living in this world gives great trouble, Encore esse plus paine de mourir. And dying even greater pain. Pour ce je vueil comme un fol qu’on me tonde And so, I am willing to have my head shaved like a madman if, Le plus pense quoy que voye avenir. Whatever I see coming, I think about anything qu’a vivre bien et bonne fin querir! Except living virtuously and seeking a good end. Las! Il n’est rien que Soussy ne confonde Alas! There is nothing that Care does not overwhelm. C’est grant paine que de vivre en ce monde. Living in this world gives great trouble, Encore esse plus paine de mourir. And dying even greater pain. (Trans. John Fox, alt.)

354

Page Text Translation

87 ZWEITES BILD SECOND TABLEAU

Der ganze Raum ist in eine Stimmung ähnlich der The whole space is immersed in a single atmosphere einer hoher dämmrigen Kathedrale getaucht. Die similar to a tall, dim cathedral. The large flanking großen flankierenden Figuren sind nur noch als figures are recognizable only as silhouettes. The Silhouetten erkennbar. Die Tafel ist weggeräumt; table is removed; on the right a kneeler and two tall rechts ein Betpult und zwei hohe Leuchter. candelabra.

Nr. 6 No. 6 Isabeau’s Klage Isabeau’s Lament

Isabeau, von einem langen schwarzen Schleier Isabeau, enveloped in a long black shroud, supported verhüllt, wird von sechs ebenfalls verschleierten by six similarly shrouded women, is led into the hall. Damen gestützt in den Saal geleitet.

90 Die Frauen haben Isabeau verlassen; Isabeau The women have left Isabeau; Isabeau cries in deep beweint in tiefem Schmerz und in edler Trauer ihre pain and in true sorrow for her spouse. Gatten.

93 Isabeau kniet am Betpult nieder und verharrt mit Isabeau kneels at the kneeler and is poised with gefalteten, hocherhobenen Händen unbeweglich im folded, upheld hands motionless in prayer. Gebet.

Nr. 7 No. 7 Isabeau’s Zorn Isabeau’s Rage

Joan steht wie aus dem Boden gewachsen plötzlich As if growing out of the floor, Joan appears directly vor Isabeau, die sich erschreckt und entsetzt erhebt before Isabeau, who, frightened and horrified, leaps und vor ihm zurückweicht. up and recoils before him.

355

Page Text Translation

94 Joan macht eine Bewegung auf sie zu. Joan makes a movement toward her.

In dem Augenblick, in dem Isabeau begreift, daß In the instant in which Isabeau comprehends that no kein Gespenst, sondern der Mörder ihres Gatten vor specter, rather the murderer of her spouse, stands ihr steht, bricht mit elementarer Gewalt glühendster before her, blistering hate erupts from her with base Haß aus ihr hervor. force.

95 Joan’s Haltung ist sicher und überlegen. Joan’s posture is sure and deliberate.

103 Isabeau versucht mit ihren eigenen Händen Joan zu Isabeau attempts to strangle Joan with her own erwürgen, der ohne sich zu wehren standhält. hands; he stands fast without defending himself.

104 In diesem Augenblick aber verläßt sich ihre ganze But in this moment, she loses her entire strength; she Kraft, sie bricht am Treppenaufgang zusammen, collapses on the stair, futilely seeking to stop the vergeblich an der hochaufgerichteten Gestalt Joans Joan’s imposing form. Halt suchend.

Joan verlöscht rasch die Kerzen und entzündet alle Joan quickly puts out the candles and ignites all Lichter oben auf der zweiten Spielfläche. lights on the second platform above.

Das große Lichtcrescendo soll erst auf die zweite The great light-crescendo should begin on the second Fermate treffen [R86+7]. fermata [R86+7].

356

Page Text Translation

105 Nr. 8 No. 8 Verführung Isabeaus The Seduction of Isabeau

Joan richtet langsam die Gestalt Isabeaus auf und Joan sets Isabeau’s body upright and with great zieht mit großer Zartheit die sich nur noch schwach gentleness pulls her, still feebly resisting, up the Sträubende die Treppe hinauf bis zur Mitte der steps to the middle of the upper platform. He loosens oberen Spielfläche. Er löst ihren Schleier und läßt her shroud and lets it glide to the floor, so that she ihn zu Boden gleiten, sodaß sie wieder in blühender again faces him in blossoming beauty and in the Schönheit und in dem glänzenden Gewand des brilliant robe of the first Tableau. Joan professes to ersten Bildes ihm gegenübersteht. Joan erklärt Isabeau his fervent love and devotion, until she Isabeau seine glühende Liebe und Ergebenheit, bis succumbs to his courtship. sie seiner Werbung erliegt.

112 Joan umarmt Isabeau, Joan encircles Isabeau in his arms;

113 sie halten sich reglos umschlungen bis der Vorhang she remains motionlessly entangled as the curtain fällt. falls.

Ende des 2. Bildes End of the second tableau.

Das nachfolgende Chanson wird, wie das erste, von The following Chanson is sung, as the first, by an einem hinter dem Zwischenvorhang unsichtbar unseen choir positioned behind the drop. aufgestellten Chor gesungen.

357

Page Text Translation

114 Chanson [II] Chanson [II] ff. D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance, From where comes this sun of pleasure, qui ainsi m’es bluyst les yeulx? That so astounds my eyes? Doulceur et encore mieulx! Beauty, sweetness, and even better, Y sont a trop grant habondance. Are here in too great a measure. Soudainement louyst par semblance Suddenly lit up as if comme un esclair venant des cieulx. From a lightning bolt coming from on high; D’ont vient ce souleil de plaisance? From where comes this sun of pleasure, qui ainsi m’es bluyst les yeulx? That so astounds my eyes? Il fait perdre la contenance It makes all men lose their composure A toutes gens, jeunes et vielz ; All men, young and old; N’il n’est eclipse, se m’aist Dieux, There is not an eclipse, so help me God, Qui de l’obscurir ait puissance ; That has the power to obscure it: Beaulte, Doulceur et encore mieulx! Beauty, sweetness, and even better, Y sont a trop grant habondance. Are here in too great a measure. D’ont vient ce souleil From where comes this sun of pleasure Ah! Ah! (Trans. Sarah Spence)

358

Page Text Translation

123 DRITTES BILD THIRD TABLEAU

Nr. 9 No. 9. Die Huldigung The Homage

Joan und Isabeau sitzen, umgeben von Isabeaus Joan and Isabeau sit, encircled by Isabeaus royal Hofstaat, auf zwei Thronsesseln. Im ganzen Raum household, on two thrones. Stationed throughout the sind Bewaffnete in Joans Farben verteilt. Die entire room are men-at-arms in Joan’s colors. The Gefolgsleute des ermordeten Herzogs ziehen an Joan followers of the murdered Duke file past Joan and vorüber und beugen Haupt und Knie vor ihm zum bow body and knee before him to demonstrate their Zeichen ihrer Ergebenheit, wenn auch mit loyalty, although with visible reluctance. – This sichtlichem Widerstreben. – Diese Szene spielt ohne scene played without music. Musik.

124 Nr. 10 Nr. 10 Der Eröffnungstanz The Opening Dance

Es folgt ein großer allgemeiner Schautanz, der von A large company show-dance follows, led by Joan Joan und Isabeau angeführt wird. and Isabeau.

130 Lefou zieht die widerstrebende Perette herein und Lefou pulls the reluctant Perette in and seeks her versucht vergebens sie zu überreden an dem forgiveness to persuade her to take part in the public allgemeinen Tanz teilzunehmen. dance.

131 Lefou stürzt wütend hinaus und kommt mit zwei Lefou storms out and comes back with two cute little reizenden kleinen Küchenmädchen zurück. Die kitchen maids. The company has noticed the affair; Gesellschaft hat den Vorgang bemerkt, der the public dance breaks up. allgemeine Tanz wird unterbrochen.

359

Page Text Translation

132 Alles sieht zu, wie Lefou übermächtig mit den Everyone watches how Lefou raucously dances with Küchenmädchen tanzt und scherzt und wie Perette the kitchen maids and banters [with them] and how außer sich vor Zorn immer wieder den Versuch Perette, beside herself with fury, seeks again and macht, Lefou von den Mädchen zu trennen. again to separate Lefou from the girls.

140 Ein Bewaffneter jagt auf Joans Wink die At Joan’s signal, a man-at-arms chases the kitchen Küchenmädchen hinaus. maids out.

142 Der allgemeine Tanz wird wieder aufgenommen und The public dance is again taken up and finished. zu Ende geführt.

146 Der Hof hat auf der unteren Spielfläche Platz The court has taken its place on the lower platform in genommen um einer theatralische Darbietung auf order to watch a theatrical performance on the upper der oberen Spielfläche zuzusehen. platform.

360

Page Text Translation

147 Nr. 11 No. 11 Pantomime Pantomime

Der Vorhang einer improvisierten Bühne wird The curtain of an improvised stage is drawn. zugezogen.

Der Vorhang öffnet sich. The curtain opens.

Man sieht ein zottiges, überall mit Schellen, One sees a shaggy monster, adorned with bells, Klappern und Rasseln behängtes Ungeheuer. Es clappers, and rattles. It looks around. sieht sich um.

Nachdem aber niemand kommt, gerät es in Wut und But no one approaches it; it grows angry and stamps stampft die Erde. the ground.

Einige greise, gramgebeugte Bürger treten auf. Several old townsfolk, bowed with grief, appear.

148 Sie bieten dem Untier große Früchte und They offer the beast large fruits and artichokes. Artischoken [sic] an.

Wütend schlägt ihnen das Untier die Opfergaben aus The beast angrily knocks the offering from their der Hand und verjagt sie. hands and chases them.

Das Untier versteckt sich hinter einem Baumstrunk. The beast hides himself behind a tree trunk.

Klagend führen die Bürger eine zarte Jungfrau auf Lamenting, the townsfolk lead a delicate virgin to the den Platz. place.

361

Page Text Translation

149 Sie binden die Jungfrau an den Baumstrunk. They tie the virgin to the tree trunk.

Stockenden Schrittes entfernen sich die Bürger. With stumbling steps the townsfolk back away.

150 Das Ungeheuer umkreist sein Opfer. The monster circles his offering.

Es wetzt ein großes Messer. He whets a large knife.

151 Das Ungeheuer holt zum tödlichen Stoß aus. The monster prepares a deadly blow.

Das Held erscheint, fällt dem Ungeheuer in den Arm The hero appears, strikes the monster on the arm and und dringt mit seinem Schwert auf das Tier ein, stabs the monster with his sword as it breathes fire on während ihm dieses aus einem Rohr Feuer him, as if from a chimney. entgegenbläst.

152 Das Untier wird erschlagen. The monster is slain.

-- [The following text is included at this point in the [The following text is included at this point in the original piano score (88): original piano score (88): [Der Held befreit die Jungfrau, die ihm in die Arme The hero frees the virgin, who sinks into his arms. sinkt. Die Bürger krönen das Paar. The townsfolk crown the pair.

Die Vorhang wird zugezogen.] The curtain is closed.]

362

Page Text Translation

153 Nr. 12 No. 12 Der Liebestanz The Love-Dance

Der Narr bringt einen Flötenspieler herein. Die The fool brings in a flute player. The actors of the Schauspieler der Pantomime treten hinter dem pantomime step forward from behind the curtain and Vorhang hervor und verwandeln sich wieder in change again to ladies and gentlemen of the court. Damen und Herren des Hofes.

156 Der Flötenspieler beginnt zu spielen. Der junge The flute player begins to play. The young knight Ritter, der den Helden in der Pantomime dargestellt who portrayed the hero in the pantomime begins to hat, beginnt mit Florence, der Darstellerin der dance with Florence, the actress who portrayed the Jungfrau, zu tanzen. virgin.

157 Joan nimmt ihm das Mädchen weg, um selbst mit ihr Joan snatches the maiden to dance with her himself. zu tanzen. Diese grobe Verletzung der Sitte ruft This bumbling infraction of custom causes great große Bewegung im Saal hervor. Der junge Ritter commotion in the hall. The young knight, inflamed gerät in Zorn, doch ehe er sich überhaupt über den with rage, before he completely figures out the affair, Vorgang klar wird, hat ihm Joan seinen Degen wrests Joan’s sword from him, breaks it, and throws entrissen, ihn zerbrochen und ihm die Stücke vor die the pieces at his feet. Immediately, quick as Füße geworfen. Gleichzeitig packen blitzschnell lightning, two of Joan’s men-at-arms seize the young zwei von Joans Bewaffneten den jungen Ritter und knight and lead him away. The fool follows the führen ihn ab. Der Narr verfolgt den Auftritt mit scene with great malicious joy. großer Schadenfreude.

158 Joan beginnt mit Florence einen süßen Liebestanz. Joan begins a sweet love-dance with Florence.

363

Page Text Translation

159 Isabeau versucht vergebens ihn zu bestimmen, das Isabeau seeks in vain to persuade him to end the frivol Spiel zu beenden. frivolous game.

Außer sich vor Leidenschaft, Scham und Eifersucht Beside herself with passion, shame, and jealousy, she wendet sie sich an ihre Bewaffneten und fordert sie appeals to her men-at-arms and orders them to auf sie zu rächen. avenge her.

160 Der Narr, der die Gefahr erkannt hat, wendet sich an The fool, who recognized the danger, appeals to Joans Bewaffnete. Joan’s men-at-arms.

Beide Gruppen rücken Schritt für Schritt in Richtung Both groups advance step-by-step in the direction of auf das unbekümmert tanzende Paar gegeneinander the unconcerned couple and against each other. vor.

163 Der Narr versucht vergeblich seinen Herrn zu The fool seeks in vain to warn his lord. warnen.

167 Die beide Gruppen treffen aufeinander. Joan nimmt The two groups engage each other. Joan takes Florence auf seine Arme und trägt sie hinter die Florence in his arms and carries her behind his men’s Linie seiner Leute und aus dem Saal. Isabeau bricht lines and out of the hall. Isabeau collapses and is zusammen und wird von ihren Frauen weggebracht. taken away by her ladies. All unarmed people flee. All Unbewaffnete fliehen. In Verlauf des kurzen In the course of the short but intense battle, Joan’s aber heftigen Kampfes vertrieben Joans Leute ihre men rout their foes and pursue them. Feinde und verfolgen sie.

364

Page Text Translation

171 Nr. 13 No. 13 Perettes Rache Perette’s Wrath

Die Bühne hat sich geleert; unter dem einen The stage empties; Lefou creeps carefully beneath Thronsessel kriecht vorsichtig Lefou hervor, one throne,

unter dem andern ebenso vorsichtig Perette. under the other, Perette carefully does the same.

Perette sieht Lefou, der sie nicht bemerkt und Perette sees Lefou, who doesn’t notice her, and schleicht ihm nach. slinks toward him.

172 Perettes gerechte Wut auf Lefou entlädt sich in Perette’s just rage toward Lefou releases itself in a einem Trommelfeuer von Prügeln, die der arme barrage of lashings, which poor Lefou must endure Lefou völlig überrumpelt einstecken muß. completely without making a sound.

176 Ende des dritten Bildes End of the third tableau.

Der Zwischenvorhang schließt sich; als rein The drop-scene closes; as a purely musical interlude, musikalisches Zwischenspiel wird von einem the following rondeau is sung by an unseen choir. unsichtbaren Chor das folgende Rondeau gesungen.

365

Page Text Translation

177 Rondeau Rondeau ff. [The original piano score replaces the previous [The original piano score replaces the previous instruction with the following: instruction with the following: Das folgende Rondeau wird wie die vorgehenden The following Rondeau, as the previous Chansons, Chansons von einem unsichtbar aufgestellten Chor is sung by an unseen positioned choir.] gesungen.]

Vous y fiez vous Do you put your trust En mondain espoir? in this world? S'il scet decevoir If it disappoints you, Demandez à tous! Ask everyone! La, la, la, … [Ha, ha, ha, …] La, la, la … Son attrait est doulx It’s lure is sweet Pour gens mieulx avoir And it gets the better of people. Vous y fiez vous Do you put your trust en Mondain espoir? in this world? La, la, la, … [Ha, ha, ha, …] La, la, la … De joye, ou courroux, Whether of joy or anger, Soing, ou nonchaloir, Care or nonchalance – Veult, à son vouloir, The world speaks to you Tenir les deux boux. From both sides of its mouth. Vous y fiez vous? Do you put your trust? (Trans. Brigitte Riskowski, et al.)

366

Page Text Translation

182 VIERTES BILD FOURTH TABLEAU

Auf den unteren Spielfläche steht ein kleiner Tisch, On the lower platform stands a small table on which auf den sich das Licht konzentriert, während alles the light is concentrated, while everything else Übrige im Dämmer bleibt. remains in twilight.

Nr. 14 No. 14 Wein und Würfelspiel Wine and Dice Game

Joan lehnt in trüber Stimmung am Tisch, der Narr Joan leans on the table in a bleak mood; the fool versucht ihn mit Musik aufzuheitern. seeks to cheer him up.

184 Joan unterbricht mit unwilliger Gebärde Lefou’s Joan interrupts Lefou’s jingle with averse gestures. Geklimper

185 Der Narr holt einen großen Krug Wein und schenkt The fool gets a large jug of wine and pours. Both get ein. Beide betrinken sich. drunk.

194 Lefou holt Würfel und Becher Lefou gets dice and tumbler.

196 Lefou würfelt. Lefou rolls.

Florence tritt auf und nähert sich zart Joan, der ihr Florence appears and tenderly nears Joan, but he aber keine Beachtung schenkt. pays her no attention.

197 Joan würfelt. Joan rolls.

367

Page Text Translation

198 Joan hat verloren Joan has lost.

Lefou würfelt Lefou rolls.

199 Joan würfelt Joan rolls.

Joan hat abermals verloren und wirft Lefou den Rest Joan loses again and throws the rest of his money to seines Geldes hin. Lefou.

Joan gibt zu erkennen, daß er kein Geld mehr hat; Joan reveals that he has no more money; suddenly an plötzlich jedoch kommt ihm in seiner Trunkenheit idea comes to him in his drunkenness to wager der Einfall Florence aufs Spiel zu setzen. Florence.

Joan würfelt. Joan rolls.

200 Lefou würfelt. Lefou rolls.

201 Joan hat verloren und schleudert brutal Florence Joan loses and brutally flings Florence to the fool. dem Narren zu.

Lefou umtanzt Florence wild vor Gier und Freude. Lefou dances around Florence wildly with ravenousness and joy.

202 Florence stößt sich einen Dolch ins Herz. Florence plunges a dagger in her heart.

Der Narr […] The fool […]

368

Page Text Translation

203 fängt sie in seinen Armen auf. catches her in his arms.

Joan und Lefou stehen erstarrt und ernüchtert. Joan and Lefou stand stiff and sober.

Lefou schleppt Florence langsam hinaus. Lefou slowly drags Florence out.

204 Nr. 15 No. 15 Die Erscheinungen The Apparitions

Auf der oberen Spielfläche weit hinten erscheinen On the upper platform, far to the rear, two female wie Schemen zwei Frauengestalten, deren forms appear as silhouettes, their magnificent prunkvolle Gewänder mit grauen Schleiern verhüllt vestments veiled by grey shrouds. They carry the sind. Sie tragen die Enden eines bis zum Boden ends of a grey cloth which drapes to the floor and fallenden grauen Tuches und bewegen sich langsam move slowly forward. nach vorne.

205 Die Frauen sind vorne angelangt. The women have arrived at the front. Joan sieht, wie die beiden Frauen das Tuch fallen As the women allow the cloth to fall, Joan sees, to lassen und so zu seinem Entsetzen sein eigenes his horror, his own exact Likeness revealed. genaues Ebenbild enthüllen.

Joans Ebenbild beginnt einen gespenstischen […] Joan’s Likeness begins a spectral […]

206 Tanz, in dem es sich bald mit der einen, bald mit der dance in which he coalesces soon with the one, soon anderen Frauengestalt verbindet. with the other womanly form.

207 Die beiden Frauen, welche über dem Gesicht Both women, who wear masks over their faces, but Masken tragen, die aber als solche nicht erkennbar which are not recognizable as such, each take off the sein sollen, nehmen die erste Maske ab. first mask.

369

Page Text Translation

-- [At this point, the following text is missing from [At this point, the following text is missing from Donauwörth copy of the original version, but present Donauwörth copy of original version, but present in in the original piano score: the original piano score: Die Frauen heben das Tuch vom Boden wieder auf, The women again lift the cloth from the floor, shroud verhüllen Joans Ebenbild, werfen die zweite Maske Joan’s Likeness, throw off the second masks and ab und zeigen ihr wirkliches Gesicht, das Gesicht show their true faces, the faces of Florence and der Florence und der Isabeau. Isabeau.

Sie lassen das Tuch wieder zu Boden gleiten,] They again allow the cloth to glide to the floor,]

210 diesmal enthüllt es die schemenhafte Gestalt des this time revealing the shadowy figure of the Iron eisernen Herzogs, der mit beiden Händen ein Duke, who with both hands raises an executioner’s Richtschwert hebt und es symbolisch in der sword [lit., “Sword of Justice”] and allows it to Richtung auf Joan zu niederfallen läßt. symbolically fall in Joan’s direction.

Joan bricht leblos zusammen, der Spuk Joan collapses, lifeless; the phantom disappears. verschwindet.

211 Die Bühne beginnt sich etwas zu erhellen. The stage begins to lighten some.

212 Auf die Tafel, die der Löwe in seinen Pranken hält, Bright light falls on the tablet that the lion holds in fällt helles Licht. it’s claws.

213 Lefou kommt um nach seinem Herrn zu sehen. Lefou comes in order to see after his lord.

Er nimmt Joans Hand, He takes Joan’s hand,

370

Page Text Translation

214 läßt sie fallen, erkennt, daß er tot ist, erschrickt und lets it fall, recognizes that he is dead, starts and runs läuft weg. away.

Er kehrt zurück, zieht seinem Herrn den Degen aus, He returns, removes his lord’s rapier, girds […] gürtet […]

215 sich damit und geht. himself with it and goes.

216 Die Bühne verdunkelt sich langsam. The stage darkens slowly.

Ende des 4. Bildes. End of the fourth Tableau.

371

Page Text Translation

[216a] EPILOG EPILOG

Vor dem Zwischenvorhang erscheint der prunkvolle In front of the drop appears the magnificent structure Aufbau des Anfangs. Der Schauspieler inmitten der from the beginning. The actor, in the middle of the allegorischen Figuren spricht den Epilog: allegorical figures, speaks the epilog:

Weh ihm, den jäh ein grausames Gesetz Woe to him, who is suddenly held hostage Durch der Vergeltung harte Geisel traf! by a savage law of severe retribution! Er ward in seiner Jugend schönster Kraft He was in his youth of most beautiful strength Zu früh zerstört und aufgelöst zu Staub, Too early undone and returned to dust, Verschlungen von den Flammen, die er selbst, Devoured by the flames which he himself, Unkundig der Gefahr, arglos genährt. Ignorant of the danger, carelessly fed. Mit trüber Klage, kummervollem Blick With a turbid dirge, grieving glance Vermag ich zu betrachten nur sein Los I am able to regard only his lot Und könnte wohl verstehn, wenn der und der And could well understand when everyone Bedenkend das Geschick, das jenen traf, Contemplating the fate that met him, Die Freude meidend um die Qual zu fliehn, Would shun joy to flee misery, Beschließen würde nimmermehr sein Herz Would resolve never again Der Liebe je zu öffnen um in einem To open his heart to love, at once Das Sehnen zu ersticken, das in uns, To suffocate the longing, that lives in us Solang wir leben, lebt und die Gefahr As long as we live and the danger Die uns, so lang wir sind, in ihm bedroht! That threatens us as long as we are! Doch endete die Zeit schon vor der Zeit However, time ended before the time Den Toren, die sich ohne Grund und Not Of the fools, they who without cause or distress Zu Tode quälten um den Tod zu fliehn! Tortured themselves to death to flee from death! Nicht ist’s die Liebe ja, die Unheil bringt, Nay, it is not love that brings calamity, Nur der Betörung Sporn, und edle Glut! Only the bewitchment of infatuation, and noble embers!

372

Page Text Translation

[216a, Drum meidet stets die ungestüme Gier, Thus shun always the impetuous lust, cont.] Den bösen Zäuber [sic] der Sirenen stets, The evil charm of the Sirens ever, Doch flieht die heilige Bezauberung, However, the holy enchantment does not flee, Die segenspendende, der Liebe nicht! The blessing-bestowing, of love! In ihrem Feuer glüht der ewige Schmied In her fire glows the eternal smith makes Sein Eisen seit dem Anbeginn der Zeit His iron glow since the dawn of time Und trennt das spröde Erz in ihrer Glut And separates the rough ore in its flame Zu trüber Schlacke und zu reinem Gold. Into dull slag and into pure gold. Nur wenn auch unsre Brust ihr Glanz durchglüht Only when her luster glows within our breast Und ihre helle Flamme und durchsprüht, And her bright flame and sparkles through, Wenn Sinn und Seele ganz sich ihr ergeben, When sense and soul give themselves totally to her, Kann unser Sein zum Leben sich erheben! Can our being arise to life!

Verscheucht deshalb mit uns Melancholie Therefore shun melancholy with us, Und Gram und Trauer um Vergangenes, And grief and sadness at what is past, Das keine Klage mehr entreißen kann That no lament can longer pluck Dem dunklen Grund der Zeit und seht mit uns From the dark ground of time and watch with us Dem Spiel für eine frohe Spanne zu, The play for a happy time, Das neu in jedem Augenblick beginnt, That begins anew in each moment, Dem Spiel, in dem auch, wer verliert, gewinnt, The play, in which also, he who loses, wins, In dem sich stets erneuert alles Leben In which all life renews itself Und Fordern Schenken heißt und Nehmen Geben. And demanding is called gifting and taking, giving.

373

Page Text Translation

217 RONDEAU FINALE RONDEAU FINALE

[The following text is included at this point in the [The following text is included at this point in the original piano score (128): original piano score (128): Der Singchor und die acht Bühnentrompeten sind The choir and the eight on-stage trumpets are sichtbar auf der Bühne aufgestellt. Das gesamte positioned visibly on the stage. The complete ballet Ballettkorps, im Stil der Zeit modisch gekleidet, corps, clothed in fashions of the time, perform this führt diesen Tanz aus, der die überschäumendste dance, symbolizing the most exuberant joy of life Lebensfreude und den Triumph der Liebe and the triumph of love.] symbolisiert.]

226 Allez-vous-en, allez, allez ! Go away, go, go! ff. Soussy, Soing et Merencolie ! Worry, Care, and Melancholy! Me cuidez-vous toute, ma vie Will you burn me all of my life, Gouverner, comme fait avez ? Governing, as you have been? Je vous prometz que non ferez ; I promise you will not; Raison aura sur vous maistrie : Reason has triumphed over you: Allez-vous-en, allez, allez ! Go away, go, go! Soussy, Soing et Merencolie ! Worry, Care, and Melancholy! Se jamais plus vous retournez, That you would never again return, Avecques vostre compaignie, Along with your company, je pri à Dieu qu’il vous maudie I pray to God that he curse you et ce par qui vous reviendrez ! And that by which you return! Allez-vous-en, allez, allez ! Go away, go, go!

250 [End] [End]

374

APPENDIX B

VON KEUDELL NOTE, 9 JANUARY 1934

Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda Note Berlin, 9 January 1934

Since about 1900 there has existed a modern form of artistic dance in Germany, which has grown out of German preconditions (founder: Laban), which as German art dance has conquered all European and extra-European culturally advanced states (e.g. America and Japan). In this dance the German man creates works of dance (individual, group, and choral activities) in a way that Nietzsche desired for “the moving and dancing German man.” He uses the medium of his body trained to be his instrument and draw such works form the depths of German emotional and spiritual life, and which can stand side-by-side with most of the worthiest works of art in other artistic areas and in the shaping of the festive and ceremonial in the life rhythms of the Third Reich which have an especially comprehensive role to play.

This Ausdruckstanz (in the world known as the “New German Dance” or “la nouvelle dance allemande”) is just at this moment being rejected unjustly not by the public but by some members of the clique of theater dance enthusiasts (ballet). They prevent it and try to suppress it idiotically with slogans such as “cubism” or “expressionism.” In the “German League of Choir Singers and Association of Dancers,” the compulsory professional association also for art dancers within the Reich Theater Chamber, a choir singer has the lead who understands nothing at tall about art dance. A subgroup within the National/Socialist Teachers’ Federation is also trying at present to pursue a special interest policy within this area of art and at the cost of this particular art form, although the Teachers’ Federation has absolutely no jurisdiction in this area. Finally, during the auditions of dancers for the theater, all German art dancers were systematically rejected and only those who had been trained in ballet, often at foreign ballet schools, were accepted. This is all the sillier as slowly but surely the dance creations of German art dance are beginning to overcome the all too stylized and soulless figures of ballet dancing in

375

the great and culturally important dance groups in theaters. What is clear is that German art dance stands on the edge of collapse. The economically weak but artistically recognized independent artists receive no help from official sources, and as result of the opposition mentioned and as a result of the economic situation in Germany face ruin. Important representative of German schools of German art dance (Wigman, Palucca, Laban, Günther) are desolate and face collapse. German art dance, which has advertised German culture in triumphal march abroad (e.g. America and Japan) and could make German cultural propaganda à la Fürtwängler [sic] with corresponding support, is about to die, unless the Propaganda Ministry intervenes at the last minute.

What is to be done?

I. Measures that cost no money:

An official commitment to the importance of and necessity for German art dance. Without an official prompting, the anxious and uncertain spirits will not be soothed.

Influence the specialist press and critics so that they no longer make propaganda only for gymnastics, ballet and foreign ballet schools both at home and abroad.

Instructions to the Professional Association, to theater intendants, and to city administrations to place more weight on German art dance and its cultivation and to open theater and meeting places in greater measure to presentations of German art dance.

Instructions to Opera intendants to include in their ballet ensemble an appropriate percentage of German art dancers, especially, since for other viral reasons, the penetration of ballet dance by works of French and Italian origin must be countered by typically German artistic creativity. Establishment of the training course of the coming generation of dancers and the setting-up of suitable examination committees.

376

II. Measures that will cost money temporarily:

Temporary subsidies for the four essential leading dance schools, which without help will lose their doors in September. This subsidy must last until 1 January 1935 and will cost 10 to 12.000 RM.

Make provision for the great tasks of German art dance. From the 6th to the 9th of September this year the three German choreographers Laban, Wigman, Günther were supposed to demonstrate their abilities in Venice at the invitation of the Italian government. A month ago the Italian government postponed the event to 1936 because of lack of money. This is an occasion for the Propaganda Ministry to intervene and to grant to this wonderful area of art, which has hitherto been treated in Germany like an unwanted child, the possibility to develop its potential on German soil and to show what it can do.

Execution of the measures under paragraph 2 would lead inevitably to the foundation of a permanent dance theater in Berlin, which would make propaganda for Germany’s cultural mission and development in Germany, in tours abroad, and above all at the Olympic Games in 1936.

I shall submit appropriate proposals in due course.

(signed) Keudell

Note for the files: Herr State Secretary Funk approved in principle the postulates stated above and the points in the program at a meeting on 12 August [sic, correctly, July] 34 at which Herr Min.Dir. Greiner and Herr Min.R. Dr. Ott participated. (signed) Keudell 13 July.

377

APPENDIX C

JOAN VON ZARISSA PERFORMANCES

Date City Ensemble Notes Other Works (Start of Run) on Program 20 January 1940 Berlin Staatsoper Uraufführung Reger, „Ballett- No Choir in Suite“, Rondeau-Finale Heddenhausen „Tanz ums Dorf“ 30 April 1940 Halle Städtische Bühnen No Epilogue Orff, „Der Mond“ Halle No Rondo-Finale. 12 May 1940 Hamburg Hamburgische First unabridged Rimsky-Korsakow, Staatsoper performance „Capriccio Espagnol“, Mozart, „Kleines Liebesspiel“ (Les petits riens) 27 February 1941 Stuttgart Württembergische Program contains the Orff, „Carmina Staatstheater texts of the two Burana“ Chansons, with German translations. 30 April 1941 Chemnitz Chemnitzer Oper Casimir von (Chemnitzer Paszthory, Theaterfreunde) „Arvalany“ (Premiered as Aschenbrödel Goldhaar in Dresden) 15 May 1941 Essen Essener Oper Orff, „Carmina Burana“ 16 November 1941 Essen Essener Oper Franz Willms, „Die terminus ante quem Stunde der Fische“ 6 December 1941 Zurich, Stadttheater Orff, „Carmina Switzerland Burana“ 20 December 1941 Berlin Staatsoper New Production. Orff, „Carmina (For the time Blätter der Burana“ being, on Staatsoper refers to (Berlin Premiere; Königsplatz) the Epilogue, but the receives most program lists only press) „Prolog: Fritz Soot“ Between 31 May Berlin Staatsoper Berliner Orff, „Carmina 1942 and 6 June 1942 Kunstwochen Burana“

378

Date City Ensemble Notes Other Works (Start of Run) on Program 5 February 1942 Vienna, Staatsoper With Epilogue and Orff, „Carmina Austria Rondeau-Finale Burana“ In preparation for the Weeks of Contemporary Music festival Egk conducted, 4.3.42; 25th performance, 19.5.42 19 February 1942 Düsseldorf Düsseldorfer No Epilogue or Mozart, Tanzgruppe Rondeau-Finale „Liebesprobe“ 11 April 1942 Prague, Balet Národního „Joan ze Zarissy“ Boris Blacher, Czecho- divadla With Epilogue „Jižní slavnost“ slovakia (Fest im Süden) 10 July 1942 Paris, France Théatre National Paris Premiere C. M. Weber, „Le de l’Opéra spectre de la Rose“, orch. Berlioz (90. Performance) L. v. Beethoven, „Les Créatures de Prométhée“ (56. Performance) 11 July 1942 Paris, France Théatre National 2nd Paris Verdi, „Rigoletto“ de l’Opéra Performance (732. Performance) 21 October 1942 Paris, France Théatre National 3rd Paris Debussy, „Prélude de l’Opéra Performance à l’après-midi d’un Faune“ Ravel, „Bolero“ 21 March 1943 Hannover Opernhaus With Epilogue Müller-Lampertz, Hannover, „Bauernhochzeit“, Städtischen Kodaly, Bühnen „Zigeunertänze“ 24 March 1943 Rome, Italy Teatro Reale „Giovanni di Stravinsky, Dell’Opera Zarissa“ „L’Usignuolo“ Mit Epilog Program (Italian und German): „Balletto drammatico in 5 Quadri“ 15 May 1943 Leipzig Opernhaus Leipzig With „Epilog des Rudolf Wagner- Narren“ (Epilogue of Regeny, „Der the Fool) zerbrochene Krug“ 27 November 1943 Weimar Deutsches With Rondo-Finale Orff, „Carmina Nationaltheater burana“

379

Date City Ensemble Notes Other Works (Start of Run) on Program 2 July 1944 München Bayerische With Rondeau-Finale Staatsoper (For the time being, at the German Museum) 21 June 1947 Berlin Staatsoper Rolf Jahnke Tanz Abend 18 October 1947 Mönchen- Weeks of Modern Orff, „Die Kluge“ Gladbach and Art festival Rheydt 30 April 1949 Freiburg Freiburger Theater Orff, „Der Mond“ 13 May 1949 Braunschweig Hoftheater/ Orff, „Carmina Braunschweiger burana“ Theater- und Konzertfreunde 29 May 1949 Freiburg im Städtische Bühne Weeks of Music Orff, „Der Mond“ Breisgau festival (26 May to 3 Juni 1949) 5 March 1950 Innsbruck Landestheater Orff, „Carmina burana“ 8 March 1950 Köln Städtische Bühne With Prologue Stravinsky, spoken by Gert „Feuervogel“ Fürstenau 13 May 1950 Kassel Staatstheater With Prologue und Dvorak, „Scherzo Epilogue capriccioso“ Ravel, „Bolero“ (als Ballette) 4 June 1950 Dortmund Städtische Bühne Ravel, „Bolero“ Delibes, „Coppelia“ 20 October 1950 Bremen Theater der Freien Reference to a Puccini, „Gianni Hansestadt Speaker Schicchi“ Bremen October-November Buenos Aires Teatro Colon Choreography by Orff, „Carmina 1950 Tatjana Gsovsky burana“ 20 May 1953 München Bayerische New Production Egk, „Chinesische Staatstheater No reference to Nachtigall“ Prologue, Epilogue, or Speaker 6 April 1961 Television T.V. Production Choreography by Heinz Rosen 28 January 1962 Fernsehen I Bayerische T.V. Production Staatsoper

380

Date City Ensemble Notes Other Works (Start of Run) on Program 30 October 1962 Bielefeld Chor des Rondeau only Reutter, „Die Musikvereins Brücke fon San Bielefeld Luis Rey“ Frank Martin, „Sonata da chiesa für Viola d’amore und Streichorchester 1 February 1963 Stuttgart, Berliner Ballett „Versuchung und Adagio aus Ulm, Verführung der „Schwanensee“ Karlsruhe, Isabeau“ Blacher, „Hamlet“ Konstanz, Durlach, Bonn, Hamm May 1963 Ostwestfalen Metropole Strawinsky, Bielefeld „Feuervogel“ 29 November 1963 Braunschweig Staatstheater New Production Killmayer, „La Braunschweig Buffonata“ 11 December 1963 [Letmathe-] Städtische Bühnen Evening of Ballet (2 Strawinsky, Hagen Hagen Performances) „Petruschka“ 20 October 1964 Detmold Landestheater Prokofieff, „Peter Detmold und der Wolf“ 14 December 1964 Paderborn Landestheater Guest Performance Prokofieff, „Peter Detmold und der Wolf“ 28 January 1965 Frankfurt Frankfurter Choreographie von Henze, „Maratona“ Städtischen Gsovksy Bühnen (Same Run as March Performance?) March 1965 Frankfurt Frankfurter Moderately Henze, „Maratona Bühnen Successful di Danza“ Choreography by Tatjana Gsovsky May 1965 München Münchner Internationale Nationaltheater Ballettfestwoche Klage, Zorn und Verführung Isabeaus aus „Joan von Zarissa“ Choreography by Tatjana Govsky

381

Date City Ensemble Notes Other Works (Start of Run) on Program June 1965 Nürnberg Städtische Bühnen 14 Weeks of Orff, „Pulcinella“ Bürnberg-Fürth Contemporary Theater festival Evening of Ballet 1965 Choreography by Hildegard Krämer 26 February 1966 Halle Städtische Bühnen Run extended Nothing 23 March 1967 Linz, Austria Linzer Prokofieff, Landestheater „Symphonie classique“ „Le Spectre de la Rose“ nach Webers „Aufforderung zum Tanz“ December 1967 Essen Boris Pilatos first Francaix, „Les Evening of Ballet in demoiselles de la Essen nuit“ Choreography by Ravel, „Bolero“ Heinz Rosen 22 January 1968 Belgrade, Yugoslavia 16 June 1969 Lausanne, Theatre Municipal Switzerland 14 September 1969 Buenos Aires, Teatro Colon 15 Performances Argentina December 1969 – Beograd Nationaltheater 3 Performances January 1970 Beograd 4 April 1970 Seoul, South Deutsche Oper Die Versuchung der Korea Berlin Isabeau [sic] von Bangkok, Joan von Zarissa Thailand Calcutta, India New Delhi, India Kabul, Afghanistan Tehran, Iran Nicosia, Cyprus Cairo, Egypt Malta 15 November 1970 Cottbus

382

Date City Ensemble Notes Other Works (Start of Run) on Program 18 June 1970 Belgrade, Theater Belgrad Yugoslavia 27 June 1970 Berlin Deutsche Oper 2nd Tableau 5 September 1970 Deutsche Oper Berlin 19 September 1970 Berlin Deutsche Oper 15 November 1970 Mannheim Die Versuchung der Isabeau von Peer Gynt [sic] 14 November 1970 Cottbus 17 December 1970 Gera 2 February 1971 Birmingham, Alabama Ballet Alabama, U.S.A. November – Ljubljana, Ljubljana Thaeater 12 Performances December 1971 Yugoslavia 15 July 1972 La Plata, Teatro Argentino 5 Performances Argentina 31 December 1974 Belgrade, Dunav Film Use of a two-minute Yugoslavia excerpt for a non- commercial documentary 1980 Lübeck Bühnen der With Rondeau-Finale Hansestadt Lübeck

383

APPENDIX D

COMPILATION OF CULTURAL PROPAGANDA PRESENTATIONS IN OCCUPIED FRANCE, AA PARIS 1115X

(Entwurf.) Zusammenstellung der kulturpropagandistischen Veranstaltungen, die seit Antritt des Sachverständigen des Reichspropaganda-Ministerium bei der Deutschen Botschaft Paris durchgeführt wurden.

1942: 10. Mai Liederabend Lore Fischer (Alt) – Hermann Reutter im Deutschen Institut. 17.–23.V. Konzerte des Berliner Philharmonischen Orchestern unter Leitung von GMD Clemens Krauss in Marseille (17.V), Lyon (18.V.), Paris (25,V), sowie Werkpausenkonzert in den Pariser „Gnome et Rhône“-Werken. 18.–19.VI. Prof. Wilh. Kempff mit Charles Münch und dem Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire: 3 Beethoven-Klavierkonzerte in Trocadero und Wiederholung im Théâtre Champs Elysées. 7.VII. Schumann-Schubert-Abend Lore Fischer/Alfred Cortot im Salle Gaveau, Paris 10.VII. Franz. Erstaufführung des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ von Werner Egk unter Leitung des Komponisten an der Pariser Grossen Oper. Das Ballett hat bisher 15 Aufführungen erlebt. 17. Oktober: Wideraufnahme des „Palestrina“ von Hans Pfitzner an der Pariser Oper in Anwesenheit des Komponisten. Der „Palestrina“ hat bisher 12 Aufführungen in Paris erlebt. 31.X. Konzerte des spanischen Cellisten Cassado mit GMD Herbert Carlier (Lille) am Flügel in Salle Gaveau (31.X.) und im Deutschen Institut (2.XI.)

384

29.XI.– 9.XII. Konzertreise des Regensburger Domchores: Paris, Notre Dame (29,XI.), Nantes (30.XI.), Angers (1.XII.), Tours 2.XII.), Poitiers (3.XII.), Paris/Werkpausenkonzert (5.XII.), Chartres (6.XII.), Paris/Dt. Institut (7.XII.), Rouen (9.XII.) 25.–27.XII. 2 Festaufführungen des „Rosenkavalier“ (25. u. 27.XII) in der Grossen Oper Paris mit Martha Rohe (Wien), August Griebel (Köln) und Bertil Wetzelsberger (München) als Gäste. 1943: 15.–24.I. Tournée der Tanzgruppe Günther (München): Paris (16.I.), Bordeaux (23.I.), Biarritz (24.I.). 7.II. Orchesterkonzert unter Leitung von Eugen Jochum (Hamburg) mit den Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Erstaufführung des „Rondo giocoso“ von Theodor Berger. 26.II. und Konzerte des Kammerorchesters von Benda: Paris/Dt. Institut (26.II.), 6.III. Paris/Konservatoriumssaal (4.III.), Rouen (6.III.). 31.III. Konzert des Geigers Gerhard Teschner im Dt.Institut. 12./13.IV. 3 Klavierabende Walter Gieseking im Salle Pleyel und in der Grossen Oper. 18./22.V. 3 Festaufführungen der „Walküre“ anlässlich des 50-jährigen Jubiläums der ersten französischen „Walküre“-Aufführung und des 130. Geburtstages von Richard Wagner. -2- - 2 - unter Mitwirkung von Hilde Konetzny (Wien), Marie-Therese Henderichs (Köln), Joachim Sattler (Wien), Egmont Koch (Duisburg), Dr. Hartmann (Duisburg) und prof. Rudolf Krasselt (Hannover). 18.–29.VI. „Grand Festival Beethoven“ – 5 Orchesterkonzerte unter Leitung von Hermann Abendroth. Solisten: Elly Ney, Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Cortot und Ginette Neveu. 26.VI. Konzert Wilh. Kempff im Deutschen Institut.

385

1.VII. Klavierabend Wilhelm Kempff in Vichy. 3.–17.VII. Orgelkonzerte des Berliner Domorganisten Prof. Fritz Heitmann in Nancy (3.VII.), Dijon (5.VII.), Paris/Radio Paris (8.VII.), Paris/Notre Dame (9.VII.), Amiens (11.VII.), Poitiers (15.VII.), und Bordeaux (17.VII.).

Veranstaltung für Sprachschüler (Paris und Provinzinstitute.).

1942 12./21.V. Liederabende Lore Fischer (Alt) und Hermann Reutter (Klavier) in Paris, Angers, Blois, Cahtellerault, Châlet, Orléans, Poitiers, Tours. 4./15.VII. Konzerte des Lübecker Kammermusikkreises in Paris, Angers, La Rochelle, Langres, Le Mans, Nantes, Mennes. 29.XI.– Klavierabende Eva Maria Woerz in Paris, Beaume, Belfort, Besançon, 3.XII. Chalone, Dijon, Montbéliard. 1943 5.–11.III. Klavierabende Christine Purrmann in Bordeaux, Orléans, Poitiers, Tours. 20.–26.III. Kammermuikabende des Kölner Kammertrios in Paris, Angers, Nantes, Belfort, Besançon. 14.–19.V. Klavierabende Carl Seemann in Paris, Angers, Nantes, Tours. 26.–29.V. Klavierabende Hans Borck in Paris, Orléans, Besançon. 1.4.VI. Kammermusikabende des Strub-Quartettes in Angers, Bordeaux, Poitiers.

386

APPENDIX E

SD-BERICHTE ZU INLANDSFRAGEN

18 AND 25 OCTOBER 1943

SD-Berichte zu Inlandsfragen vom 18. Oktober 1943. (Rote Serie)

Stellungnahmen zu der Wirksamkeit der deutschen Propaganda in Frankreich Nach vielfachen Beobachtungen wird es als unbestrittene Tatsache bezeichnet, daß, von zahlenmäßig begrenzten Ausnahmen abgesehen, die französische Bevölkerung nach dem Waffenstillstand weitgehend eine deutschfreundliche oder zumindest abwartende Haltung zeigte und auch noch in der darauffolgenden Zeit, als die ersten Schockwirkung der Niederlage vorüber war und sich die zunehmenden Schwierigkeiten des täglichen Lebens bemerkbar machten, der deutschen Besatzung durchaus wohlwollend gegenüberstand. Dagegen läßt das heutige Bild erkennen, daß größte Teile des französischen Volkes deutschfeindlich geworden sing und sich gegenüber allen deutschen Bemühungen anlehnend verhalten.

I. Ursachen der negativen Entwicklung auf dem Gebiet der deutschen Propaganda Die Gründe für diese Entwicklung werden einmal in den schwerwiegenden natürlichen Auswirkungen der Niederlage auf die wirtschaftliche Lage, dann aber in einer Reihe von Gehlern in der Lenkung der öffentlichen Meinungsbildung gesehen. Aus allen vorliegenden Äußerungen geht hervor, daß die deutsche Propaganda nicht den erforderlichen Anschluß an die Mentalität des Durchschnittsfranzosen gefunden hat und heute keine Einflußmöglichkeit mehr besitzt. Sowohl von deutsche wie von französischer Seite sind über die Ergebnisse der deutschen Propaganda zahlreiche Betrachtungen angestellt worden, die weithin zu übereinstimmenden Folgerungen gelangt sind. In der Hauptsache werden dabei folgende Punkte hervorgehoben: 1. Die von den deutschen Propagandisten geleitete Propaganda gehe zu sehr von deutschen Auffassungen und Methoden aus und berücksichtige nicht die besonderen

387

Voraussetzungen für einen Erfolg in Frankreich. Das besonders in der ersten Zeit angewandte Trommelfeuer der deutsche Propaganda und das starke Auftragen der zu Grunde liegenden Tendenzen habe die meisten Franzosen von vornherein in eine Abwehrstellung gegenüber solchen zu deutlich spürbaren Beeinflussungsversuchen gebracht. Der Franzose bilde sich auf seine geistige Selbständigkeit und Urteilsfähigkeit sehr viel ein; schreiende Plakate, schlagwortartige Parolen und fertig formuliert Propagandabehauptungen erreichten daher meist das Gegenteil der beabsichtigten Wirkung. 2. Die geringe Schlagkraft der deutschen Propaganda wird vielfach auf das völlige Gehlen einer eindeutigen politischen Linie zurückgeführt, welch überhaupt als die Voraussetzung und Grundlage für eine bestimmte Marschrichtung der Propaganda angesehen wird. Infolge der Verschiedenheit der Auffassungen der zuständigen deutschen Stellen über die Behandlung der französischen Probleme seit die Propaganda außerstande gewesen, ein bestimmtes Ziel aufzustellen und planmäßig mit allen zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln „durchzupauken“. Im Gegensatz zu der feindlichen Propaganda, die in immer neuen Variationen ganz bestimmte Themen behandelte, habe die deutsche Propaganda nicht mit konkreten überzeugenden Argumenten aufwarten können, sondern sei gezwungen worden, sich auf die Kommentierung der jeweils auftauchenden Fragen der Tagespolitik zu beschränken. Die Verschiedenheit der hier vertretenen Ansichten habe aber die Propaganda vor unlösbare Aufgaben gestellt und sie gezwungen, sich immer nur in allgemeinen Andeutungen zu ergeben. Aus dem gleichen Grunde sei die deutsche Propaganda über die „europäische Neuordnung“ so wenig erfolgreich gewesen, weil trotz der zahlreichen Verlautbarungen bisher niemals etwas Positives und Konkretes von deutscher Seite gesagt worden sei. Sie habe keinem Menschen eine Vorstellung von dem erstrebten neuen Europa geben können, weil die Verfasser der Propagandaparolen teilweise noch selbst über ihre ansichten im unklaren wären. 3. Der in der ersten Zeit fast allgemeine Wunsche der Franzosen nach Aufklärung über das neue Deutschland und den Nationalsozialismus sei nicht als Ausgangspunkt für die Propaganda benutzt worden. Für Deutschland habe damals eine günstige Möglichkeit bestanden, sich im französischen Volk Sympathien zu schaffen und diese politisch auszuwerten. Allgemein habe damals ein reges Interesse für Berichte und Vorträge über Deutschland bestanden, während gewisse geistige Kreise auch kulturpolitisch eine Orientierung nach Deutschland suchten.

388

Die deutsche Propaganda habe sich jedoch, ohne hierfür den Boden vorzubereiten, bemüht, die Franzosen sofort zum Kampf gegen England und die übrigen Feinde Deutschland zu mobilisieren. Die deutsche Propagandaformel, Churchill unablässig als den Ausbund menschlicher Verkommenheit hinzustellen, hat – trotz der nach Dünkirchen weit verbreiteten englandfeindlichen Stimmung – lediglich eine Steigerung seines Ansehens zur Folge, da viele Franzosen erst durch die heftige deutsche Polemik auf die Bedeutung seiner Person bzw. seiner Gefährlichkeit für Deutschland aufmerksam gemacht wurden. 4. Die Meinungsbildung der breiten Masse des französischen Volkes werde heute vollständig von der feindlichen Rundfunkpropaganda beherrscht. Nach irgendwelchen politischen oder militärischen Ereignissen hält der Durchschnittsfranzose solange mit Äußerungen zurück, bis die Kommentare von Radio London vorliegen und sich herumgesprochen haben. Der starke englische Einfluß dauert unvermindert fort, obwohl England seit Monaten fortlaufend an Ansehen und Sympathie verloren hat und sich alle französischen Hoffnungen den Vereinigten Staaten zugewandt haben. Als wesentliche Ursache für den Widerhall der englischen Meldungen wird von französischer Seite die Tatsache bezeichnet, daß die französischen Sendungen weitgehendst von Franzosen verfaßt und bis ins letzte auf die französische Mentalität zugeschnitten sind. Die Versprechungen und „Garantien“ bezüglich einer Wiederherstellung der Vorkriegsverhältnisse, vor allem des materiellen Wohlstandes bleiben nicht ohne Eindruck, wenn auch ihre Glaubwürdigkeit gelegentlich angezweifelt wird. Als ein Musterbeispiel der Londoner Propaganda wird die Meldung bezeichnet, daß die Stadt New York die Patenschaft für das vollständig zerstörte Lorient übernommen habe und die Stadt nach dem Kriege weitaus schöner wieder aufbauen werde. Da der Franazose [sic] nicht mehr an einen deutschen Sieg glaubt, klammert er sich krampfhaft an alle Versprechungen der Gegner, um wenigstens auf diese Weise zu einem festen Standpunkt zu gelangen. 5. Deutsche Zugeständnisse, wie etwa die Aufhebung der Demarkationslinie und die Rückgabe der Norddepartements an die französische Verwaltung haben keine positive Stimmungsänderung bewirkt. Allgemein wird hierzu bemerkt, daß diese Maßnahmen vor einem Jahr eine große Wirkung erzielt hätten, aber heute als Zeichen der militärischen Schwäche Deutschland ausgelegt werden. Die tiefere Ursache für die wachsende deutschfeindliche Opposition und die Zunahme der Terror- und Sabotageakte sei nicht zuletzt darin zu suchen, daß

389

es nicht gelang, die anfangs für Deutschland vorhandenen Sympathien zu erhalten und zu vertiefen und einen größeren Kreis von deutschfreundlichen Franzosen zu schaffen, der in der Lage gewesen wäre, ein Gegengewicht zu der Feindpropaganda zu bilden und das Überhandnehmen der deutschfeindlichen Element zu verhindern.

II. Vorschläge zur positive Gestaltung der deutschen Propaganda Wenn auch eine grundsätzliche geistige Umstellung des französischen Volkes von den Auswirkungen des endgültigen deutschen Sieges abhängig sein wird, so stellt doch die Lenkung der öffentlichen Meinungsbildung während des Krieges einen wichtige Teil Der geistigen Kriegsführung dar, der mit den militärischen Vorgängen auf das engste verbunden ist. Zur wirksameren Gestaltung der deutschen Propaganda sind von den beteiligten Stellen zahlreiche Vorschläge gemacht worden, die im folgenden kurz umrissen werden sollen: 1. Einheitliche Ausrichtung der deutschen Dienststellen in politischen und kulturpolitischen Angelegenheiten Die Erteilung von Weisungen an die deutschen Dienststellen in Frankreich erfolge durch drei verschiedene Reichsbehörden (OKA, Auswärtiges Amt, Reichspropagandaministerium). Diese Tatsache habe sich dahingehend ausgewirkt, daß die nachgeordneten Dienststellen in sehr vielen Fällen völlig entgegengesetzte Meinungen vertreten und in ihren Entscheidungen unsicher würden. Eine schlagkräftige Behandlung kulturpolitischer und Propagandafragen sei nur bei einer zentralen Führung möglich. 2. Stärkere Berücksichtigung der Führungsaufgaben gegenüber der Verwaltungstätigkeit Die fehlende Ausrichtung auf entscheidende ziele habe dazu geführt, daß die deutschen Dienststellen immer mehr zu einer reinen Verwaltungstätigkeit gelangten und die Regelung von zahllosen Kleinigkeiten des gesamten französischen Lebens selbst übernehmen. Die eigentlichen Führungsaufgeben seien dadurch stark in den Hintergrund gedrängt worden. Auf französischer Seite habe man die deutsche Verwaltung für alle Mißstände und Nachteile verantwortlich gemacht und planmäßig versucht, sie zu sabotieren oder totlaufen zu lassen. Die deutsche Verwaltung werde einfacher und wirksamer werden, wenn sie sich in erster Linie auf die Erteilung von Weisungen und die Kontrolle über ihre Ausführung beschränkte und die Erledigung der verwaltungsmäßigen Angelegenheiten bei strengster eigener Verantwortlichkeit den französischen Stellen überlasse. Anzustreben sei von deutscher Seite vor allem eine

390 konsequente, and unmerkliche Steuerung des französischen öffentlichen Lebens, nicht aber z. B. eine weitgehende Übernahme französischer Belange in die deutscher Verantwortung. 3. Aufstellung eindeutiger, überzeugender Propagandaziele Durch die allzu starke Abhängigkeit von den Tagesereignissen (verschiedenartige Kommentare zu bestimmten politischen Problemen; wechselnde Haltung in der Behandlung der Juden- und Freimaurerfragen) habe die deutsche Propaganda bei den Franzosen häufig den Eindruck einer schwankenden Haltung hinterlassen und al Glaubwürdigkeit eingebüßt. Als Gegengewicht zu den zahlreichen grundsätzlichen Verlautbarungen der Alliierten (Atlantik- Charta usw.) seien auch auf deutscher Seite konkrete deutsche Erklärungen über den Sinn und das Wesen der europäischen Neuordnung notwendig. 4. Aufklärung über die grundlegenden Auffassungen des Nationalsozialismus In vielen Fällen sei die Hinwendung der Franzosen zu Deutschland durch falsche Vorstellungen über die Grundauffassungen des Nationalsozialismus in Frage gestellt worden. Vielen Franzosen bleibe das Wesen des Nationalsozialismus fremd und unverständlich, weil man auf deutscher Seite unter falscher Auslegung des Wortes „der Nationalsozialismus ist kein Exportartikel“ ängstlich vermieden habe, den Franzosen ein richtiges Bild von den Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus zu geben. Von deutschfreundlichen Franzosen ist als Beweis auf die Worte des Führers in der Proklamation vom 24.2.1943 verwiesen worden, daß „die Gedankenwelt unserer Bewegung Gemeingut aller Völker“ werde. 5. Stärkere Anpassung der deutschen Propaganda an die französische Mentalität Die deutsche Propaganda spreche den Franzosen nicht an, weil sie in vielen Fällen bereits durch ihre äußere Form für sein Empfinden fremd und aufdringlich erscheine. Wen die Propaganda wirksam sein solle, müsse sie jeden lehrhaften Ton vermeiden und in möglichst vielseitiger und einfallsreicher Argumentierung einen Tatbestand darstellen, ohne aber die Schlußfolgerung selbst zu ziehen. Der Franzose sei aus Mißtrauen gegen jede „geistige Bevormundung“ ängstlich auf eine „selbständige“ Stellungnahme bedacht. Die größten Erfolgsaussichten werde die Propaganda im Hinblick auf die stark ausgeprägte Spott- und Kritiksucht des französischen Volkes immer dann haben, wenn sie darauf ausgehe, den Gegner durch Witz und Ironie lächerlich und damit unschädlich zu machen.

391

6. Einschaltung der französischen Initiative Zur Ausarbeitung erfolgreicher Propagandamethoden sei die stärkere Beteiligung der französischen Initiative unentbehrlich. Durch das Bestreben der deutschen Dienststellen, auf dem Gebiet der öffentlichen Führungsmittel neben den Fragen der militärischen und politischen Zensur auch nahezu die gesamte verwaltungsmäßige Betreuung selbst zu übernehmen, sei von dieser Möglichkeit nicht ausreichend Gebrauch gemacht worden. Andererseits müsse bei der öffentlichen Heranziehung von französischen Mitarbeitern auf deren politische und charakterliche Eignung der größte Wert gelegt werden. Das Eintreten von belasteten Journalisten für die deutsch-französische Zusammenarbeit sei nicht nur propagandistisch ergebnislos geblieben sondern habe dem ansehen des Reiches erheblichen Schaden zugefügt. 7. Beeinflussung der führenden französischen Kreise Die deutsche Propaganda habe sich bisher zu wenig bemüht, das Denken der maßgeblichen franzosischen Gesellschaftskreise zu beeinflussen. Von den Engländern sei diese Methode der unauffälligen Propaganda vor dem Krieg mit dem größten Erfolg betrieben worden. (Bei der englischen Botschaft habe Charles Mendel sich eigens mit dieser Aufgabe befaßt und hierfür über einen jährlichen Betrag von sieben Mio. Pfund verfügt.) Den neugegründeten Vereinigungen „Groupe Collaboration“ und „Cercle Européen“ sei eine Einflußnahme auf die maßgeblichen Gesellschaftskreise bisher nicht gelungen. Notwendig sei, um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, die Vermeidung jeden offiziellen Anstrichs, die geschickte Benutzung wirtschaftlicher Anknüpfungspunkte, die Beauftragung von geeigneten Persönlichkeiten mit entsprechenden Mitteln und schließlich die Ausschaltung von belasteten Persönlichkeiten und Konjunkturstrebern. 8. Geeignete Auswahl der maßgeblichen deutschen Persönlichkeiten Auf deutscher Seite seien teilweise Persönlichkeiten verwandt worden, die nicht als Nationalsozialisten bezeichnet werden könnten und deren politische Haltung bereits früher im Reich zu Bedenken Anlaß gegeben habe. Die nagelnde Politische Ausrichtung wirke sich besonders schwerwiegend aus, weil den deutschen Dienststellen auf französischer Seite durchweg Verhandlungspartner gegenübertreten, die nicht nur hervorragende Sachkenner sondern leidenschaftliche Patrioten und Kämpfer für die französische Sache sind.

392

SD-Berichte zu Inlandsfragen vom 25. Oktober 1943. (Rote Serie)

Widerstände gegen die Aufführung deutscher Werke auf französischen Bühnen. Der deutsch-französische Kulturaustausch hat auf einigen Bebieten, vor allem in der Musik und im Film, zu einem starken Anteil deutscher Werke im französischen Kunstleben geführt. Schwierigkeiten, die bis heute noch nicht behoben sind, stehen jedoch der Aufführung deutscher Werke auf der französischen Bühne entgegen. Trotz der deutschen Beaufsichtigung des gesamten französischen Theaterwesens und der Einschaltung verschiedenster Dienststellen in fast alle Einzelfragen des französischen Theaterbetriebes werden heute auf den französischen Bühnen weniger deutsche Stücke aufgeführt als vor dem Kriege. Nach einer vorliegenden Übersicht brachten die Pariser Privattheater vor dem Kriege in jeder Spielzeit mindestens fünf deutsche Stücke in der Spielzeit 1930/31 waren es sogar über 25, worunter sich allerdings eine größere Anzahl von Stücken jüdischer Autoren befand. Während der letzten Spielzeit haben die Pariser Privattheater kein einziges deutsches Stück aufgeführt. Bei den Stücken, die in der letzten Spielzeit in den zahlreichen Privattheatern zur Aufführung gelangten, handelte es sich überwiegend um die typischen Erscheinungen der Pariser Unterhaltungs- und Gesellschaftstheaters. Der künstlerische Wert der Stücke war größtenteils sehr gering; gegen den seichten Inhalt und die unzulängliche künstlerische Gestaltung wurden auch von französischer Seite häufig Beanstandungen erhoben. Ein höheres Niveau zeigten einige historische Schauspiele, die sowohl bei dem Publikum wie bei der Kritik sehr gut Aufnahme fanden. Von einigen Autoren wurde der Versuch einiger ernsthaften Darstellung des Gemeinschaftslebens und bäuerlicher Probleme unternommen; die Aufführungen endeten jedoch durchweg mit einem Mißerfolg, da die Stücke schlecht waren und überdies schon wegen ihrer Tendenz abgelehnt wurden. Einen Aktuellen politischen Einschlag zeigen vor allem das französisch-nationalistische Stück „Souvenez-vous, Madame“ von Rostand m Odeon (Staatstheater) und da antienglische Stück „L’honorable Mr. Pepys“ von Couturier im Atelier (Privattheater). Nachdem in einer früheren Spielzeit der von der Comédie Francaise einstudierte „Aiglon“ von Rostand wegen seiner chauvinistischen Tendenz keine Aufführungsgenehmigung erheilt, löste das neue Stück bei seinen Aufführungen laufend Beifallsstürme aus, deren politisch-demonstrativer Charakter unverkennbar war. Trotz der von deutscher Seite 393

bestehenden Bedenken, wurde gegen die Aufführung nichts unternommen, da nach der Auffassung der Zensur die Franzosen die Möglichkeit haben sollten, auf diese „harmlose Weise“ ihre patriotischen Gefühle abzureagieren. Das Stück „L’honorable Mr. Pepys“ behandelt eine Ende des 17.Jahrhunderts spielende englische Korruptionsaffäre und enthält in seiner Handlung eine scharfe Kritik der Mentalität des englischen Volkes. Die Aufführung eines Werkes mit derartig eindeutiger politischer und antienglischer Tendenz stellt nicht nur eine Besonderheit dar, sondern zeugt im Hinblick auf die allgemeine französische Einstellung von einem bemerkenswerten Mut des Theater. Das Publikum nahm das Stück ohne Widerspruch auf. Die Pressestimmen waren gut, aber farblos gehalten. Die nichtfranzösischen Stücke, die während der abgelaufenen Spielzeit in geringer Zahl aufgeführt wurden, fanden durchweg starken Beifall. Ausschlaggebend für die Zustimmung des Publikums war nach den vorliegenden Feststellungen nicht die englische oder neutrale Herkunft der Verfasser (Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Strindberg), sondern die Tatsache, daß der Künstlerisch Wert der Werke das durchschnittliche Niveau der Pariser Bühne weit überragte. In der Presse wurde in verschiedenen Besprechungen die Aufführung englischer Stücke als erstaunlich bezeichnet. Shakespeares „Pygmalion“ fand beim Publikum und in der Presse vielfach Ablehnung. Beanstandet wurde vor allem der Versuch, das typisch englische Milieu des Stückes in das Fanzösische [sic] zu übertragen, wodurch der Sinn des ironischen Gesellschaftsstückes verlorengegangen, andererseits manch englische Eigentümlichkeit geblieben sei, die im Widerspruch zum französischen Denken stehe. Als einzige deutsche Werke brachte die Pariser Staatstheater (Comédie Francaise, Odeon) aus Anlaß des Hauptmann-Jubiläums „Rose Bernd“, „Fuhrmann Henschel“ und „Iphigenie auf Delphi“ [sic]. Entscheidend für das Zustandekommen dieser Aufführungen war nicht nur die deutsche Anregung, sondern gegenüber der französischen Verschleppungstaktik auch ein gewisser deutscher Druck. Bei dem Publikum haben die Werke Gerhart Hauptmanns zum Teil einen Sehr starken Eindruck hinterlassen. In einzelnen Kreisen, in denen man an einer angeblich propagandistischen Absicht Anstoß nahm, wurde eine bewußte Zurückhaltung sichtbar, die aber den Gesamteindruck kaum beeinträchtigte. Die Kritik schrieb über die Werke in sehr positiver, teilweise begeisterte Weise.

394

Der Spielplan der Großen Oper und der Komischen Oper weist heute ebenfalls eine weit geringere Zahl von deutschen Werken auf als in der Zeit vor dem Kriege. Die großen Werke des Deutschen Opernschaffens bildeten vor dem Krieg einen festen Bestandteil des französischen Spielplanes und erfreuten sich bei dem Publikum einer außerordentlich hohen Beliebtheit. Auch in den ersten Jahren der Besatzung brachten die Große Oper und die Komische Oper noch eine beachtliche Anzahl von deutsche Werken, die beim französischen Publikum einen unvermindert starken Beifall fanden. In der Spielzeit 1942/43 ist dagegen der Anteil der deutschen Opern zur Bedeutungslosigkeit herabgesunken. Die Ursache für diese Entwicklung wird hauptsächlich in der deutschfeindlichen Einstellung des Leiters der Großen Oper und der Komischen Oper, J. Rouché, gesehen. Obwohl die Absetzung Rouchés aufgrund seine Deutschfeindlichkeit bei Beginn der Besatzung von deutscher Seite als dringende Notwendigkeit und von französischer Seite als unvermeidlich angesehen wurde, gelang es Rouché doch, sich bis heute zu behaupten. Ein weiterer Grund für den Rückgang deutscher Werke im Spielplan, wird in der Auffassung der Propaganda-Abteilung gesehen, daß die Pariser Oper in künstlerischer und technischer Hinsicht nicht die erforderlichen Voraussetzungen zur einwandfreien Darstellung großer deutscher Opern, vor allem Wagner- Opern, besitze und deshalb die Aufführung dieser Werke besser zurückstelle. Von anderer deutscher Seite ist demgegenüber eingewendet worden, daß die Aufführung deutscher Werke in Paris zunächst unter dem kulturpolitischen und dann erst unter dem rein künstlerischen Gesichtspunkt gesehen werden müsse. Es sei nicht die deutsche Aufgabe, das künstlerische Niveau der Pariser Oper zu heben; außerdem habe das französischer Publikum die bisherigen Wagner-Aufführungen stets mit uneingeschränkter Zustimmung aufgenommen; durch gelegentliche deutsche Gastspiele werde es einen umso stärkeren Eindruck von der Größer und Vollendung der deutschen Kunst erhalten. Von Rouché ist der Wunsch der Propaganda- Abteilung mit einer sonst seltenen Bereitwilligkeit erfüllt worden. Die Abneigung der französischen Theaterleiter, deutsche Stücke aufzuführen, entspricht der allgemeinen deutschfeindlichen Einstellung; die sowohl im Publikum wie auch unter den Künstlerschaft anzutreffen ist. Nach außenhin tritt bei vielen Künstlern das politische Moment, nicht zuletzt aus Verdienstrücksichten, in den Hintergrund. In ihrer Grundeinstellung ist jedoch fast immer eine antideutsche Haltung vorhanden. Als bezeichnendes Beispiel für dieses Verhalten wird auf die bekannte Sängerin Germain Lubin hingewiesen, die wegen ihrer

395

vermeintlichen Deutschfreundlichkeit auf deutscher Seite sehr großes Ansehen und entgegenkommen findet, aber vor kurzem die Aufführung einer deutschen Oper unmöglich machte und dazu in demonstrativer Weise erklärte, daß sie sich als Französin für französische Werke einzusetzen habe. In Hinblick auf die steigende Hoffnung auf eine anglo-amerikanische Landung halten es die meisten Theaterleiter nicht für ratsam, sich durch die Aufführung eines deutschen Stückes festzulegen. Die Wünsche deutscher Stellen werden zwar in den wenigsten Fällen abgelehnt; man geht scheinbar darauf ein, versteht es aber, die Aufführung des deutschen Stückes unter dem Vorwand von personellen, technischen und sonstigen Schwierigkeiten endlos hinauszuzögern oder nach Möglichkeit ganz zu verhindern. Die Verhandlungen und Bemühungen um die Oper „Peer Gynt“ von Werner Egk, die kürzlich an der Großen Oper aufgeführt wurde, haben sich fast ein Jahr lang hingezogen. Trotz dieser nach außenhin unerfreulichen Lage, werden für die deutsche Kulturpolitik doch noch gute Möglichkeiten zur Gewinnung eines Einflusses auf die französischen Bühnen gesehen. Bei der Opernbühne kommt die Beliebtheit der deutsche Opern, vor allem die Begeisterung des französischen Publikums für Richard Wagner, den deutschen kultur-politischen Interessen weithin entgegen. Die Zurückhaltung der Großen Oper ist och vielfacher, sowohl von deutscher wie französischer Seite vertretenen Ansicht im wesentlichen von dem Problem Rouché bzw. einem entsprechenden deutschen Vorgehen abhängig. Schwieriger liegen die Dinge bei der Sprechbühne. Jedoch wird es auch auf diesem Gebiet als möglich angesehen, bei entsprechender finanzieller Unterstützung und Hilfestellung gegen Schikane durch die französische Behörden, unter der großen Zahl der Pariser Bühnen wenigstens bei einigen eine Bereitwilligkeit zur Aufführung eines deutschen Stückes zu finden. Als wesentlich erscheint gerner die Auswahl von Stücken, die handlungsmäßig und psychologisch dem Geschmack des französischen Publikums nicht allzu fremd sind. Der Mangel an ausreichenden und geeigneten Übersetzungen, der in den zurückliegenden Jahren die Hauptschwierigkeit bildete, ist inzwischen behoben worden. Sehr bedauert wird in allen interessierten Kreisen, daß der Plan zur Gründung eines deutschen Theaters in Paris, der dicht vor seiner Verwirklichung stand, nicht ausgeführt worden. Das deutsche Bühnenstück hätte hierdurch nicht nur eine vor allen personellen, konjunkturmäßigen und politischen Schwankungen unabhängige Pflegestätte, sondern überhaupt

396 den Ansatzpunkt für die Einführung deutscher Werke auf der französischen Bühne und ihre weitere Kulturpolitische Auswirkung im französischen Theaterleben erhalten.

397

APPENDIX F

LUCHT REPORT ON THE FRENCH PREMIERE

OF JOAN VON ZARISSA

Propaganda-Staffel Paris Paris, den 28. Juli 1942 - Gruppe Kultur –

B E R I C H T über die französische Erstaufführung des Ballettes

„JOAN VON ZARISSA“ von Werner Egk ------

Im Spätsommer 1941 hatte die Gruppe Kultur der Propaganda-Staffel Paris Besprechungen mit der Administration der Pariser Grossen Oper aufgenommen, die darauf abzielten, neuere, in Frankreich noch unbekannte deutsche Werke der französischen Oeffentlichkeit vorzustellen und womöglich ihren Einbau in den Pariser Spielplan zu erreichen. In diesen Unterhaltungen wurde aus taktischen Gründen Wert darauf gelegt, dass bei der Leitung der Oper der Eindruck bestehen blieb, dass sie die Auswahl aus einer Reihe ihr zur Verfügung gestellter Partituren weitgehend selbständig und unbeeinflusst treffen konnte. In den gemeinsamen Erwägungen wurde für die bevorstehende Saison zugunsten der musikalischen Legend „Palestrina“ von Hans Pfitzner und des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ von Werner Egk entschieden. Mit dem „Palestrina“ war die Wahl auf das werthaltigste Werk eines zwar älteren, in seiner Ausstrahlung bisher jedoch fast auschliesslich auf den deutschen Kulturraum begrenzt gebliebenen deutschen Meisters gefallen. Gegenüber der romantisch-eigenwillig versponnenen Stilwelt und der ethisch überragenden Reife des „Palestrina“ trat mit Werner Egks „Joan die

398

Zarissa“ [sic] ein Werk vor das Pariser Publikum, das in seiner elementaren Theaterhaftigkeit und mit seiner musikalisch wie dramatisch gleich urwüchsigen Dynamik Zeugnis für die Gegenwartsverbundenheit, Fortschrittfreudigkeit und Gesundheit des neuen deutschen Kulturwillens im Bereich des musikdramatischen Schaffens ablegte. Der Komponist, der für die Einstudierung und ersten Aufführungen die Uebernahme der musikalischen Leitung zugesagt hatte, fand sofort bei den ersten Besprechungen den lebhaftesten Kontakt zu dem Ballettmeister der Grosse Oper, Serge Lifar. Dass Lifars fast enthusiastisches Eintreten für den „Joan di Zarissa“ nicht zuletzt von den tänzerischen und darstellerischen Möglichkeiten bestimmt war, die er für sich sofort in der Titelrolle erkannte, darf am Rande vermerkt werden. Das brachte allerdings auch mit sich, dass die Gruppe Kultur sich hinsichtlich der würdigen Vorbereitung des Ballettes keinen intensiveren Anwalt hätte wünschen können und das der Komponist bei seinem Eintreffen eine choreographische Ausarbeitung des Werkes vorfand, die ihm so gut wie kam hinzu, dass die bestimmte und frische Art der Dirigentenpersönlichkeit Werner Egks sofort einen ungemein herzhaften Kontakt zum Orchester des Opernhauses fand. Die unter seiner Leitung durchgeführten Proben fanden daher in einer Atmosphäre allseitiger Einsatzbereitschaft und Spannungsfreudigkeit statt.

-2- Verschiedene Aenderungen hatten sich aus Berücksichtigung der gegebenen Pariser Verhältnisse ergeben. Auf den Prolog wurde verzichtet, da seine Uebersetzung auf sprachliche Schwierigkeiten stiess. Das erleichterte dem Komponisten die Erfüllung von Lifars Wunsch, das heitere Nachspiel zu streichen und die Aufführung mit dem Tode des Joan abzuschliessen. Die im Original a capella gehaltenen Chorsätze, die die einzelnen Bilder des Werkes verbinden, wurden von Werner Egk für die Pariser Aufführung instrumentiert. Die gelegentlich weiter ausladende orchestral Stütze wirkte sich nicht nur für die Intonation der Chöre positiv aus, sondern steigerte auch die geschlossene Gesamtwirkung. Auch für die propagandistische Vorbereitung des Werkes brauchte angesichts der Aktivität Lifars die Gruppe Kultur nur wenig Hilfestellung zu geben. Sie war darauf bedacht, den interessierten Musikkritikern der Pariser Presse möglichst weitgehend die Proben zugänglich zu machen. Für die führenden Vertreter der Pariser Musikkritik veranstaltete der Staffelführer nach der Generalprobe einen Empfang im Foyer der Oper, um ihnen die Möglichkeit

399

persönlicher Fühlungnahme mit dem Komponisten zu geben. Darüber hinaus war sämtlichen Pariser Zeitungen ein kurzer Abriss über Werner Egk und sein bisheriges Schaffen sowie ein Auszug aus seinem Wiedervortrag über Fragen des zeitgenössischen Musikschaffens übermittelt worden. Die Aufnahme von Beziehungen zu führenden Persönlichkeiten des Pariser Musiklebens betrachtete Egk in seiner Eigenschaft als Leiter der Fachschaft Komponisten in der RMK als besondere Aufgabe, Er widmete sich ihr mit Aufgeschlossenheit und spürbarer Bereitschaft. Die Aufführung verlief in Gegenwart des Deutschen Botschafters und des Kommandanten von Gross-Paris in festlicher Hochspannung. Das Publikum liess sich bald von der rhythmischen Dynamik, der orchestralen Kühnheit und melodischen Eindringlichkeit der Egkschen Tonsprache fesseln und setzte nach dem ersten Solotanz der „La plus Belle“ (Solange Schwarz) spontan mit lebhaftem Beifall ein, der sich dann allerdings über die einzelnen Nummern und Bilder schnell und immer intensiver steigerte. Zum Schluss musste Egk mit Lifar und den Solisten des Ballettes an die zwanzigmal vor den Vorhang kommen: Die Aufführung des Ballettes „Joan von Zarissa“ hatte für die junge deutsche Musik in Paris eine Bresche geschlagen. Es bleibt an sich zu bedauern, dass sich infolge des Schlusses der Opernspielzeit vorerst nicht mehr als zwei „Joan“-Aufführungen ermöglichen liessen. Um die Anwesenheit Werner Egks noch ergiebiger auszunutzen, hatte das Musikreferat der Gruppe Kultur eine Rundfunksendung angeregt. Sie brachte in 45 Minuten die wesentlichen Strecken des gut einstündigen Werkes als Uebertragung von Radio-Paris. Dabei offenbarte die Musik Werner Egks fast noch stärker als im Theater die Uebersetzungskraft ihrer absoluten Werte. Des weitern wurde bei der Firma Pathé-Marconi die Schallplattenaufnahme einer auf Anregung des Musikreferenten eigens für diesen Zweck vom Komponisten eingerichteten „Joan von Zarissa“- Suite vermittelt, die in Kürze als erster Beleg der jungen deutschen Musik im französischen Schallplattenrepertoire erscheinen wird. Gemessen

-3- an der Tatsache, dass im Reich bis heute noch keine „Joan von Zarissa“-Schallplatten- Aufnahmen vorhanden sind, gewinnt dieser propagandistische Vorstoss doppelte Bedeutung. Er

400 beweist andererseits aufs neue, bis zu welchem masse von Entgegenkommen die französischen Musikkreise sich für Anregungen der Gruppe Kultur bereit finden Das Ballett selbst wird am 30. September unter Leitung des Komponisten wieder zu mehreren Aufführungen im Spielplan der Oper erscheinen. Der Widerhall der Aufführung bei Publikum und Presse war denkbar lebhaft und positiv. Der Name Werner Egk ist für die Pariser Musikwelt ein Begriff und ein werthaltiger zeuge für das kulturschaffende junge Deutschland geworden. Das Ballett Werner Egks hat damit bei seinem ersten Start im Ausland mehr Aufsehen erregt und Anteilnahme gefunden als im Reich selbst. Zum Vergleich sie darauf verwiesen, dass der „Joan di Zarissa“ in München, der engeren Heimat Egks, überhaupt noch nicht aufgeführt wurde. Die umfassende Auswertung der pressemässigen Resonnanz [sic] kann noch nicht erfolgen. Sie wird nach Vorliegen aller Französischen Pressestimmen nachgereicht werden.

[Unterschrift: Lucht] Leutnant und Gruppenleiter

401

APPENDIX G

EGK’S OMGUS QUESTIONNAIRE AND APPENDIX

402

f.,'. I I \, ｴｾ＿＠ ·36 1940 '931... ················1·1 D. military 29. institutions change or 30. 30. accounting ever Leadership 37. Umsjiindc and or ofiizier? Gcneralstliblc,r? have 36...... CHROl\OLOGICALRECORD transfer Give W ｗ･ｲｾ＠ If Waren Hahcn occasion beCn any ohrk1·cis so, in a organizations. you military ｮ･ｾｮ＠ I I ..\ your give a chronological ...... Officer? from for 1 (othot·· .. an Sic Sic member 1945 1i.9}6. deferred for administration all ?40 particulars positions .. To in ｾｬｳＮ＠ one Bis vom its orders ｾＮｅＳＮＮｩｾ＠ promotions than der - military bestowal. of Militaren II). bcsch:ten mililiirischen ｵｵＡｲｘｾｾｾ＠ Ch••oJwloglsclu! ...... scit Sic Zeile Sic. Sic in n1cht J I berechtigt, dem B. i ｲＭｩｲｩｾｩ･ｲ･ｮ＠ Lander, Versetzungen, fflr Einzelheiten (Ncbcnheschaftigungen in frelschaffender angcfiihrt zeitlicher f:rf'is.ohaffender 1. fiit· jcden odcr Art 39. oder .Tanuar dcr die ･ｩｮｳ｣ｩｴｬｩ･ｬｾｬｩ｣ｨ＠ｾｾｾＺＮ･ｦｦ･ｮ､＠ Falls Aufr.liblung militiirische militar.iihnlichen Wechsel ｔｩｬｴｴｧｫﾫｾｬｴ＠ Dufie•r fUr Vcrloihung sind) iibcr folge 19:31 Arbcitslosigkeit, ja, d,en odcr and geben und Ihre in Be5Uch an, cine .von.. jcgticlrcr Responsibilities Orden Usterreich Stellung \i ａｵｳ｢ｩｬ､ｵｮｧ｟ｾｓ＼Ａｨｵｬ･ｮＮ＠ sind crantwortp:ng.€berescb , mit Amter Sic ·;ni:Cht. Aufziihlung Organisation von in ｏｰ･ｲｮｶｯｲｾｴｾ＠ odcr Be"rlindungen an, lfnuptansldlungen Ahschnitt Ｑｾ･ｳｵ｣ｨ＠ Ausbildungsschulen oder und ｋｯｭｰｯｮｲｾｴ＠ und was andere Komp.. Hang Pflichten, Sndetenland, Ihnen b-etref'fe-nG·· Ihrer nm ... zu ...... ···········l·················································· F'. militiirische ······r oder ...... und ciner fur anzugeben) Hildung:.amtalten He!!Chiifti[Ung "erliehen ····I·· ··I ...... i 1 I i : tcrundrlir:4n

403

If you were a - Column 2: InSert date on - 3: Insert your · you are no. ｬｾ｣ｲ＠ a if you are still a member. - ＰＰｉｔｾｾＺｨ｡ｾ｣ＧＺＺＡｾｲ＠ｨｾｩｾｾｮ＠ i:u1::. ｾｾｾｮＺＺｴｾｾｾﾷｴ＠ｾ＠ｾｾＺｊＺＺＺ｣ｬｴｲＺＺ＠ｩｮｾｾｾｾｨｾｾｶｯｾＡｲｾＺ［ＺＡｮ［Ａｦｾ･Ｇｃｯｨｵｮｮｾｲ＠ 5 °!:dr Ｖｾｾｴ＠ｃｾｉｵＺＡｨＶｾｩｩｾｳＺ［ｾｩ､ｾｴＥｾ＠［ｾｾｾ＠ office,· rank or post o.f attthority .listed in Column 5. In der f<>lgenden Liste ist anzufii.hren, <>h Sic Mitglied einer der angefii.hrten Organisati<>nen wareu und welche Amter Sie daril1 be• kleideten. Andere ｾｬｬｳ｣ｨ｡ｦｩＺ･ｮＬ＠ Handelsgesellschaften, Bursc.henschaften, Verbindungen, Gewerkschaften, Genossenschaften, Kam• mern, Instituten, Gruppen, ｋｯｲｰ･ｲｳ｣ｨ｡ＺｦｴｾｮＬ＠ Vereine, Verbande, Klubs, Logen oder andere Organisationen beliebiger At't, seien sic gcsellschaf-tlicher, politischer, beruflicher, sportlicher, bildendcr, kultureller, industrieller, k<>mmerzieller oder ehrenamtlicher Art, mit welchen Sie je in Verbindung standen oder welchen Sie angcsehlossen waren, sind auf Zeile 96-98 anzugeben. 1. Spalte: ,Ja" oder ,Ncin" sind bier einzusctzen zw.ecks Angabe lhrer jemaligen Mitgliedschaft in der angcfiihrten Organioation. ' Falls Sie Anwiirter auf Mitgliedschaft oder unterstiitzendes Mitglied oder in1 ,Opferring" waren, ist, unter Nichtberuck• sichtigung der Spalten, daa Wort ,Anwarter" oder ,unterstiitzendes Mitglied" oder ,Opferring" sowie das Datum IlH'er · Anmeldung oder die Dauer lhrer Mitgliedschaft als unterstiltzendes Mitglied oder im Opferring einzusetzen. 2. 'Spaltc: Eintrittsdatum. ' 3. ｓｰ｡ｬｾ･Ｚ＠ Austrittsdatum, fl!lls nicht mehr Mitglied, anderenfalls ist das. Wort ,gegenwlirtig" einzusetzen. 4. Spalte: Mitgliedsnummer. 5. Spalte: Hochstes Amt, hochster Rang oder cine anderwcilig einflnlbrciche, von Ihnen bekleidete Stellung. Nichtzutreffendenfalls ist das Wort ,keine" in Spalte 5 und 6 einzusetzen. 6. Spaltc: Antrittsdatum fur Amt, Rang odcr einfluEreiehe Ste llung laut Spalte 5.

3 4 5 ｅｦｩｧｨｾｳｴ＠ Office or To Number rani< held Date Appointed Bis Nummer HOehstcs Am.t oder Antrittsdatum hOchster Rang 41. NSDAP ··········*·························· ｾｾＺ＠ .. ｾｾｬｧ･ｾ＿ｾＧ＿Ｎｈ＠ ...... ｾＺ＠ .. ｾｬｬｩｾ･ＮｾＢＮｦｌ＠ ... ｾｾＺ＠ .. ｳＮｩ｣ｾｾｾｬＱ･ｩＮｴｳｾｩｾｾｾＮｴＮ＠ＨＩＮｾｲＮＮ＠ ff. 45. SA 46. HJ einsehl. BDM ＴＷＺＭｎｳｯｳｾｊｩﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷ＠ ...... 48. NSDoB v• 49. NSFrauenschaft 5o. :Nsrac 51. NSFK 52. Reichshlind der deutschcn Benmten 53. DAF 54. KdF !>!>:. ｾｓｖ＠ nioht betr • . 56. NS-Reichsbund deutschcr 57. NSKOV ...... ················ 58. NS-Bund Deutscher Technik ····························· 59. NS-Arztebtmd 60. NS-Lchrcrbund ...... !...... 61. NS-Rcchtswaht·et·bund ...... !· 62. Deutschcs Fruucnwerk 63. Rci«hsbund dcutscher l!'nmilic ｾｾＺＮ＠ｎｓｾ＠ｩｩｾｩ｣ｩ［ｾ｢［［［ｾｾｩＮ＠ｻｻｩｾＩｾＮｾｾｩｾｾｾｾｾ＿ＮｾｾﾷＮＧｧｾｾｾ＠ .... 65. NS-Altbcrrcnbund ·············· ...... 66. Deutsche Stmtentcnschuft Ｎ＿ＮｩＮＺＮﾷＮﾷｯｾｾ［ﾷｾｾｾ［ｾｾ＠ＺＮＣｾｾ［［ｩ［ｾｾｾｩｾｾﾷＮＺﾷ＠ ... 68. NS-Roichskdcgcrbund ＶｩＢｩｩｾｩｾｩ［ｾ､ｾｾｾ［ｾＨｾｾｾｾｩｩｾｦｴ＠ ...... 70. Rcicbskul!ut·kiunmcr

nioht ｢･ｴｲ･ｦｦｾ＠ xomp.lll\\bea.?.6. 1 • Si ehe An.l.

Staat.sarghiv MunchEln Spruch..1 ammer Ka }.5.9 Egk Werner

404

97. ···········································-············· 98.

. ' ｾＺＭｶＡＭｾｾＺｾ､ｹＺｾｩＺｾｾｬｾｾｾｯｾｾ＠［Ａｳｾ｡ｾ＠ＺｾｴｾＺｾｩＺ［ｲｩ［Ｐ｡ｮｮ［ｙｯｴｬＺＺｾｾｾｺｾｴｾｮｾＰｾｳｾｾ＠ｳｲｾｯｾＵｾｬｾｾ＠ｾｾｧＺＺＡｾｾｴ［ｯｾ＠ｗｾＮ＠ｬｦｾｶＺｯＺ［ｉＡｾｕＺＺｴｾ＠ ;;;n!2:· ｡ｾｶＺ､｡ＺｏｾｳＺｾｹｴ｢ＺｦＺｾ［ｩｾｩ［ｾｾ＠ hip to you and n description of the position and organization. - 103. With tb,c exception of minor contributions to the WinterhiJfe and regular membership dues, hst and give details of any contributions of money or property which you have made, directly or indirectly, to th.e NSDAP or any of the other ｯｲｾ＠ ganizations listed above including any contributions made by any natural or juridical person ol" legal entity through your solicitation or influence. - 104. Have you ever been the recipient of any ｴｩｴｬｾｳＬ＠ｲｮｮｾ｡Ｌ＠ medals, testimonials or other honors from any of the above organizations? - 105. If so, state the ｾＺＬｴｾｾｾｩｾ＠ＡＡｾｲｾＰｦｏｳｾｨｆｯｾ｡ｾｾ］ｾｕＺＺｉｩｾｾｾｴ［ＺｲＺ［Ｖ､ｩｲ［ｾ＠ＡｾＡ＠ｩｾ｣ｩｬｩｾｾＱＡｾｾｩｾＡｳ＠ｾ･ｾｾｾＺＡ｢ｾ＠ｾｧｾＲｲｾ･ｴＶＹｾｦｵ＠ｍＺｾｾ･ＱＹｾ［＿｡＠｟ＡｯｩｾｾｾｦｩＡｶｾＱｾｾ･ＡＺｾｾ＠ｾＺＡＡＱ＠･ＭｭｾＺ｢Ｚ［＠ of any anti-Nazi underground party or groups since 1933? - 111. ·which one? - 112. Since when 7 - 113. Have you ever been a member of any trade union or professional or business organization which was dissolved or forbidden since 1933 7 - 114. Have you ever been dismissed from the civil serricc, the teaching profession or ccclesiasticnl positions or any other employment for active or passive resistance to the Nazis or their ideolOe,ay? - 115. Have you Cl"er been ｾ［Ｑ｢ＡＺｾｾｾｾ＠ :f ＺＺｴｾＺ･ｲｾｾｴｲｾＺｾＺｨＮｾ＠ｾｾｳｩＺｾ｡ｶＺＺ｣ｾＡＬ＠ｴ｢ｾｳｩｾｾｩｾ＿＠ o:_ ｲＱＱＶｾＰｩｦ＠［ＺｵｰｨＺｾｾ｣ＺｮｩｾＺ･ｾｲ［ｾｾ＠ｾｾ＠ｩｾ［ｲ･Ｚ［ｩｾｬｾ･＠｢ＺｾＺｳｴｙＺＺｳＰｾｃＺＡＺｮＱ｛ＰﾰｾｯｦｾｳＺ｡Ｚｾｾｾ＠ｾｲｮｬＺＺｲｾｾｦＺＺｓｳ＠ＺＺ､ｳｾｾ］＠ muncs and u

103. Mit Ausnah}lle von klcinercn ｂ･ｩｴｲｾｧ･ｮ＠ ·zur· Winterhilfe und ordnungsmiilligen Niitgliedsbeitriigen, geben Sie nachfolgcnd im cin• zelnen aile von ｌｾｮ｣ｮ＠ direkt oder lndirekt an die NSDAP oder irgendeille andere der oben angefUhrten Organisationen gcleistcten Beitrlige in l?orm von Geld oder Bcsitz an, einsehlieBlich aller au[ lhr Ersuchen oder auf Grund Illl'es Einflusscs seitens einer natiir- lichen oder ju_ristischcn Person ode:r eincr and<;ren rechtlichen Einhcit geleisteten Beitrage ·kP·i-ne......

104. Sind Ihnen von einer der ｯ｢･ｾ＠ 'angcfiihrtcn Organisationen ｩｲｧｾｮ､ｷ･ｬ｣ｨ｣＠ Titcl, Orden, Zeugnisse, Dienstgrade Yerlieheu odcr an• \:!crc Ehren crwiescn worden? ...... ｉｊＺＮ･ＮＮｾＮｐＭＱＰＵＮ＠ Falls ja, g:cben Sic an, was Ihnen vct·liehcn wurdc, das Datum, den Grund und AnlaB fftr die Verleihung ... ·.. N:rcht.. ·het'ie':f't.;:;ii positionspurtei odet• Ｍｧｲｵｰｰ｣＿ａｴＡｾＮｾＮｾＮＺｲＮｬ［＾ｩＳｊＮＺｩＮＧｬＺ［ＮＮｶ｣ｬ｣ｨ｣ｲ＿＠ＮｑﾧＮｴＮ･［ｲＮｾＮＧｬｩＮｗＮｩＮ､･ｲＮｳｴ＠ • ｓｩｾ＠｡ｵｾｧ｣ｬｩｬｳｴ｣ｮ＠ｾｾｾｬＮＱｧ＠ 112. Soit wam1? ·1"9.42 ... 113. Waren jcmals Mitglie(i cincr nach 1933 odcr vct·botcncn Gcwcrkschaft Berufs- odcr \Virtschnftsvcrbandes? G:DT/.ADMV...... 114. Sind Sic jemnls nus dcm llcnmtenstnnd, dent Lchrerboruf odcr aus oincr kirchlichcn oder irg'lndciucr Stollung au£ Gmnd aktiven ｯｾ｣ｲ＠ pnssiven Widerstandcs gegcn die Nazis odcr Ihrc \Velttmschmmng entlusscu worden? ... !1- 9 1.n ..... 115. 'Vurdcn Sic jcn1als nus rassischca odcr rcligiOscn GrUnden oder wcil Sic n.l-:tiv ｯ､｣Ｑｾ＠ passiv den Nntionnlisten \Vidcrstand lcistctcn, in Huft genommcn odor in Ihrcr Bcwcguugs- ot!cr Nicdcdussungsft'Ciheit odor sonst• wic in Ihror gcwcrblich<.Jn odcr bcxuflichcn Frcilieit bcscln:iinkt? ＮｾＮｾ＠ ...... 116. Ist die Antwnrt auf cine dcr Frnpcn von 110 his 1'15 bcjnhcnd, so ｂＡｊＺＺｬｊｈＺｾ｣ｬｬｾｾＧｦｦｦＮｴ＿ｴｮｎｭｵ｣ｮ＠ und Auschriften von zwei l'crsonen, welch(> dies ｷ｡ｨｲｨＨｬｩｴｳｧ｣ｭｩｕｾ＠ bezcugcu kilnncn, nnzufiilu·cn ..... ,...... ·

Staatsarchiv Munchen Spruchkammer Ka 339 Egk Werner Ｐ 00 l TIW'llrtoi'tnutt<.>u nvnllublu to tl\11; 1>::

405

ｾ＠ＧｾｊｾｾＺｾﾷ＠ｾ＠ ..... "_l'i..,_<>- 4Q, ｾｮ､ｩｃｮｴ｣Ｎ＠ to.· 98" to whetcr, ｾ｡ｾｾｊｾｴｾＺ＠ nnd wdte in the word followed by the date o.f your applieation it till a ｾｦＺＡｵ｛ｏＺｾ＠ｹ［ｵｾＰＺＡＺＺｨ｣ｲＺｨｩｾｮＺｾＺｮｾＺ･ｩｦｯ［Ｎ＠Ｚｾｾ［ＺＺＺｾｾ＠ｯｾｳｃｾｴｾｲｩｾｯｾ＠ＭｾｦｵｳＺ［ｴ＠Ｑｩｬｩｾ･ｾｾｾ［ＺｾｦｾｾＡｾｮｾｾｫ＠ th;r ｾｩｬｩｾｲ＠ｐｾ＠ of ｵｅＡ｢ｩｾｩｾｾｳＺ［ｾｩｾｴＡｯＺｲ＠ vour h·eld at nny If you have nevcL" held an office. rank or post of nuthortty, mscrt the word none JD Columns <> and 6. Col · appointment to the offieo, rank or post of authority listed· in Column 5. 40. In der folgenden Listc ist anzufiihren, oh Sic Mitglied einer der angefiihrtcn Organisatiouen warcn und welchc Amter Sie darin hc• kleidcten. Andere Gescllscbaften, Handclsgesellsci:aften, Burschenschaften, Verhindungen, ｇ･ｷ･ｲｫｾ｣ｨｾｦｴ･ｮＬ＠ｇ･ＧＺｯｳｾ･ｮｳ｣ｾＢｬｴｴ･ｮＬＮ＠ Kati?• mern, Instituten, Gruppen, Korperscbaftcn, Vereme, Verbiinde, Klubs, Log:en MP•· •n

I·f

I F. PART TIME SERVICE WITH ORGANIZATIONS. I F. Mitgliedscbaft oder Nebendienst in andcren Organisationen ! 117. With the exception of those you have specifically mentioned iu Scctiona' D and E above, list: a. Any part time, unpaid or honorary position of autho• rity or trust you have held as a representative of any Reich Ministry ot• the Office o.t the Four. Year Plan or simila1· central control agency; b. Any office, rank or post of authority you have held with any economic sclf·administration organization such as the Reich Food Estate, the Bauernschafte.n, the Central Marketing Associations, the Rcichswirtschaftsltammer, the Gauwirtschaftskanrmern, the ｒ･ｩ｣ｨｳｧｲｵｰｰ･ｮｾ＠ the Wirtschaftsgruppen., the Verkehrsgruppen, the ｒ｣ｴ｣ｨｳｶ｣ｲ｣ｩｮｩｧｗｩｧ･ｮｾ＠ the Hauptausschiisse, tho Industrieringe and similar organizations, as well as their- subordinn.te or affilated organizations and field offices; c. Any ｳ･ｾＺｖｩ･｣＠ o.f any kind you have rendered in any military, paramilitary, police, law enforcement, proteetion, intelligence or civil defense organi• zation such as Organisation Todt, Technist:he Nothilie, StoBtruppen, Wcrkscharcn, Bahnschutz, Postschutz, FuQkschutz, Werkschutz, Land- und Stadt- wacht, Abwelll", SD, Gestapo and similar organizations. · · 117. Unter Auslassung der hereits in Ahschnitten D und E beantwortcten Punkte fiihren Sic an: a) Jcdwedcs Nebenamt, einflullreiches rmbezahltes oder Ehrenamt oder Vertrauensstellung, welche Sie als Vertreter cines Rcichs• ministeriums oder der Leitstelle fur den Vierjabresplan oder libn!ichen Wirtscbaftsiiberwachungsstellen innehatten. b) 4mt, Rang oder einflullreichc Stcllung jedweder Art, wclche Sie bei offentlich-rechtlichen ｓ･ｬ｢ｳｴｶ･ｲｷ｡ｬｴｵｮｧｳｫｯｲｰ･ｲｳ｣ｨ｡ｾ･ｮ＠ innehatten, wic z. B. dem Reichsnlihrstand, den Bauernschnften, den Hauptvereinigungen, den Reicbswirtschaftskammern, den Gauwirtschaftskammern, Reichsgruppen, \Virtschaftsgruppcn, Industrieringen oder iihnlichen Korperschaften sowie hei deren untcrgcordneten und angeschlossenen Korperschnften und Gebietsstellen• .c) Jl'glichcr Dienst in militiirischen, militadihnlichen, polizeilichen, Gesetzvollzugs-, Schutz-, Aufkllirungs- oder Luftschutzdiensten, wic z. B. der Organisation Todt, der Technischen Nothilfe, den Stolltrupps, Werkscharen, dem Bahnschutz, Postschutz, Funk• schutz, \Verkschutz,.der Land- und Stndtwacht, Ahwehr, des SD, der Gestapo und i!hnlichen Organisationen.

To Duties ｾＺＺＺ＠ I Bis Pllic)ltenkreis I ·······/ .I ...... ;. l I

...... ﾷＮﾷＮﾷｾＭＭｾﾷｾＺｾｾＺＺＺｾＭｾＭｾｾｾｾｾｾＺｾ＠ ,._·::.·:.·.·.·:::.·.·.·.· ..·:.· .. ﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮＭＮﾷＮﾷＺＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮﾷＮＭＮＭｾﾷﾷﾷ＠ ...... ﾷﾷＭＭＭｾＭＭＭﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷ＠ .. ···!····················· ·. I· .... , ········--····················-··········-···-········-······················ ·····················•i' I I

G. WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I G. Veroffentliclnmgen und Reden 118. List on n scpnrute shoot the titles und publishers of all publicutions from 1923 to tho present which were wdttcn in whole or iu pn.rt, Ot' cUIUpilt.-d 01· ｾｩｴＡＺｮＡ＾ｬＮＯｲｯｾｾ＠ｾｾｾ｣］ｾｾＵｐｾｾｾｾｵ｢ｩ｜ｾｾｴｩｾｳＺ［＠ＡＬｾｴｩｾｾ＠ＬｾＰＱ｛･ｾｬｾｩｮｧｾｾｬｾｾｧＸ［Ｚｾｾｾ｣ｴＬ＠ date, and oireulation or audience. H they were sponsored by nny orgnnizntionl give 118. Gcben Sic auf cinem ｅｸｴｲ｡｢ｾｧ｣ｮ＠ die Titelund Vcrleger aller von Ihnen seit 1923 bis :rur Gegenwart ganz odeJ." teilwcisc gescbrichc• nen, zusammengestclltcn <>der ｨ･ｲ｡ｵｳｾｧ｣｢｣ｮ･ｮ＠ Veroffcntlichungen und nile v<>n Ihnen ｾｨ｡ｬｴ･ｮ･ｮ＠ affcutlichcn Ansprachen und V<>r· . lcsungen mit Angabc des Themas, Datums, dcr Auflagc odcr Zuhorerschaft. Falls Sic untcr Obhut ciuer Organisation stnnd-en, gdJeu Sic dcren Nnmcn nn. Falls kcine Rcdcn, Ansprachen ocler Ycroffcntlichungen, setzeu Sic dns Wort ,kcine" ein. Sieh·e····Arrla:ge

ｉＡｾ＠ !NCOl\fE AND ASSE'l,S / I-I. Einkontntcn uud Vcnniigcn 119. Show tho sont·cos nnd nmount o[ you1• muluul income .!1•onr Junuul'y '1, 1931 to dnto. II .l'Qeords nro not uYnilablo, give· nppros:imnte amounts. 119. Hcdcun:ft und Bctrligc des jlihrlichcu Einkommcns YO!ll 1. Jmmar 1931 bis zur Gegenwm·t. In ErmnngcJung von Belcsen sind ungcflihre Betriige :anzugcbcn.

year Sources of Income - Eiukommonsquollc Anlage Rmount Jnhr Si ehe Betr<>S

1931 ... ! ｊＮｑＢＡｮｐＮＡ＿ＮﾧｾｴｾＹａ＠ ... ｾｮＹＺ＠ ... ｐＮＺｴ［ｲＮＱｧＮｴｾｲＮｾＮｮ＠ ...ｾＮｩｬｩｴｾＮｮＮＮｾＮｲＮＺ＠ Werke. .. sc.hatsungsw.. ··i .30.00.- 1932 I II II II II . II II II II I 4000 .. - 1933 ﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷｾ［ﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷ＠ ...... ·················;;·········""'"'"""""''·······"""""""·······;;············"············;;··············"""' . j ...... 1934 ····,r·······················;·····································ii...... ｩｩＮＺﾷﾷｩｴﾷｾﾷﾷｳＭｴＺ･ＬﾷﾷＮﾷｾ･ｲ･ｲｫｬＮ＠ ·I Ｔｾｾｾ［Ｌ［＠ 1935 ·n························································ ... I$ I 0 •••• • • 0 0 0 • 0 ' ' ; .. ))4-1.• - ·•::i••••· ｋＮｾｾ｡ｬｬｭｩｴ･ｲＮ＠ﾷ｡［［ｾｾｴｾｯｰｾ［＠｡［Ｎ［ｬｾｩｩ［Ｌ［Ｌ［［［［ｾｾﾷｾＺﾷ［［［ｊＺｾＺｾ［［［［［ＮＺ＠ＭｾｾﾷＭﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷｲＮ［ｾＡｾｾＺ｟＠ ... ｽ＿ＮｾＮｾ＠ .. :.. ··········r','· ...... :...... ' ...... · · · · ｾﾷ＠ " 1Sfl0ll·- ...... II•• II .. a 'f' .-" a2

406

and the names and fu,rtheranee of Aryanization decrees ordinances f - 124. If so, 120.. llmenoder unmittelbaren Angehiirigen Ihrer Familie gehOriger Grundstiicks- oder Hausbesitz. Erwerbsdatum, von wem ･ｲｷｾｲ｢･ｮＬ＠ Art der Hauser, ｇｲｵｮ､ｳｴｩｩ｣ｫｳｾｲｩｩｂ･ｮ＠ in Hektaren, und die iibliche Verwendung des Besitzes sind anzugeben ...... ｾｾＭｾｾｾＭｾＭｾＭｾｾｾＺ＠ ...... : ......

121. Haben Sie oder ein unmittelharer Angehoriger Ihrer Familic jemals B.esitz erworben, welchcr anderen Personen aus politischen, rassischen odcr religioscn Grunden entzogen oder anderen Personen enteignet wurde im Vcrlauf der Besetzung fremder Lander oder zwecks Forderung der Ansiedlung von Deutschcn oder Volksdeutschen in von Deutschland besetztcn Gebieten? --ne-i-n-- 122. Falls ja, geben Sie Einzelbeiten an, einschlieJUich Zeit- und Ortsangaben sowie Namen und gegenwartigen Aufenthalt der urspriing- nicht betr. · licl1en Besitzer .....

...... ·······-························· ... ,. ' ｾ＠ 123. Waren Sic ｪ･ｭ｡ｬｾ＠ als Verwaltcr odor .Treuhiindcr fiir jiidischen Besitz zwecks Forderung von ａｲｩｳｩ｣ｲｵｾｧｳＧＺｲｬ｡ｳｳ･ｮ＠ oder _,·erord- ... ｎ･ｾｮ＠ . · . ,. · . ·nicht betreffend nungen ｾ｡ｴｩｧ＠ ...... 124. Falls Ja, geben S1e Emzclhcitcn an...... ｾＭＭＭﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷﾷＭＭﾷ＠ .. ······························-

I. TRAVEL OR RESIDENCE ABROAD/ 1. Reisen oder Wolmsitz ini Ausland 125. List all journeys or residence outside of Germany including milita.ry campaigns. 125. Ziihlen Sic aile Reisen odcr Wohnsitze auBerhalh Deutschlands auf (Fcldziige einhegriffcn).

ｃｯｵｮｩｲｬ｣ｾ＠ｖｬｳｩｦｾ､＠ Dales Purpose:- of Journey Land Datum Zweck der Heise.

ｾｾ＠ :;:; ＡＺｾＡｯｦｵ｡ｾｹ＠ｾＺｾＺ｣ｩｾｲ［ｳｵｾＺｲＧｴｾｴ｣ｬ［ＺｮＺｩｶｾｬＭ［､［ｲｾｩＡｾｴﾷ］ｴｩｾ［ｴｯｦｾｾ［･＠ｴＺｾｾｩｾＺ［［＠［ＺＺ･ｾｾ＠ｻｾｾ･ＡｾＺ［ＱＺｊ＠ h-y ｩＺＡﾷｊＺｦ｣ｩｴｯ＿Ｚ｟ｯｬ｡ｏＬｦｳｾＺｩｾｾ＠ p'!s:J:!ia;; ＡｾｾｾＡＡ＠ held, duties performed., location and period ｯｾ＠ service. - 131. List foreign languages you speak: indicating degree of fluency. · 126. ·Habcn Sie die Reise auf eigenc Kosten untcrnommenhl.- .... : 127. Falls nein, auf wessen Kosten? ····Anl-age ...... 128. Welche Pcrsonen oder Orgauisationen ｨｾｮ＠ Sic bcsucht? .... ａｩｩｾＭ｡ｧ･＠ ____ -_-_-_··.·.·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_··_·.·.·.·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_·_··_-_-_-_-_-_:·.·.·_·_::·.:·.:···.::...... 129. Haben Sie jemals und, falls ·ja, in welcher Rolle in dcr Zivilverwaltufig in cincm der von Deutschland cingegliederteu "Oder :besctztell Gehictc gcdicnt? : ...... N.e-in ...... ······-···························· 130. Falls ja, geben Sic Einzclhcitcn an fiber Ihr Amt, Iluen Pflichtenkreis, sowie Ort und Zcitdauer des Dicnstcs. -Ni-c-ht-- -betr.

······· ·····-······--·-················ ·ｦｲ｡ｮｺﾷｾ＠ itaTi"enTsch ＢｉｻｯｮｶﾷｾＭ riissisch hlf. ［［ＮｾＭ･ｾﾷＺ＠ 131. Kenntnis frcmde.t; Sprachcn und ｇｾ｡､＠ dcr Vollkommcnheit...... ·······Kenntrr:iJ3"se·

• REt\IARKS f Bemerkungen · ¥e in.e.. ｾ｟ｊ｜ＮｬｬｧＮ｡Ｎ｢Ｎ･ｮ＠ ... habe .. ｩＮ｣ＮｨＮｾＮｮＮ｡｣ｨ＠ ... b.es.t em vi.is.sen un.d-· .Gewis-sen gemaeht; doeh bin ｾｯｨ＠ｭｾｲ＠ bewusst,dass ｳｾ･＠ wegen Mangels an Unterlagen in Einzelheitem ｾｮｧ［･ｲｲ｡ｵＮＭＭﾷﾷ｣ｲ､･ｲＭＭﾷＺｬｬｮｶﾷｯｬｬＺ｡ｴﾷ｡Ｎｴｲ､ｬｩｦ＠ .. bTeib"en ｲｮｵｳｳｴ･ｮｾ＠ｄｦｾｳ･ﾷＭＭｵｮｶＶＱｬﾷｳＭｴｩｴｩｩ､ＮＱｧｫ･ｩｴＭ .'h.a'be ich J eweil.s .... se.lb.st.. >.g.ek(m.nze-iohl:l.-et····l:l.nd····sie-·-enthelt ﾷﾷｫ･ｩｮ･ｲｬＭ･ｩﾷﾷｖ･ｲｳ｣ｨｬ･ｩ･ｲｵｮｾｳＭｾｾＡＡ｣ｾｾｾＭｾｾｾｾｾｦﾷｾｾｾｾｬﾢｾＮｾｧﾷｦｾＭｾｲｩｾＡＳＭ｣｢ＬｦｱＺｊＬｧｾｬＱ＼ＱＮｾ＠ .t!Pt.E?;t7.s.QP.,;r..if.t.... 1.s.t.... u.nt.e.:r. .... dent..hi.er

CEl\'ffiriCA'fiON ｏｬｾ＠ IMi\mlllA'l'E ｓｴｬｎｾｬｕｏｬ｜＠ＱＱＱＱＶＱＱｾｾｾｾ＠ｴｾｾｚＢｦｾ＠ｍＧｴｯｾｾＢＺｴ＠ｾＯ［［ｵｫＺＺｾｾｾｾｾｾｮｾＺＺＺ［ｹ＠｢ＡｵｾｾﾷｾｾＺＺＺｬｵＺｾｾｾｾＺｲｯｲｾＺＺｮｾｬｾｾＺﾷﾷＮｾｾＮＺｗＮｾｾｾ｜ｾｮｩｾ＠ｩｾＡｾＧ＠ｊｾｾ｣［ｴｬｾｾｾｴｴＨ｜ＧｴｵｾＺ｜ＩｾｾＱＩｾｾｾＺＺＺｾＮ＠ＡｾｾｾＺｾＢｾｬｾｾｾｾ･ﾷ｜ｦＧＢ＠ "'' · ﾷＭＮＬｾ｜ｳＱｦｴｾｱｵｮｧ＠ tles ｬｬｬｬｬｬｴｬｴｈｉｉｊＮｭｲｯｬｴＧＭｬＩｴ･ｮｳｴ｜ｴｾｲｧ･ｳ･ｴｬ｜ｴｯｮＮ＠ · . 1\'lit Ausnnhmo dot· ｮｮｵｬｬｴｾｬＡＺＬＧＢｵｬ｜｜ｴｾ｜ＱＱ＠ l'mtktll sllt

407

,nlafen ·DTfi.t'll#.l'. -·; E•. s-..- k ,::"'<•·. ＢｾＮ［＠ｯ｡ｾＮｴＮ＠＾｜ｳ［ﾷＡｾ＠Ｍｾｾ｜＠ oa-d .d •""'O ". L .. .--: ＧＭｾｾ＠｣Ｚｾ＠ lf. t! :StH:. d :t Ｍｾ＠ 0 ｾｾ＠ · _; Ｚｾ＠ｾＮｴ＠ > ri •_·i ·-,. ﾷﾷｾＮ＠ • Zne!eJA3.d A.m:).!l7 .tt2.37 ｗｬＺｬｲ＾､･ｴＮｳＮｴｬｾｩ｢ｩｩＢｦＧｾｬｩ｣ｨ･＠ Name Mayer> in den Na:'len •-:.:ra(h uA. t: ｾｬＮｮｧ･ｳ･ｴｾｬｾｾｶｾｾＮﾫｾｴＨＬｪＧｾｾ＠ＭＧＡ｜ｬｬＩＮｦｬＹｾｫ＠ lJ.tf.r> von mit> ｳ｣ｨｾＭｮ＠ｶｯＺｾﾭ her nl s ｋｩｩｾｾｾｄＴＧｉｬ･Ｎ＠ｴｴｾＮｴＭｸｲｬｬｲｴｴＬ＠ｲｴｩＧｏＡｦｾｾｴｬｳＬｦ［Ｎ＠ _,, o: -,"" 1 .. ＡＭＭＧｉｾﾷＺｲｸＺ｟＠ ::_,?.0 ｾＺﾣﾷ＠ｾＮＡｾ＠ r:..;c_'· +;:;.;1 ｲＧｾＮｾＺｚｰＮ＠ＮｾｦＬｾ｣ＺＬﾷ＠Ｔｾｾｦ＠ for>der>te ioh ｃ｜ＭＡＡｬ［ｐｦｴＮｾＺＺｊ［＾ｦｾＮｦｦＮｾｘＺＭＧ＿ｾｘＡＭＮ＠ｾｲｾＭＮｦ･ｬｦｩｮｧ＠ auf, von 1:; :Etanzel herab zu .r>klaren_, dass Chr:J..stentum un:l Nationa.lsozi. ; ｳｾＱＮｩＮｩﾷ＠ ;:;... · •; • · ｾＮｈｩＮ＠ sinus unvePeinbar>t ｴ｡ＡＧｦｬＮｴｴｾｯ＠Ａ｀ＧｬＡｊｾｨｬＧｩ＠､ｾｺｩ＠ Q..M&'tli ch dieser> Tat- sache bewu-s$1 Ｇ＼ｙｊ｡Ｎｔ｡ｾｉｦｵｩｊＺ＾ｊ＠ dd.oesetzte ioh mich nicht, in ､･ｾ＠ sicht im Interesse meiner> Kollegen den Nazis entgegen zu arte - ten.

3") DUl"Oh von De ｐｩｾｾ＠ vom £10 i:: uwn::.nrt!hT 'l!ft{i!.tlli"S:tlf:lfN:.P.· allnt 1 i ch ｾｾｭ＠ｊｩ＿ｾ｡Ｍ 'r ·:nto ＮＺｴＧＡＮｩｵｾ･ＧｓＡＧｬＺ＠ x r: :.i...:.: L!:·SW ｜Ｍｾ＠ c 'r .t.nV! e$l!l ｬｾｾｴｳｩｾｯｨ･ｮ＠ Autoren ,. 11\' l J .·;: .[r[(,V[ ten ｦｩｨｾ＠ do West - "". ·': ｾ＠ 1:1 ｬＧｦＧＺＺ｣Ｍ､ＧＮｍｾＬ＠ !;,

408

Zu E fJ6/'97/t r· · t.f'i\ • . .. • lt92§ b. ｾＮＡＹＳＮ､Ｚｓ＠ v f ,r(;' ·• Ａｬｬｾ･ｩ･ＭｩｮＭ･ｲｦＮ＠Ｇ､ＧｾｴｳＺｃＱｬｾｾﾷﾷｍｵＮｳｾｩｬＡｴｶｾｾｉ＾･ｩｮ＠ 1.@3·2 b • .Auflosung ｏｲｧ｡ｮｩｳ･ＮｴｬｩｾｬＧｦＺＧ､･ｴＭＺ＠ＺｴＡｦＮ｜ＮＺｮｾ＠ ., .. '.BU!finen;;;. · aut oren 1942 b.gegenwartig ' ｨｾ｜ｬｾＬｳＧＹｾｾＮｲＮ［Ｚｬｩｬｴｰ＿ｯ｢ｩｾｾｬﾥｨ＠ . ·'' ＱＮｾＳｾ＠ b;gegenwat>tig . a ｩｴｾＰ＠ｏＺｾｩｬｩｾ＠ｐｯｩｩｬｴｾｾ＠ｊ＿ｾｬＧｴｳＬ＠ t·· , · ,r · · ＱｾｩＴＺＲ＠ b .gegenwiirtig . J c r • .r • ;) .c-:; :J v EtFband (i.en tJsrehlet>: Buhlllen sclu;•i f·t- . S:ta\1.4 ﾷｾｰ｝＠ Unrcl" ＱｃＧｏｬｩｬｾｮＺｩＺｳＮｴＮｲ･ｮ＠ j' ｴｾＴＮＱ＠ b.gegenwiirtig ) · ＧＧﾷｳＺｴ｢Ｇ･ＢｬＧｩｵｳｧｾｾＧｩｩｩＮｳ［｣ｨｴ｡Ｚｲｴｾ＠ｾｩｴｰｵｮｫｴ＠ u'nd

J ﾣｾ＠ • 'L• ｊｴｴｩｴｧＮｍｩｬＦＮｬｩＮＧｓＮｏＡ｢ｾ［･ｴ＠ · L •• · ｾ＠ >1 ->1 ;..t:l' u ｮｾﾷ＠ '·1:_; .. j 'Stla.&Jaige't'lkt:, ｦｾｃ･ｳ＠ｩｾ･ｊ＿＼ｮ｡ｲｴＧｩｯｮ｡ｬ･＠ ·!J.· · -· . ｾＧｬＮｩｬＡｓｴｴＧｬｄＮｦｮ･ｊｮｯ｡ｊＡ＾｢ｦＴ｣ｩＮｴＺ＠ｾ･ｬＡＶＮＰｃＺＰＱｮ＾ＢｦｩｯｮＺＧｩﾷｴｬｴ･ｮ＠ L :::: ., '! 't . . L ｲ･､ｊｴｾｮ､ｴＬ［ｴＧｩｬｵｮｲｦｵＮＺ＠ｍｩｊ･｜ｴｫｊＮＮＺＱｊ･Ｍ､ｳＧｏｩｬｦ｡ｾﾷｴ＠ · · ｾ＠ｦｾ｡ｧｬｩ｣ｨ＠ r- r t! .• -...; ._ , · • ｾｾ＠ D ·: ::- j ｾﾷＺ＠ t ·; r. · t ｾ＠ · .. r: :. ·· .. r-' ＼ＧＢｾ＠ ?. ···: : 1 i1 ｾ＠ --o.: .. , J i : :l C'

ｾ＠ af ｩｾｖ＠ 8eb ｾｾＳｴｳｌｴ＠

- 3 -

409

I 3

Zeugen: ＬＬＭｾｾＬ｢･ＬｬｧｴＺｬｾ｟Ｍ｟Ｇ｟ＮｅｮＡｾ｡｟ｩＫＺｾｦｯｾｩｦＺｬ｟ｾＨｾ｟ｾＭ､Ｎｾｾ･Ｎ＠ＡｦＺ･ｾｴＢｊ［ＧＩｾ＼ｎＧＱｾＺ＠ｾｨＱｲ｣ｨ＠ cten ｖ･ｲｬ｡ｦＴＮａｾ｜ﾥｴｦＬｖｾＺｾ［ｰｾ､＠ＧＮｃｉＮＺｾｾ＠ＺＺｙｾＮｬＭｾｲＭ･ｲ＠ Dr.tuchng un} Willi Str-ecker, Wiesbaden, Bierstadterstr. 60. Ｎｾ＠ｾｾ＠ｾＭＬＭＮ＠ｾ［Ｚｾｾ＠ l ; t-: _-.f. i :f.i)'f Jn ;'i) J• n t.

Wei b3r-e Wer>ke ＭｾｲｩＧｴｩＧｲｩｮ＠ＭｾＢＶ＠［ＱＱＹｾＳＧ＠ｴｴｾＦｊｩＩ［＠ 'inl'e.l'tr> Ｈｴ｡ｾｗｷＮｦ･ｾｩＧｩＢｨｐＮｴＧ＠ w er>den, wegen angebliahen nKul ｴｵｲＧｱｱｬＮｾｯｾｩｗｦｴＺＧｌｬＺｾＬＮ＠Ｚｂ｟［･ｩＮ｡Ｚ｢ＩＬｩ･ｬＮ｡ｴＭｾｾＧ＠ ,Die ｋｾｮｾ･ｾＺ［Ｓｴｩｩ｣ＺｾｾＭＢＢ＠ﾷＺｾ＠ＬＮｏｾｾｌ｟［ｊ［ｩ［ｩｪｾｾＬｳ＠ｵｮｾ＠ :4er .-_lt'?ia_l!1'L . _ .. "dar Lowe unJ ＮａＮｾｯ＠ｽｾｾ｟ｵｦｐｊ＠ _#non ｊＺｾｾｾＭ＿ｊ＠ＮｾｾＨ･ＬｮｲＮ､ｩｳ｣ｮ･ｳ＠ tntermezzo" und so fort. -"-- · • · "'·0 ｾＭＭ - Ｍｾ＠ｾＭＭＭＬＭ ''--- .. .,

ＱｾｾｾｶﾷｦＧｦｦＱｾｾｾｾ＠｣［ＡＬＮ｟ｮｴｾｮＱ＿ﾱｾｾＭ｟｡ｾｳｾ･ｾ｣ｾＬ･ＹＮ＠Ｔｬｲｲｾ＠ｱＮＬｾｳｴＬＮｾｾ＼ＺＺＧＺｾｾｾ＠ meiner ｰ｟ｯｬｬｴｩｳＭｃｨ･ｮＮＮｾｩＮＮｴＮｩＮｧｫ｡ｩＮｴＮＮＮＮＮｩＮｮＮＮＮＭＲ｡ｲＮｵＮ｟｟･ｴＮ｡ｴＮｴ｟ｌＮＮｺ｟｟ｬｩＡＺｊｓＮ･ｄｬＮＮＺＭＮｅｫｾ｟ＺＮａＬｮｺ｡ｨＱ＠ dar Mi ｴｧｬＺｉ｟ＮｾｃｊＮ･ｲＭ Q,_es ｾ｡ｬｬｴｩＮｴﾣ＿Ｌ＠ _dar ｧｲ＾ｑｓｓｾＬｮ＠ＬｏＬｰｾｾＢＧｩｮ＠Ｎｐ｡ｾ､ｳ＠ｾＧ＠ die in :::: ･ｾ＠ sem "zusci'rn:nel)harig- ｶ･ｶｾｯｊｩｩｭｾｮ＠ｷｬｬｲｾ･ｴｩ＠Ｎ｡Ｎｾ［ｾ＠ 'serg6: ｾＺ｛［ＺｦｴＮＦＬ［Ｌ＠ Ball ett• meister, ｓｾｬｾｮｧ･＠ｓｾｨｾＡ｡ｾｾＧ＠Ｔｴｾｩｩｾｾ＠ＭｾＭＮＱＭ､＠ f\,11 tift--L"t"' ·it 1-r·f

r '::. ... ｾﾷｾＮＧ＠ 1• '.,.,'(" r ｦＡｾ＠Ａｾ＠ ... ｾＮ＠ 1 ＨＧＢＡｾ＠ ['"' ..... r 1- '• ' r. •r, o'"'::,'_ ｩＭｾＺＮＱＭ A - ＭＭｾＭ An-rang 1'14nscnweo·te e1Ii -verran t-rn-geget( mJ. ｣ｬｦＧｩｴ･ｾＭｩｮ＠ Defai t i s·:u; ｾ＠ "· ｮｺＧﾧｵＧＺｧ･ｦｩｴＧｬｄｅｨｲＺｊｾ･Ａ＠Ｇ､ｓｩ［ｪｩＬＭｍｩｩＺｲｈＺＡｨｮｾＮｐｚＮｉｍＺｦＮｃｬｩｩｴＮｰｶ･ｰ｡ｾ､Ｇ｡［ｬｩｬＺｴ＿ａｮｄｲＮ＠ !:1ull.'t>.

ｾＺＮ＠ --''C . ｾ＠ＭｾｾｾＰｾｾｾｧｾｾｾｾＴＬｾｾｾｾｒｾｾＴＴｾｩｳｾｩｩ［ｳｾｾＡｾｾｾｾｴﾷ＠ｾｾｱｨＺｾＮ［ｩＧｩｾＮｾＺﾷ･ｩｴ･ｾｬ･ｩｴｾｴ＠ ·. r,"• c: ｴＡＧＹＺｮｾ［ｾｾ［ＬｾｩｬｦＵ｜ＫｓｦｴＰｾｾｾｾｦＱｬＭｴ＠ＬｌｑｾｨＺｦｩｾｬＡｦｴ＠ＺｦｫＺｵｰｾｾｮｧｵＺｲＺＭｧｾｾｾｾ＠ ,2,"dem Muller • :_ t• ·: ｾｾＺ｣ｾｾＢ､ｾｾｐＺＱｬ･ｩ［ｲｳ･ｊ［ｉ､ｴｩｾ･ｮｮｴｩＧＺ｡ＺｦＮｳｾｯｮ＠ｾ＠ｾ･ｳ･ｊ［ｰ［ＺｖｾｧＦｄｧ＠ gege-belP.hat. -.r.c ＺＺＺｾ＠Ｍｾ＠ ;.. , ｴ［ＧｊＬｩＮＮｉｓｦｩｊＺｦＯＡＡＨｩＮｩｾｊＡＨｊｊｉｊ［ｲＯｊｪ［ＬＧＢｴ＠Ａｙｾ＠ :r-L: ·· ＺｾＺ＠ · •Jf·::<: :· r:J 1d'•o .. r t:- Cn ·- ＭＺＭｾ＠ :tr;·_J: ﾷｌＧﾷＧＮｎｮｦＸｊｮｾｮＱｦｦＴﾷｯ＠ｾ･､ｩ＾ｯＭ｡ＭｦＺｈｩｧＺ＠ｭＡＺｴｇＢＺｭｾｴｈｈｬＮｦｾｓＺｳﾧｩｦＧＺｩｵｴ＾ｯｦｴＭ［Ｚ｡･ｮｩＮｳａｵＮｍ｡ｵｮ＠ Hanke ·- · · · '-- ｾＭＺ＠ · Ｚ｟｣［ｵ｡ＮＧｵＦ＾Ｇｊｬ＿ＬＺｯ｣ｬｩｾｓ［｣ｩｭﾥＢＭｺ｡ｩｷｳＺ＠ · ＧｉＡ｡｢ｳＱＺｂ｡｢ＱＧｾ＠Ｚｅｳｯ｣ｈｩｨ｡ｭｬｬｩＧ［･Ｎｊｈｮ､ｾＦ［ｧﾣｲ｡ｳｳ･＠ 2. ｾＺＱＬＬｌﾷＱｵ＠ｾＭ･ｷ･ｾ｟ＺＴｴｺＬＬＱｴｩＭｾｶ｟＠ﾫﾷ｟［［［ｾﾷＺ＠ .-- . _- ＮＺＺＮﾷＬﾷｾｾ＠ＭＭｾＢ＠ ··- -i. ＮＱﾥｾｳ＠ＭＮｾＭＭＭＮｾＺ［ｾｾｾｾｬｩｩ｜ｍﾣｾｾ［［ｾｾｾｾ･ｴｩｾｦｦｩｬｾ＠ .. ｾｾｲｾｳｾ＠Ｎｙｾ［＿ｾｾｾｾｬｪｾ､Ｎ＠ｹｾ［Ｌｾｲｴ［ｩｾｮ＠ wuraan: •.. t':T ｾＭＺｲＺＪ［ＺｾｩｾＺＭ aeus: ｩ､ＺｂｾｴｾｾｮＧｾｂｾｶｳｲｬｴＡｲｹｩ＠ＺｐＮｦｵｬ｡ｴｾｮｫｾ｡Ｎｮｴ｡ｦｈｾＭ ':' · « :r; ｾｲﾷＬ＠ c; _;_') ;) 'u 'j_ ;L" :_off • I< ltl ｾ＠ HI}, Lf{!ext ｜ｒＵ｢･ｲｴｾＺｳ･ｴｴｦｾ＠ ·. ,j •. • '-. tt 1 Ｚｴｮｾ［ｅﾣｾ＠ｾｩｩｾＭｋＶｲｪＤｾｲｩＺ､ｾ＠ｾｾＱｳｴｴｧｴ＠ｾｩ｡ｬｦｩ｡ＮｴｩＬｾ｡ｵｦｩ､ｴｩｩｮｫｫ｡ｲｬｴ｡ｴ･＠ l:.:tﾷＧｾＮｾ＠ｾＺＯ＠ .LT "'r ｾ＠ 'ｾ＠ＺＱｾｾ＠ｾ＠ｾＬｾ［＠Ｌｲ［Ｎｾｾｾｩｾ＠ｾ［Ｎ＠ｊｾｾﾷｾｵＬＺｾ＿ｆＧｴｾｾＴＭｾｾｾｾｾＮ＠＼Ｚｾ＠ｾｾ＠ :, . e/. :r . f1 n / ·. ·.);:. . '' - rte ·_;. :1 ｲＮＮＺｮｾ｡｡ｩｩｴｬｬｩｈｳｃｊｨｇｓ［Ｌｉｵｩ･ＺｴｬＧｮｩ･ｂﾷｚＭｏｴｴ［＠ｾｕｲｦｬｬＳﾣｩｲ､Ｎ＠ tol!lr%in·d·.lllnstt'u.,...; ;_,;j'u '_;(:; .:::_,j) "leJrrF fE.d'"l""i..fln.· ｣ｐｾｚＧＶＱｴ｟Ｍ｟ｩｲｩｴｾＺｴｵ｟ｮｒﾻｪ｟｢ＤＱＡｴｩｴｾＬ｟ＧＭＧＮ＠ Ruihl!unk• .,_ . • ,w''"'·"''J'} ·uLieit ｾｾ･ｦＱＰｦｴｨｦﾣｲＮｴｪｾｊｾｩｾＧＱＭﾷﾷｖ＠ ,_l,,_.a« fit l'J:'JJi;r· Nr'- ＼ｉｾｩＺ＠ 1930 ＮｌＮｾｈｾ＠ :<:<·- ·--:!•J..e·:_; ＧｾｬｊＧｬ＠ c ｟ＡＱＧＱｊｨｾ＠ rd: ＰｾＭ · ,.. ｟ｴｾＧｦＺＭ｜ＧｬｕＤＬＮＬ＠ 61!1Jf,r>< ｾ＠ b·" ·.; -b1 ;;·o nn J:.Da:J te r."!Wtre\l ｦＡＹｾ＠ id'&.fg:l:! ｬｬｦｬｦｬＺｾＡＭＺｊｦﾷｩｕ＠ＺｩｾｳｦＮｾｲﾷ＠ ,, . ;: ·· 1 ＾［ｾ＠ 1.930 : :;.t:o· ·:u.t.. c0a.te ｉＡｆＧｕｖＮｃｨｩｩｊＮｬｬＮｦｓｩｦｦｬｩｴ｡Ｌｾﾷｾ＠ＧＡ［ＱＧ｜ｊＺ＼ｗＧｾｾｾｗｓ＿ｾＴＺ｡ｾ｟ＬＬ＠ｑｊｩｾｯｴ･ｬＧｾｊＮｬｩｬ＠ .. ､ｾ＠ c:._; .ic 1931 ｾＭＭ［ｲＢＮｩ､ＧＺﾷＢｉ＠ ,J:!jrt'J.tffn·D•aP ｾｯｷ･Ｎ＠ und. ､ｩ･Ｎ､ｾＮ｡ｬｬｴｂＧｮ［ＦＭＭＬｕｬｊｈｬｾ＠ ta ;nt• !Un.dal'stliicke • t):J'""L!lq ＧｬｦｴｬｊｓｭＮ＾ＤｾＰｬＱＤ･ｵｴｳ､ｻｬ､ＭＤｾＱｒｩＮｑ･｡ＺＬＮ･＠ｾ＠ｾ＠ .riiu\tMMU'IJtUt n: cc _t 1932 rrl: r.r,, ·;cw·' 1:tJ:t ｮｾｬ･ＮｾｴｬｊＱＱｴＧｐＦｦｾ･ＬＱｩｒｗｬＮ＠ｊｊｴ｡ｾｮｯｩｓ＿＿ＭｾｾＪｾＱＮ｟＠ Jt ｾｊ＠ cw J .L1 ｾ＠ｍｓｬＬＮｦｾｊｳｭ＠ ' >'H. ｾ＠ 1932

;a [ i.!:i. iel'.b ·-;o:i:.tllHi lt\32 & r..J to. :t r" \">a: !134 J!!U'l :£n'J:.1 ". '"i tr ｾ＠ＱｾＡＵ＠ＮｴｴｾＮｴ｣ｦＩｴｴｦｬｊｪｩＮ＠ i'l0" -. li i!lei $1: s ｴＡｬＮｴｾ＠ M .:!' l _;) I d 19S6 ｕｾＳＸ＠

410

' .ＮｮｏＡｬＮｾｾｾＮｧＬｾｨ･＠Ｎ｟ｬｦＧＬｾｬ＿［ｗ｡ｬｦＮＬｓｾＢｲＺＴｩｩｩｾ＠ｾＰＭｾｱｨｾｾｴＬ･ｰ＠ . u .. i936 ｾ｡Ｎ｟ｴｰＮＫＡＭＧＺＢｾｾＱ＠ｅＧｬＺ｢ＮＭﾢｾＧＱＡＡＱＴＭＬｊｴ＠ｲ［ｴＧｩｬｾ＠ｬｾ･［ｦＡ｡＠ＮｬｬＮｬｴＬｾｬＡＡｾＡＧＹＡＧｴｦｐＮｾｳｴ･ｲ＠ .·. ＬＮＮＢ＼ＩＮｾ＠ er-r, n;acJi:G_ed':tcl}t'e:n vf?_n liort:v ' .. ··. 1.937 · ) .. ＼ＺｊＺｊｂＬｾｩﾷ＠ＺｊﾷｾＭＭｾｾ＠ ' . .t · t" ;, • r . 't 4 ·t_...- ﾷＭﾷｾＭｾＺＺＮ＠Ｍｾ＠ __ - · • "Mein Vaterl··ndn .Chor nach Worten von ltlopstock 1938

- :) >: ｾＭ · ｊｦｬ＿･Ｇｾｾ＠｣ｇＭｾｮﾷｾＭｮ＠ ,,(}-per> ｪｾＧＤｾｴﾷ＠ 'Q;9c ｾｵｾＭＫＮｫ＠ , ¥0,U :;mgk ＱｾＳＸ＠Ｌｾ＠ nJoa;n; \rott ＧｚｾｲｦｾＧｓｾﾷ＠ＧＺｓ｡ｬＧｬＧ･ﾷｾＧｆ＠ L'- ｾＢ＠Ｍｾ＠ 1939 t• :: .·) ·.: ＺｾＧＢｭＧｾ＠ｾ＠ＮＭＭｾｶ｡ｾｩｦｴｾｦｯｾｉｩＧ･［ｴｴｾ＠ :fn; ｾｱＬｾｩｴｩｴｵｩＱｳ｢ｾｾｆ｡ｮＮ＠ Hun·d 'arch. 1940 J-·,;-ocriuriibu·g, t&p:r, Yeit' u:. iius:ik von Egk •., 1942

ni. ｮＮｾＮｴ］［ｾｾｾｴｦｦｾｾｵ､ｾｩｾｾＧ＠ｩｾＧｯｩ＠ＭｾｾｾｩＧｫｷｾｾＧ･ｮ＠ "!ri' ·anderan "Veil•

ｾｾＮｾｾｔｴｾＮＶｾＬ［｟ｲ＠ ;_tftr_·- Ｌ［ｴ｜｡ＧｴｻｾｲＬ＠ .• _Ｉｩｾｮｳ｟Ｇ＠ eti ｾｖ･ｲｬ｡ｧＬ＠ 'Kopenhagen i932 __, Ｑ -jj·] (: .<_::-. ｾｲｩｬＧｙｴｬｴｲｳＤＧ｣ｨ＠Ｍｾｵｮ＠ｮｊｴｩＮｲｴｾ･Ｍｴｩｳｴｴ＠ｕｦｾｴｯＧｮｶ･ｶｴ｡ｧ＠ :B'erl:i:n 1041 •• ·;; l :·. ') j'·B ｾｩ＠ . ,.. _, .A.u:fsatze und Feuilletons in Zeitungen und Zeitschri:rten • .l ｾ＠ｾ＠Ｌｾ＠ＺｾＺ＠ -' ｾ＠［［ｇ［ｾ［ｾｾ｜ｾｾｬ＠ﾷＱＴ［ＬｾＺｾｾＧｾＱｾ［ｾｾｾｴｾ＠ｴｲｾｐｴｾ＠Ｇｗｾｾ､ｾｾ＠ｾｾｾｳ＠［ｾｾ［ｾ｜Ａｾ＠ｩｾＧｮ＠ e,; e, " -o , • :r .. Ｍｾ＠ＬｾＱ［ＮｴｦＱ＠ ' ｾｩＬｾ｣ｱＮｾ＠ｾｧｊｦＮｾｩ＠ｳ･ｬｬｾＺ＠ｍ｡ｾｴｭｾﾥＭＢＺ＠ _.»!(i: ｾ｡ｾ＠ｾＭｾ･ｴＡｬ＠ yolk seine ,, _ R e ｾ｟＿＠ :t'tn "Vf?r.:f'all d,er ｾｬｴｴ･ｮＢ＠ _ ;,warnung vor. dem Kriegen 1 - • t · ＭｾｊＮＬｵ［ｧｳＧ｢ｾｾｧ･ｾＧＢＴｾ･ｮﾷ､ｾ＠ｾｩｴ＠ tung,' .,:irmaJ'ahnEv•$924,. Ｍｾ･ｵ･＠ Pol.yphoni en in ,Das Konzertn una. ana.eren Blattern 1.924, li'll'SikkJ;>itiken una einzel• . r1J,, ｮＮｈｬｍｕＺｓｬ｡ａＮｊＦｾﾧ｡ＧｐＮＺ･ｾＺｩｾ｢ＮｬＡｕｨＺＺｍＡＬＧｌＺｴ＼ＮＺｲｾ＾｜Ｚ＼ｲ｢ｾｳ＠ 1g,:a&. ｦﾥＹｾ＠ｭＮＺｦＬｾ＠ｾＭｮｩ｣ｨＺｴ＠ lf:lehr fest stell- c_ a<:: ｳＧｬＹＭｷｴｾｊｊ＠ｴｾｍｾｓｾｾｾｾｍＮＡＧ＿Ｙｾｾ＠ＴＧ｜ｴＣﾧｩｪｴＭｾ＠ ¥! ｾｮ､＠ :B ･ｾＺｰＮｴ［･ＹｨｕＮｉ｡ｓ･ｮ＠ . ｾｯｮＺ＠ ·¥Usi kbilch ern i::1 Kulturteil de:t:> nVolkischen :Kulturn Verlag Il·imJ;lert, Dresden, ＢｾＧ｟ＬＬ｟ＳＳｩ＠［Ｍ｟ｾＭＭｩ＠Ｓ｟Ｍｾ｟ﾷ＠ｾ｟ｬｫｴＮＭｾｯ［ｴＺＢ＠ｳ｟ｰｾ･ｬｭ｜ｬｳｩｫ｟ＢＬＬｾﾷＢｖｯＮｬｫｳ･［ｴ｟ｑｨ｡｜ｬＮｓｐｩ･ｬ｟･＠ｾＬｩｮ｟［Ｚ＠ｾｾｵＭ ·-· . .cd'-c• .,, .. s.\1·· __ __ ｾＮＡＮＡＭ ,,.., • >J ＧＧＭｾｾｾｎｊｩ＠ · ｍｩ＿ＭｴＬＺＮｾＭＴ･ｾＴＦｩｩﾥＭｋ｡ｦｭＰｮｾｫＮＣＮＺＮＮＺｾＺＺＮＣｊｩｾｩｩｻＩｧＮＺｲ｡ＭＺ＠ mpo l i tik n . ,p;ti ｴｾｾＮﾧＺｳＧｮＡ｝Ｌｾｧｲ［､Ｚｴｾ＠ｯｐｾｵｴｾＮＨ＿Ｌ｢ＮｴｊﾷＬｾｾｧ･ｾ､Ｂ＠ｴＢｾ･ｪｦＧ｡ｨＺｐ＠ upd ＮＭＭＺｈ･ｦｾｮｵｮｧｮ＠ nPflicht zur ＦＭＧ｜ｊｳｊＮｾｳｾｮ＠ .. ＭｮｾＮ［ｾ＠ .. Ｚｾｮ､＠ Anfang " • Bei der Ueberfuhrung ､･ｾＺｲＳｩﾥＹＺＺ｢ｾｨＭ､ｾｾＡ［ｐｶｊＱｵｾｾＺｈｲＮＢＺＮ［ｩｰ＠ＹＭｓ＿ｾ［＠ｎＺｩｴ＿･ｾＺｧｾｧＮｩＡｮｶ･［［ｬｾｾ＠ｾＭｱｮｴ･ｲ＠ dem Titel ndas Volkn ｓｾＦＫｊＮｾ･ｪ［ｪＬｰｰＮ＠ l,lfEl:l;.UjF .. -,Mitar>belt ein, aa Jie ZeHscht>ift von da· an ｮ｡ＮｴＺｴｯｮ｡ＡｳｯｺｦＮ｡ｕＮｳｴｩｳｾｨ･ｮ＠ OhaNlkter tr>ug. :Mein·J Mitar• ｢Ｎ･ｩｴＮｦｬ｡ｮｮｩＧｩ･Ｎｴ＾ｮＧｩＭｯＭｩｫﾱｓＭｯｨＺ･ｮ＼ＱｾＧｩＱｕｮｬｲｮﾷ＠ｽｬＭＨｴＮｴＺ｢ｾｮ､ｾｮＺｾｚｷｅｈＺＩｫＧＭﾷＢｾｾｮ＠ gegen die moderne Musik gerichteten !llendenzen det- Parted unter dem Schutz e_i, ｮ･ｾＮｩｴｂＧＡｨＭＡｩﾧｾ･ｧｾｧｬＨｬＮｈｾｴｴｾｴＡｵｦ＿ＧＺＫＮｾｈ･｟＠ＡｩＧｊＡｩＧｈｾ｟ｧＮﾷ＠ｂｾｾｺＺ＠ __ ｾﾥＧｗｾｫｲＧＭＭｬ｜＠ Dazu ware nach dex- Umwandlung in .• nDas ｶｯＺｮｴＬ｟ｴｾｦｲＺｬｾＡｦ［＠ｍｯｾｾ［［｡ｬｫＬｾｴ＠ｾ･ｨｲ＠ gewesen. Ohne- JJ;i.n. WUr.:>de ｭｾ＠ e .. ｔｾｴｩｧｾ･ｩｴ＠ sghon J.m Jal:!:r>e iti26 ais parteifeindlioh '::E:J..t em;plt-uncl'en .. ｢ｾｫｬＧｬｨＱｽＺ･ｴｾＱＳｊｩｬｦｩｾｾｧｾｓ｣ｬｩｍｴｾ＠ｾ｡ｭＺｴｳｾＧｯｨｾｲｯｨ･ｩ＠ tsdienst Mun• ;· i'i t?l: ohen ｳｴ｡ｾＮｕ･ｴｾｩｴＭ､Ｂ･ｴｴ＠ｾｩＱｳｴ･ｮＱｩ＠ Afig'Pi!tl!' ｾｨｧｾｮ＠ ··mid. 'duPoh einen Aursa.tz: •n-!i.nJilt"l slila dneistt :Q i on.tu sonstoili.z. •:. • :.1•1• • ,, ., ｾＬ［＠ ·e'lX3ehi en en l m Februa r it'S5 in ｬＡｳｾｲｲｦｾｍｵｳ､ｩｫｨ＠ , ､ﾷ･ｭｾＮｴＮｭＮｴＺｩｬｩｲｯｨ･ｮ［＠ MnstlN:J).i.l''ga.,n :\de!" Pa!"tei. In ､･ｩＢＱｒｨＮｴｴｩＧｾｧｻｩｯｦｩｩ［ｾＮｦｩｩｪ＠ｾｊｊＥＶＧＱ｜ＧｑｩＧｾＺ｢ｨﾷｩＧ･ｮ･ｮ＠ · v'is!!adh'' Pfiiltillt!"ungen in eie;ene Werke, ｭｩｈＯｳＧｴｩｾＺｩｾＮｬＡｰｦｊＮｾｧｲ｡Ｎｭｭｨ･ｦｴ･ｮ＠ und Ta.geszeit·ungen.. Zeit und Ot-t d festatellbaP. in das Werk, oder nOol'l.llUbusn e:n Fr-u.nkf\:tt't/Ma.:!fJ ｗ･ｴＺｾｮ･ｲ＠ Esk, ettt Nemes Musik · ｾ＠ .ＮＬ［ＬＺｰｾｴｾＺｍｯＺｉＡｉｍｴ＠ die ｬ＿｡ｵｳｾ＠ｶｾｳｯｨｩ･､ｬ＼＠

411

Zeitungen, von mir n5.cht :fest.st-=llbar. nOpe:t>@Jll'iie Pause, Wien ﾷﾷＺＺ＾ＧｾＭＱＮＷＮｾＮ＠ｾｽＳＮｨｾ｡ｬｬＮｦｬｧＬ＠ｈ｟･ｦｾ＠ 5 •. tt!-nt!lgnne". von ｈｯｮ･ｧｧｾ｟ｐＬ＠Ｂｃ｣ｾｯ･､ｩ･ＬＬ＠ Paris ·19:4':3·. n'f4usr:iJfdr!ihl-a_;; M'rtl!Si-zi'ero-per';• ｖｾｬＮＬ＾Ｎｩｯ［ｊ｣ｊｐＬｾｾｾ［Ｚ［Ｎｯｬｨｵ｟･｟ｳ＠ｾｾ｢ｬ｡ｴｴ＠ \t:J.j nz

.• r .... ·litel t ﾷＺｲＮｾｨ＠ｊＡ･ｾ･ｧ･ｸ･ｭｰｬｾｎ＠ · Ｚｬｵｮ｡ｾ＠ＱＱ｜ｵｳ｡Ｍ･ｾＺｱｩＺｩｽＴｊ･Ｇﾷ＠ｇｾＱｦ･Ｎ＠ｚｦＩｬｾ＠ｩｦｵｾｧ･ｫｯ［Ｉ［ｩＺ＠ . un_1, tla.tum. : D:te Aufh.gehohu .. uer :D- a;: ' ＢｚＺ･ｬｬｬｴｩｩｾ＠ｐＮｬｾｊｴｴﾧＬｬ［Ｇ＠ＬＮａＺｾＮｮＮｾ［ｴ＠ ... ｾ｣ｊｌ＠ nis:h t ｦｾｳｴ＠ t3'tl?ll<;::n ;Ueber- d.ie ｾＺ｡ｩＧｬ｡ｲ･ｨｯｨ･＠ n::-: J'c··· ｾＮ･ｲ＠ｾＱ［ＱＭｾｩｾ＠ •.a.,.Jrie.C;llen .i'ul>li}'aticnen k)i_nn·· ｡Ｎｾ＠ｖｾｬＸＮＭｧＭＢＺｓ｣ｨＨｬＩｴｴ＠ .&uskunft ge- ;_. ,;;c.· bep1 ·· ·· J • · • ... ".t · , ｖｾＺｾｾｾ｡ｾ･＠ｾｾ､Ｇ＠ Reden ｾｾ＠ ; ,.. : Ji;,...... £ :} • : • _... f . . . ,., - :. : . v : . -- J• .. -:-• . • ···•"· ., ﾷＱＱｩｮｾｵｨｊＺｬＧｕＱｬＧﾣＺｴｅＡＭｙＮＺＮｏａＭＧｦ［ｲｩｰＮｩ＠ in .\lf:'!n. n-,: ｾＮＧ｡ＮＢ＠ s ｾ＠ g e !",. ·von' Bet•t Brecht und " '': ; ; ｊｾＬｩ［ｵｲｴｦＬ＠ｊｦｾｾｪｬＮＮｬ［ＭＬＬＡ＠ｙｾｾｦｬｽ｢ｴｴＬ｡ＳＤ･ｰＬ｣＠ｖｾｾｾｩｾＱＬＮｦＱｬｔｉｊｴ＠ fur zei tgencssi>.S.dhc ;;usn_ in Mtinc hen a,932. Der Aurs·atz ｾｴｩ､ｵｳｾｴｫ＠Ｂｴｾｴｳ＠ J!:u:sd-ruoV-" ｩｨｾ＠Ｍｾ･ｩ＠ t" (. ｳＮｾ＠ Autsatze) wurde von mtr in verschiedenen ｖ･ｲＮ･ＮＮｮｳｴｾ＿ｊｲｬ［ｵｮｧ･ｮ＠ a.ls ｾＭｶ｣ｙＺＨｩｴｾ｡ＱｆＺｾ･ＺｳｾＮ＠ｾｾｾＺ｡Ｚｾｳｾ＠ｾｾＭｧ［ｮﾷＭｊｩｦｕｴｾｾｾｾｾｾｾ＠ｶｯｮｾ＠ i· li)n) 'Aahrraen .. # ·. een TheatE!:Fn· ｾＭｳｳＭＺｲＮｬＡｾｮＡＧｶｯｮ＠ﾷｩｦｊＺｴｬｬｴ｡･ｮ［｡［ｬｾＺｦｦｵｊ［ｵ［ｾｵｮｧ･ｮ＠ .-e-igel}el? "We ., , z .. B. ｾｮ＠ Darmstt?-dt anHi.sslich .»Peer Gynt,, in Braunsc1'Weig ｡ｮｬｩｴｾ＿Ｎｳｬｩ｣ｨ＠ : JJP.'. ｾ＠ . ':' ＧｲＡｩＧＹｲｾＺＮＧｴｮｴＺｾＢ｜ｾｾＬｌＬｴｦＺＡ＠ｬＲＬＩ･ｾｾｾＮｮ＠ＮｾＬｾｾｾｾｾｳｾｬｩＬ＿ｾ＠ nl?_we: ｇｾｴｮ＠ ill' ｾｩ＾･ｳＧｉＧ｡ｵ＠ anlassl i ct { r:. ｄｾＺ＠ＱＱＺｊ＿Ｎ･ｾｊ＿＠ｱｹｮＺＭｾＬｾ＠ｾ＠ＺｴｶｲＺｾＮＱＱＮ＠ｾＧｬＬｰＺＧｾｓｾＮｴ［ＺｴＮＮ＠ n ＭｮＧｚ｡ｩＬｾｦ＠ •. ｳｳＺｳ［ｾｓｕＺｬｦ､ＮﾷＮｾｏ｡ＱＧｕｬＡＧＮ｢ｵｳｾｨ＠ ausserde;u '\·)JT .: · . ｾｾＮ･ｩＮｆｾＡｬｾｾｾＱｐＮｾＮｲＮｦＡｩＮｬ｜･ＺｴＺｾＡｾＡＺｩ［Ｎｾｲｴ＠ 1&.I:-:'1t meinc:n ·:Jtr.;:J ｈ｣ＮｖＮｯｴｴｩ［ｲｊｩＮｧﾷ＼Ｍｲｮ＿｜ｩｾｩｾｲ［ｴ･ﾷ＠ｾｱｨﾷ＠､ｯｴ＾ｾ＠ .• ｡ＮＡｾＧ＠ !.uf' ＭＭｵＺＧＡｬｧＮＺＺＺｭ･ｩＺｴｴ･ｾ｣Ｚｋ｡Ｎｮｴ｡ｴ･＠ :., -) ; .a·J ｾＮｳＭＭＭｾｬｦ｡ｴｂｾｾｾｩｾｂＳｩｴｲｂｾｬｬ＠Ｎｾｾｾｾ＠ｾｾｾＫｉｦｱｨｾｾｮ＠ · ｶ･ｾ＠ｾ｡ｾｴｙＡ＠Ｚｦｩｭ［ﾷｬｽｾｵｴｳ｣ｬＧＡ･ｮ｟Ｎ｟ｒｵｮ､ｴ｣Ｚｮｫ＠ｲｷｸｾｲＮ＠ﾷｲＺＺｷｾｲｲＺｧｾ･＠Ｇｦｾ［ｬＬｬｦｦｾｾｬｬ､ｩｦｪ［ｾ＠ＮｾｘｾｾＮＺＮﾣｧ｡｢ｾ＠ｴｩＡ｡ｳｾｲ＠ｾｲｈｩｾｴｴｩＱＱﾧｾＧｷ｀ｦＡｦ･ｮﾷ＠ des ﾷｾ･ｾｴＭＺＮｳ＠ v J _, m <-.r· , ｢ｧｴｾｮｾｬｾ＠ＧｬＩｾ･＠ＱＱｾＺｴｳｴ･ｮＢＢ＠･ｴｴＺｾｲ＠ｯ｢･ｮｧ･ｮｩｮｬｩｴ･ｴｩｦＧｖ｡ｴ＾ｾＧｓｴ｡［ｬｴＧｴｬｮｧｳｾ＠ tand<:>n z Wl- -- ＭＬＧＮｳｧｧ･ｮｾｾ｛ｾＴＰＧ･ｴｊｦｨｬ＠ｊｾｾﾣＧＧ｡ｴｦｩＮＭｩｴｾﾷ＠ !lie Ｇｬｦｾｩｈ＿ﾷＡ･ＧＡＡｬｵｮｧ＠､･ｳＬＬａＬｵ｟ｪｴｾ｡ｴｴ･ｳ＠ .hat in ｭ･ｾＭ 1-.- ｾ＠ . [. ｲｰｦＧｾｾＭｴｦｾＡｬｾｊｴ＠ｾｾｴｩＬ＠ｾＮ［ＭＣｾＮｾｾｾ･ＮｾＺＺ｟ﾧ･ＧｾｾＺ､＿ＭｾｾＧＱ｜･ｮ＠ﾷｾＧｴ｜ｾｾＦｬｴｵｬｴｵﾷｲ､･ｾ｀ｲｮｯｮｴ･ｮ＠ g 2·:- .:l' ｴＧＬ｟Ｌｾｾ＠ rc. ｾＺﾷｵＡｐＬｾ｟ｧｦｩＮＺＮ＠ gFr,;t:tf.lG·t .. ＱｾﾷｬｦｦＺｊ［＠ｾｾｾｬＧ＠ＡｬｴｾｾｓＧＡＧﾷｾ＼｣ｨｻﾥ＠ｬＨｵｮｰｾｬ＠ :l. t'isGh)·: ｡Ｎｾ＠ :tel dgra.ue ｾ＠ !l.;},eJeJl, ｬｩＧ･ｬｾＧＭ i'6h· i r ＱｾＧＴＡＡＱＮ＠ＭＱｾﾷ＠ SoJ:ingen\ v.or,;, eine::: Konz,,_·t ｾ＠ .-;: : .. t'f. _ｲｾ･＿＠ｦＺＺｐｆＧｾｾｰｾＧｩＧｳｾ＼ｴｮＧｬｾ＠ 'y,era, Ｇ｡ｬＮｾＮ［ｾＮＧｾｲ＠｡ＮｾＭ･ﾷｾｓＡｴｬｴｴ､Ｎｴ｣ＺｾｾＩＮｮｧ･ｾＮ＠ Ein-_ · !uhrungavortvag in 'iCo'lutribU'S:H" ｶ･ｾＧｴｴｴｬＭｩｩＮ｣ＮｴｊＮ｣ｩｭ＠Ｇｄ･Ｚｦ･ｾＺＱＱｓＴＰ＠ J.n Fran<- furt a. .. M. .2 ｡ＺＺＮＮｲｫ［［ｾＭ Zu ＧｾｨｾＺＱｬｲｾＬＧＺ［＠ ;D ···xu

&I'Un@ Ei:nk(';a,. ioh

412

, ｾＮＮ＠ ,,, ｾＭＮ＠ • c -· ,ef.:- Ｍｾ＠ . · -: ｾｾＺＬ＠ .- "" • I!Jirf?ii: r· ｾｶ＠ t•· c-.·5d'f}6. o.f> • . • . . ﾷＢＧｪｩｵＧＣ｣ｨｾＬｱｩﾷ･ﾷﾷ＠ . Ｇｾ･＠ arg'wqhnige ｕＺ･｢ｾｲｶ｡｣ＮｨｵｮｧＬｂ･ｳｴ｡Ｇｑｽ｣･ｲＺｵｮｧ＠ un.:: Be- .. · ｾｦＺｲｴＶ｡ｵｴｬＺｰＮｧＢ＠ eh-(evgs ｾｎｓＭｍｯｮ｡ＧｦＬｩｳｊ［ｬ･ｴｴｾｬＺｬＮＧＧ＠ undt· J;?.oeder· 'V?lll ｐｾｯｰ｡ｧ｡ＮＺｩｩ､｡ｭｩｮｴｳｴ･ｲｩｵｮ＠ in Goebbels "Angriff• ,sowie endlioh ｯｵｾ｣ｨ＠ den bei den ｅｲｬ｡ｵｴ･ｲｾｮ｣･ｮ＠ .zu E 115 schon erwahnt•n Austall eines wesentlichen !r-eil0s meines G8Samtwerkes wegen o:ffene:r:> wel tanschaulicher Gegens atze. :J"" .,, ＧｄｩｴｾｌｾＮＺｲＺ＾ＦｴｧＮＮＬ｡ｊＮｾ｡Ｎｄｭ＠ e:r;>z.;i;:llte rl"elative Ei!:inaniiieste1g--erurrg Ｍｾ｢＠ 1330 ist . dam ｾ｡ｊＺｾｱ･ｵｴｪ｟ｧ･ｮＮ＠ :Publik\unsertqlg· ｳ･ｾＧｴ＠ der ｬｨＺｾ｡ｵｦＺｦｵｨｲｵｮｧ＠ dar ,zaub ··r• ｾｩｧ｟･ｮﾷ＠ｺｾｺｵＺＮ＿ＬｇｨＮｲｾ＠ be;n,· dE?m ｾｾ･ｧＧ･ｮｴｩｴ＿･ｲ＠ｳ･ｾｾｳｴＮ＠ die Parte1 machtlos war. ｆＭ･ｭ･Ｍｾ＠ ·i .,-- ｾＭＭ ' ·. . . . • ｾＱｰﾷ｟ｈｦｬｾｾ｡ＺＧｵｴｨＨｩＺｲｦｩ＠･ｐＧＡＧｯｬｧｾｮ＠ＺｂＺ･ｬＢ｜ｌｴＺｵｮｾ＠ｾＭＮ＠ cl±e .Staa.tao:p.er Rerlin unfl • • ｾ＠ ; ｾｾｾｮ･ｭ＠ dadur·ch ｧ･ｳｾＭ･ｦｴ･ｾｴ･ｮ＠ !kithstle.. ｾｩＺｱＭＬｨ･ｮＺＮ＠ＭａＮｮｾＱｾｨ･ｮＮ＠ ;\ ::;;: ＺＯｾ＠ＺｾＺＺｆｾ｟ｲａＺｾｾＬＮ＠ .. ::- -, -_.. .. t I'' . ' f ＬｊｨｾＺ｡ﾷＧｊｍｩｲｴ｡［ｾＧｑ･ＺｴｾＺＭ･ｊｬＱＬｍｾＺｾｨｩｾｾｮ･ｲ＠ａ［ｮｴＬｩＺｮ｡Ｌｺｻｾ＠ im ｫｩｩｮｳｴﾷｬ･ｲｩｳ｣ｨｾＧｮ＠ Pol:'sona.l ,'" ｾＮｲＬＺｲ｣ｬ･ｴ［｣ＺＭｬｬ･ｵｾｾ･ｾ･ｾ＠ｏ｝＾Ｌ･ＺｲｮｨｩｵｳｾｾＭ t ＺＹ＿ｑｲｳｰＺｴ＼［ｬｬ･ｩｴ･ｾ＠ｾｳｾ｡ｲ＾＠ Fvitz· sc·.uh, . : · ｊ｣ｳＱｦｏｨ･ｾ､Ｚ･｡ｭ｡ＮｴＮｵｾｧｩＮＬｾｾｉｬｾｳ･ｨＬ＠ＺｓＭｴｬｬｬｬ［ｬ･ｮＧＱＵＺｬｬ､ｮＬＮｾＺｲＺ＾＠ｬｲｾｳｰ｡Ｎｲ＠ Neher; ｾ｡Ｎｰ･ｬｬｭ･ｩ＠ ster '.I ｴｲｲﾷｷ･ｴｺ･ｬＯｅＡ｢･ｾ･ｴＢｩｊＭｈ､･ｾｴｾｮｾＭＭｾ･ｲｵｮ｡ＮｉｕＱ＠･ｴ｣ｾＮ＠ｾｾｯＮＩ＠ ,_Qd.er au¢h. von ｇＮＮＹＮ｣［ｮ･ｬｾｮ＠ · h: .'if' :.:des ＡＧＮＡｴＢ＿ｾ［［ＬｾｾＮＡｦｊ＠ (z.:B. ｇ･ｮｾｲ｡ｬｩｾｾｮｬ｡ｮｴ＠ Heinz ｾＡｅ＾ｴｪ･ｮＡｬ＠ dor , _ ｾ＠ · . ｲｩｾＬｇｯＭ . ·s 'm ｲｲｲｾｾｧｾｮｾｑｾｊ＿Ｌ＠ nur Ｌ､･ｮｩＡＬｫＮｬ＿ｴｴｵＺｴｭｾｬＱ＠ＮｾｵｮＸＮＱＱｯ､ｰｲ＠ｾ･ｮＮＬｨｦｮｫ･ｮ､･ｮ＠ I I , ", _3 • ｾ･ｵﾣ･ｬＬ＠ nannt$} ｯ､･ｾ＠ a.uek ､ｾ｣｢ａｮｪｩｮ｡ﾻｩｳ＠ in der Vresse (der mit _ｾ＠ ... ·:c '", ｮＭﾷＭ･ｬｾｾＺＮＺＮＧｴｦｵｬｦＮ｡＠ _ ｹＮ･ｬｬｨｾＺｬＮｊｬＢｾＡｾｪＬ･ﾷﾷｾＮＮｲﾷ＠ｾ･ｩｮｲｩｲｨＭｓｴｾｯ｢･ｬＬ＠ K.U. Rtl)!Pel,. ··J· 1.. ｌｌｦｬｬｲＬＮ［ｾｊＺｲ｡Ｎｴ＾ｬ＼ｬｩｬＹﾷｬｾｲＮｲＧｾｬｮｃ｛ｬＮＡｾｬｬＭＭＹＭ･Ｚ［ＧＱｾｊｴＡＢｾＮ＠ｾＭｾﾷＺｬＧＮＺｩｮｾ｡ｨｭｾｽｚｩｴｺ･ｮ＠ｬｩ･ｾ･ｮ＠ｪ･ｷｯｾｬｳ＠ｾ［＠ｾ＠ＺﾷﾷＮｾ＿ＭＧｨＮｩ＾ＤＺＺｲﾮＮ｡ｾｬＮｬ＠ｪｬｾｊＧ＠ｾＡＮ＠ＹＱＤＭＮｲ･｟ＭＺｊﾷＮｾｨ･ｮ＠ ;:: < rr __ t"1..__,v. ·.·2ft. _P,_ .· U_, _ra.\tff\ill. rung en "Za.ub!rgei g d» -:: ::.l .:. -' .• Ｌ｟ＨｾＭｾｌｾＬＮＮｺ｡ｲｊＮＮＭＹｦｯｾｮ＠ｊｾｴｪＡＺｃｊＬＬＬ＠ Gl.e b.eiden politisch nverdaohtigant, ,, ''J.'·J. -·· ＺＺｬｽｓｴｾＮｐＮ･ＮｦＮｕＮ＾＠ Gyn-t:.; ｈＭＡｩｾｓｽＮ＠ v U:nd Ooliimbjl's '(1941) ha.tten ｫＮｾＭｩｮ･＠ :mts.·re- ohende Aus\'tirkung. · · '

413

- 7- . . ' . tfl)· ·ueber Oester:reich volli t9;.::,;20.J-uni ＱｾＳＤＮ＠ zweck: - :l' ': V.evha:ndlungen ube:r ｕＺｲｨ･ｯ･ｾ｀､ｨｾＭｅＡ＠ zu meine:r Ope:r "Peer Gyntn mit ｆＺｲｾｵ＠ Bergliot Ibsen • • r ｾ､Ｉ＠ vom 7.3. - 30•4.!1.943 nach Rom zur-Erstauffuhrung , ｮｚ｡Ｎｾｩｳｾ｡Ｎｮ＠ • -- • j ｾ＠ . ｾＺｳ＠ :.c :t:r :w .. e ｾＭＺｲＬ＠ｊｾＰ＠ｾ＠

r:-. ＰＲ｡ＮＩｾ＠ＺｾＺｾｾ［ＡｮＡＺｾｬｌ＠ (?} wenige ｟ﾷ｟Ａｲｾｧ･＠ｗｾＺｱｴＬＷＺｲｴｨｵ＾Ｗ［＠ｭｬｾ＠ ,Hermann

i1 -. \' - ' -- - ) ( - 2b) vom i0.-i4.e.ar ｵＮＯａＬｍＱＬＱＺ｡ｩｊＡ＿ＱＧＮ･ｳＺｴＺｾ､Ｍｊｾｦ＿｟＠｡ｬ｟Ｚｬｧｾ･ｩｮ･ｮ＠ Musik- t ｪｾ＠Ｚﾷ］ＭＭＭＭｾｾ＠ _ＭｾＧｾｖＮＭｾｾＭｾｾｾｾｾｴｾｾ｣ｨ［ｾｺｵ＠ _ ｾ＠ d J.=" ·2cV- '-\ibm ＭｾｯＭＮＡＺｾＮＮ［ＮｾＮｈｾＺｴＮＺｴＮｩＴＲＬ＠ tia:(}h ｺｵｾｩ｣Ｚｴｬ＠ＺｾｽﾥＭｩｾｳｴ｡ｵｦＮｦｵｨｲｵｮｲ＠ nZa.rissa,, · · ·

. 1. t: . B e l g j, e n. L ":: . :t 3'8.') ' ｾｭ＠ .4r..-s•.. ＧＲ､ｾＧＳ･Ｇ＠ ·-zur Au ｩ｜ｦｩｾｩＧＭＧｴｭｴ＾ｴｬＮＧｩｬｧ＠ｾ･ｾｆ＠ Gynt na ch Pressbum .· :.L:.aR r:;sb s l''!.Sq ":f-s.diSl:tll''Vte.kd.''Stmh"lfl'fij ｎｾｴＭｬｨｩ｢ｮｾ＼ｴＭ｜ｨｾｩｦｾ｜｜ｊｾＧ＠ J 1 itHl: ;;..:iliV.i1 "leD ao.t:fi!i!:lriof.l-_,;"!.C ＮｊｦＮＩＭ［ＭﾷＭＮｮﾷ［［ＭＭＮＮＺＺｦｩｾＬＭＬｦＢｾＭＬｾＺＺＭＺＺＬｾｾＺＰ＠Ｌｾ｟［Ｚﾷ＠ｾＰ＼Ｇ＾ＩＮ＼Ｇｾ＠｜ｶｊＺＭＬｮＺｴＺｉｄ｡ｴＬＮｾｗｳｩＧ｟＠ · ＺｭｫｯＺｊＺｴＺｴＧｾ＠ itiaif. ＮｮｑﾷＺＮｾＮＺ］ＧｉＺＭＢ＠ :" ;; ;_ Ｚﾷｾｾｲ＠ n· -'' ·'JL. l..l.riJiiX<7IAtty;'Oilil 41! ﾷＮｲＮｾｑＧｩＮｴＳｩｩＱ＠ •:re":'J.. ｴＧＡｾ＠ ...:;:{;t•a.!t. ,;.d:·1C'J ｾＭ｟ＺﾷﾷＮ＼Ｚ＠ ,,11:; -.e·:d'8 e.ml.l ｾＩｴ｡ｬＮＮｴＮｦｴｴｾＮＬＮＡＧｾｦｴｴｾｴｬｫｾｾＷｾＱｾｾ＠ｾｾｕｩｬ｜ＭＶ｜ｓ＠､ＮａｩｴＭ［ｦｚＧｲｴＭ｡ＮＮＮｴｩＢｬｬｾＦｬ＠ d'auteur>s et de 1',a w ＨｯＺＮＬ｣ｲｾｲﾷＧＮｴｏＢｊｩＺｬｾｊＩ＠ｸｵ｟｣ＺｊｬｊｴｲｾＮｴｩＺＧｬ＠ fi$' T.. •1.''S'I:i'lioJ:(l.. r;.t.U: .r(,q tt.eh':·,,;?i fYllt ,.,,,!rj"r ［ｴｾｬＧｖｦ＼ＺＮｮＮ､ｲｦｇ＠､ＧＧｬｾｏ＠ ;·f!IJ lltH1o•> '•>P. art>'· h ｾﾷＧＧｾ＠

o tl s t e ＮＺｴｴｾ＠ .ＮＧｉｩｏｩｯｩＯｕＺｦｩｴｾﾷＧＺｬＮＺＺｴｲＺｬＬｹＺ＠ <:tetl:l n ( . 7)

Staatsarchiv Munchen Spruchknmmer Kn 3·-5q Egk werner

414

- 8 -

ＬＬｾ＠ｉＮｬＡＭＮｾ＠ｾｾｦＮｾｨＺ［Ｇｾｾｾ･ｾｾＺｾ･ｦＺＺＧＭＬｖｴ･ｶｾｾ＠ｾｾＮＬＮＡｽｵ｡Ｑ｡Ｋｴ､＠Ｚｾｲ､ｾｾ＠ 125 1 ,in keinen ｾＢＧＭＧﾷｾｾ［ｱＬｴｖＺｊｮｊＴｊＮｾｾＺｧＮｩＮｾ［ｾｾＺＮｙＡｇｲＺｾﾧｯＭｬｪｬｾｩＦｦｬ＠ -o.. ｴ｜ｾｾ＠ ·'Qewirkt, sondern . nur ｧ･､ｬＡｴｲｾｾＧｦｲｾ＠ j' ::.i: l .':o' q :JSJ•J'( ｾ＠ ' t• ｾＧ＠ . n Zu J' 126 Aile Reisen wurden fttlf eigenen i';osten unt::>rncmmen, :::it ｾＬｬ｛ＺＮＢＧｬ＠ den 2 Ausnahmen: ＧＢＢＢｲＮｴ［［ﾷＮＺｾｾＮｴｦｬＺｾｾｾＭｾ［ＭＺＭｌ［［［ＮＭｾＭｾ＠ .. Ｌｾ＠ ..r.v. GP=:.fl: Ｎ［ｾﾷ＠Ｎｾ［＠ - ｾ＠ ·-·:. ﾷｾﾷ＠ Zu J 127 Die Rej_se vcm 14.6.-2o •. 6.1937 ｮ｡｣ｨｴｴｾｾｩｩＺ＿ｬＢｲｩｲ､･＠ von uer nSociet' d'auteurs et da oompositeurs" bazahlt, lie R8ise im Herbst 1931 wurde vcn dem Dirig'el),:tEm ｊＧｬＧｾｗＡｊｲ｡Ｌｯｮ＠ :"Sch::·rchen bezahl t. ------·- ·-··· --·-- · -·

Zu J ｲＧｦＲｾﾷＧｉ･ｲＱｲｦｦＢ＠ｩｲ｡､Ｇﾷａｾｩｾｴ［［［ﾷ＠ｊｴ＼ｊｴｩｾＺﾷＭｾｾｰｾｌｬｯｪｋｯｾｉｬＦﾷｩｾｬｬＧｾＭｾ＠ｴｾＬｩ･ｯｾｾ＠ Genua

.it) _Komponist ｌｩｹＺｩ｡ｾｽＹＱｬ｡＠ｖｾＮｮＬ･､ｩｂＬＬＮＮ＠ .,, •.. , ... ..r, 1 2,(. ｩｩＰｩ､ｾｽＳ＠ｩｩＮＡｦｲ｡ｬｦＢｦ･ｾｊｴ＠ﾷﾷｴｴｨｦ｡ｩｦｪｬ｣Ｍｳｾｩﾱ＠ •1• L·l.-• : --- \ ·. •,' 1d) Konigl.., Opel" Rom/ ｾＶｮｩﾣｾ｜ｦｩｳｴ＠Ｍｐｾｴｐ｡ｳｳｩｩｍｾｳｩｫｳ｣ｨｲｪ｟ｦｴｳｴ･ｬＱ＠ ar

.. ｾＧ＠ｾＮｩＢｬ＠ﾷｾｊｊＭ｜ｊ＠ r.r ＮＺＮＭＱＮＯｾＺｵｾｾＺｷ･ｗｾｲｴｮﾷｩｾｾＺ＠ｾｾＱｓＮｬｽｃＺｬＫ＠ｊＲＮ［Ｌｾ＠ｾＭｾ＠Ｍｾｱ＠ Jf:. Gatti

2b) Personenkreis des MUsikfestes. 2o) Stadtthea.ter zt!Pich und. Sanger ﾷＭｍ｡ｸｩＭｍＧ･ｲｴｴＭﾷｾＭ "nD ｾＩｴＺＺＭﾷ＠ K_Q:m.gank e:;.:. 2 d'J ［ｪﾷｶＮ｡ｴｻ［ｾＡｲｾＮ｀ｉＡｾｾｾｵＧｨﾷ＠ＱＯｩｬｲｴｾ＠ .ltieiift

,.. ;.taJJr.rre-g.ta.:) ..ｾｾｾＡｩｲｩＺｊ､ｩｩｦＮｃＮｨｷ＠ｾｩＶｾｾ｡ＮＴＺ｡ｷＮＯ｛＾ｾＱｊ｡ｮｴＭＮＷｖ｡Ｎｭｾ＠ Talich/ i. ｾ＠ - ·· ltiums ｬｴｾ･ｴｨＯｍｵｳｩｫｫｩ＾ｩ＠ tiker Stuck en schmidt. 1 . ｾＮＺｨＮＺＮｾｾＮＮＲｾ［ＭｾｌＲＮＮｾ［ｺＺ［ＮＮ＠ \ 5b) $lowa.kisohes Nationaltheater ltompcnist Suchon;toPLJ.uller ｾ＠｜ｾｾﾷ＿ｾＮｾＮｃＡｴＭＮｦｩｴ･ｰｰｯｾｴｾｾｦＮ＠･ＮｾＭ､Ｎｇ［ｹＭＢｾｦＺＮＮｾｾｾｾｾ｣ｴｴＮｾｾｾｾＮＮ＠ｾ＠｟Ｌｾｾ［＠ t. . . Ｍｾｯｶ＠ gcr ｾＱｩｊＡＦ＠ｾｾ･ｩｾｩｩＡＮｩＭｨｬＮｾ［Ｚ｡Ｍｾｾ｣ﾷﾷｸｬｩＺ＠ "" ＮｾｾＮ＠ ?:::-·,'· :::; ｾＭＭｾﾷ［Ｂﾷ＠ L;t.cM ae .rrl.tH.?Wo-aT""J '!).nrr, :1-'"'W _,, :.t.r .. :J .. ｾ＠ f 'f$;b) ｬ＿ｾｬＧｭ｡ｬｬ･＠ sum ｾ･ｩｬ＠ beJ:>U!lieh ｢･ｾｩｮｾｴ･Ｚ＠Ｚ･｡ｳｾｯｾ｟･＠｢ｾｩＢ＠ｾ･ｲＮ＠ deut- ｾＺｊＡｩＮｦ｣ＺｲＺＮＺｳＮｲｃｉ＠ .do :;n :tnv;D . · .. . · .· .. . 1-!.RC!!-D¥1 ｱ｟･｣ｾＭｾｾ［ｾｑＮｮ･ｮ＠ｾＮ＠ l?s.l"is dea Ra.ai o & del" .. ＺｊｉＡｴｬｴＧｾＮＺｈｴＮｬｩ｜ｬＮ＠ nskyI a.nnoy,A.lextm( ｾＧｲ＠ Wib:IU:»"s .. ( $\ll im& St l"€1.- \UHl den Chef c. }.I' ttt\"'ldClUX (gestol"btm} , ( 4&n Sohwei z

415

416

APPENDIX H

DONAUWÖRTH WERNER EGK CULTURAL PRIZE RECIPIENTS

Year Recipient Profession 1973 Prof. Eugen Jochum Conductor and Musician 1975 Dr. Reinhard Raffalt Littérateur and Historian 1977 Hans Ulrich Schmückle Stage Designer 1979 Irmgard Seefried Chamber Singer 1981 Heinz Piontek Writer and Poet 1984 Albrecht Freiherr von Tucher Leitheim Castle Concert Organizer 1987 Professor Dr. Erich Valentin Musicologist 1989 Arthur Groß Musician and Choir Director 1991 Professor August Everding General Manager 1993 Professor Dr. Hans Maier Political Scientist and Politician 1997 Wilfried Hiller Composer 1999 Wolfgang Sawallisch Conductor 2001 Professor Dr. Joachim Kaiser Journalist Author, 2002 Dr. Alfred Böswald Oberbürgermeister Donauwörth 2005 Max Kruse Author Mark Mast Conductor 2008 Professor Joseph Zilch Conductor and Composer

417

APPENDIX I

PERMISSIONS

418

419

420

421

REFERENCES

Barron, Stephanie, et al. “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1991. Bazin, Germain. Fouquet of the series Les trésors de la peinture française. Geneva: Editions d’art Albert Skira, 1942. Benz , Wolfgang, Hermann Graml und Hermann Weiß. Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1997. Boberach, Heinz, editor. Meldungen aus dem Reich. Volume 15. Herrsching: Pawlak Verlag, 1984. Böswald, Alfred. Die Seele Suchen: Werner Egk und der Donauwörther Kulturpreis. Donauwörth: Verlag der Stadt Donauwörth, 1994. Böswald, Alfred, Andrew McCredie, Franz R. Miller, and Helga-Maria Palm-Beulich, and Werner Egk. Komponisten in Bayern: Dokumente Musicalischen Schaffens im 20. Jahrhundert. Herausgegeben von Alexander L. Suder. Bd. 29: Werner Egk. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1997. Breul, Karl. Cassell’s New German and English Dictionary. Revised and enlarged by J. Heron Lepper and Rudolf Kottenhahn. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1939. Brüder Grimm. Kinder- und Haus-Märchen. Volume 2. Berlin: Realschulebuchhandlung, 1815. Digital full-text edition at (Accessed 24 May 2011). Buhlan, Harald. “Josef Fenneker (1895–1956).” Unser Bocholt: Zeitschrift für Kultur und Heimatpflege 42, no 4 (1991), ed. Verein für Heimatpflege Bocholt e.V. Diem, Carl, [Hans] Niedecken-Gebhard, Werner Egk, Carl Orff, Dorothee Günther, and Mary Wigman. Olympische Jugend Festspiel. Berlin: Reichssportverlag, 1936. Durrieu, Le Comte Paul (Membre de l’Institut de France Conservateur honoraire au Musée de Louvre). Le Boccace de Munich: Reproduction des 91 Miniatures de célèbre manuscrit de la Bibliothèque royale de Munich. Étude historique et critique et explication détaillé des planches, 2 vols. Munich: Jacques Rosenthal, 1909.

422

Dümling, Albrecht and Peter Girth, editors. Entartete Music: eine kommentierte Rekonstruktion zur Düsseldorfer Austellung von 1938. Düsseldorf: Kleinherne, 1988. Egk, Werner. Musik–Wort–Bild. Texte und Anmerkungen; Betrachten und Gedanken. München: A. Langen and G. Mueller, 1960. ———. Die Zeit wartet nicht. Ergänzter und illustrierter Taschenbuchausgabe. Munich: Wilhelm Goldman Verlag and Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1981. ———. Drei französische Chöre aus dem Ballett “Joan von Zarissa.” Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1940. ———. Joan von Zarissa. Klavierauszug von Hans Bergese. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1939, 1940. ———. Joan von Zarissa. Partitur. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1939, 1940. ———. Konzertsuite aus dem Ballett “Joan von Zarissa.” Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, [1940]. ———. “Pfitzner und die deutsche Jugend.” Völkische Kultur 2 (September 1934): 406. ———. “Programmpolitik.” Völkische Kultur 2 (June 1934): 279–280. ———. “Volksschauspiel und Musik.” Völkische Kultur 1 (December 1933): 317–19. ———. “Wege der Harmonik.” Völkische Kultur 2 (March 1934): 139–41. Egk, Werner and Ludwig Andersen. Die Zaubergeige. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1935. Eichberg, Henning. “The Nazi Thingspiel: Theater for the Masses in Fascism and Proletarian Culture. Translated by Robert A. Jones. New German Critique no. 11 (Spring 1977): 133–150. d’Escouchy, Mathieu. Chroniques. Volumes 10 and 11 of Collection des chroniques nationales Françaises by J. A. Buchon. New Edition. Paris: Verdière Libraire and J. Carez, 1826. Evans, Joan. “Stravinsky’s Music in Hitler’s Germany.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 56, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 525–594. Fein, David A. Charles d’Orléans. Twayne’s World Author Series. Maxwell Smith, ed. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983. Fischer-Klamt [Gustav-Joachim]. “Die großdeutsche Tanzidee.” Die Musik XXXI, no. 10 (July 1939): 649–53. Fitzgerald, Gerald, Editor-in-Chief. Annals of the Metropolitan Opera: The Complete Chronicle of Performances and Artists. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. and New York: The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc., 1989.

423

Fox, John. The Lyric Poetry of Charles d’Orléans. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. Fritsch, Theodor. Handbuch der Judenfrage: Die wichtigsten Tatsachen zur Beurteilung des jüdischen Volkes. 49th Edition. Leipzig: Hammer-Verlag, 1944. (Accessed 27 June 2011). Fulcher, Jane. “French Identity in Flux: Vichy’s Collaboration, and Antigone’s Operatic Triumph.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 2 (June 2006): 261–295. Gesetz Nr. 104 Zur Befreiung von Nationalsozialismus und Militarismus vom 5. März 1946. (Accessed 2 August 2011). Goebbels, Joseph. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatliche Archivdienstes Rußlands. Herausgegeben von Elke Fröhlich. Teil I: Aufzeichnungen. 14 vols. München: K.G. Saur, 1998–2006. ———. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatliche Archivdienstes Rußlands. Herausgegeben von Elke Fröhlich. Teil II: Diktate. 15 vols. München: K.G. Saur, 1993–1996. ———. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte und mit Unterstützung des Staatliche Archivdienstes Rußlands. Herausgegeben von Elke Fröhlich. Teil III: Register 1923–1945, Geographisches Register, Personenregister. 3 vols. München: K.G. Saur, 1998–2006. ———. “Zehn Grundsätze deutschen Musikschaffens.” Amtliche Mitteilungen der Reichsmusikkammer 5, no. 11 (1 June 1938): 41. Günther, Dorothee. “Brauchen wir eine stärkere Einheit von Musik und Tanz?” Die Musik 27, no. 2 (November 1934): 95–100. Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fagles. Introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. The Internet Movie Database, (Accessed 25 November 2009).

424

The Internet Movie Database, < http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0388649/> (Accessed 25 November 2009). Karina, Lilian and Marion Kant. Hitler’s Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich. Translated by Jonathan Steinberg. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003. Kater, Michael H. Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ———. The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Lafortune-Martel, Agathe. Fête noble en Bourgogne au XVe Siècle. Le banquet du Faisan (1454): Aspects poltiiques, sociaux et culturels. Montreal: Bellarmin and Paris: Vrin, 1984. La Marche, Olivier de. Les Memoires. Fourth Edition. Lovain: Everaerdt de Witte, 1645. Laban, Rudolf von. A Life for the Dance. Translated by Lisa Ullmann. New York: Macdonald and Evans Limited, 1975. Lammers-Harlander, Heike. “Werner Egk Komponist 1901–1983.” Lebensbilder aus dem Bayerischen Schwaben 17. Weisenhorn, Germany: Anton H. Konrad Verlag, 2010. ———. “Werner Egk und der Erfolg der Zaubergeige.” Lecture, Stadtbibliothek Donauwörth und Historischer Verein, 18 November 2008. Large, David Clay. Nazi Games: the Olympics of 1936. New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2007. Lifar, Serge. Le Livre de la danse. Première Partie: Considérations sur la danse, ses origines, ses rapports avec les autres arts. Paris: Les Editions du Journal Musical Français, 1954. ———. Ma Vie: From Kiev to Kiev. Translated by James Holman Mason. New York and Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1970. Marle, Raimond van. Iconographie de l’art profane au Moyen-Age et a la Renaissance et la décoration des demeures. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff. Vol. 1: La vie quotidienne. Avec 4 planches en héliotypie et 523 illustrations, 1931. Vol. 2: Allégories et symboles. Avec 6 planches en héliotypie et 524 illustrations, 1932. Mitchell, Allan. Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation 1940–1944. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008.

425

Monod, David. Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945–1953. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Murray, Michael. Marcel Dupré:: The Work of a Master Organist. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Zweite neubearbeitete Ausgabe. Edited by Ludwig Finscher. Sachteil Band 9. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998. Intelligence Branch, Office of the Director of Information Control, Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.), White, Grey, and Black List for Information Control Purposes. April 1946. (Accessed 4 August 2011). Intelligence Branch, Office of the Director of Information Control, Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.), White, Grey, and Black List for Information Control Purposes, 1 March 1947. < http://www.docwarkentin.ca/BWG/Black%20List% 20March%201947/> (Accessed 4 August 2011). Otto, Werner. Die Lindenoper: Ein Streifzug durch ihre Geschichte. Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1985. Pfitzner, Hans. “Offener Brief von Hans Pfitzner.” Die Musik XXVI, no. 10 (July 1934): 728– 32. Plimlott, John. The Atlas of World War II. Philadelphia and London: Courage Books, 2006. Pocci, Franz Graf von. Kasperlkomödien. Berlin: Hans Heinrich Tillgner Verlag, 1922. ———. Die Zaubergeige. Edited and adapted by Karl Seidelmann. Music by Christoph Dietrich. Potsdam: Ludwig Voggenreiter Verlag, 1934. Prieberg, Fred K. “Der Fall Werner Egk: Beispiel für eine traurig kompromittierte Generation.” Die Zeit 17 (1969). http://www.zeit.de/1969/17/Der-Fall-Werner-Egk. ———. Handbuch Deutscher Musiker 1933–1945. CD-ROM, 2004. ———. Musik im NS-Staat. Köln: Dittrich, 2000. First published 1982 by Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Rasch, Hugo. “Der deutsche Komponist und seine Standesvertretung.” Die Musik XXXIII, no. 6 (March 1941): 191–93. Riding, Alan. And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

426

Schläder, Jürgen, ed. Werner Egk: Eine Debatte zwischen Ästhetik und Politik. Münchener Universitätsschriften Studien zur Münchner Theatergeschichte Band 3. Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2008. Schirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Schmitz-Berning, Cornelia. Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus. 2nd edition. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007. Schrott, Ludwig. “»Nicht so dreist, nicht so stolz …« eine notwendige Richtigstellung.” Die Musik XVII, no. 5 (February 1935): 353–355. Sommer, Reinhold. “’Mode’tänze oder deutsche Tänze?” Deutsche Tanz Zeitschrift 3, no. 110 (November 1938): 17–18. ———. “Neugestaltung des Gesellschaftstanzes.” Die Musik XXXIV, no. 8 (May 1942): 253– 255. Spathnaky, Mike. “Old Style and New Style Dates and the change to the Gregorian Calendar: A summary for genealogists.” (Accessed 10 December 2009). Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston with an introduction by Eugene Davidson. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1970. New York: Galahad Books, 1995. Spence, Sarah. The French Chansons of Charles D’Orléans with the corresponding Middle English chansons, edited and translated by Sarah Spence. Volume 46, Series A of the Garland Library of Medieval Literature. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1986. Spotts, Frederic. The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008. ———. Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. With a new introduction by the author. Woodstock and New York: Overland Press, 2002. Introduction copyright 2009. Stanton, Richard. The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions: The Story of the Olympic Art Competitions of the 20th Century. Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford, 2000. Stege, Fritz. “Werner Egk und der dramatisch Kunsttanz: zur Uraufführung seines „Joan von Zarissa“.” Zeitschrift für Musik no. 3 (March 1940): 143–146.

427

Steinweis, Alan E. Art Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Thursby, Steven. Gustav Mahler, Alfred Roller, and the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk: Tristan and Affinities between the Arts at the Vienna Court Opera. Ph.D. dissertation. Florida State University, 2009. Der unbekannte Werner Egk. Beiträge zum 2. Werner-Egk-Symposium Donauwörth, 17.–19. Mai 2001. Donauwörth: Stadt Donauwörth, 2007. Vanderjagt, Arjo. “The Princely Culture of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy” in Princes and Princely Culture 1450–1650. Edited b Martin Gosman, Alasdair MacDonald, and Arjo Vanderjagt. Volume 1. Leiden, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2003. Wagner, Richard. Kunstwerk der Zukunft. In Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen. Band III. N.p.: Adamant Media, 2005. Facsimile of 1871 edition (Leipzig: C.F.W. Siegel). ———. Oper und Drama. In Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen. Band IV. N.p.: Adamant Media, 2005. Facsimile of 1871 edition (Leipzig: C.F.W. Siegel). Wandrey, Conrad. “Hans Pfitzner.” Völkische Kultur 2 (May 1934): 193–201. ———. “Hans Pfitzner: Offener Brief an den Herausgeber der „Musik,“” Völkische Kultur 2 (September 1934): 401–05. Werner Egk 1901–1983: Ausstellung zum Werner-Egk-Jahr 2001. Donauwörth: Stadt Donauwörth, 2001. Werner Egk, eine universelle Begabung: Komponist, Schriftsteller, Interpret und Zeichner. Beiträge zum 1. Werner-Egk-Symposium Donauwörth, 12.–14. November 1999. Donauwörth: Stadt Donauwörth, 2004. Wolff, Stéphane. L’Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962). Présenté par Alain Gueulette. Paris and Geneva: Slatkine Resources, 1983. The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, dir. Ray Müller, Omegafilm GmbH and Nomadfilms S.P.R.I., 1993. DVD. < http://www.archive.org/stream/Denazification/OfficeOfTheMilitaryGovernmentForGermany- Denazificationen1948174P.Scan_djvu.txt> (Accessed 12 August 2011). (Accessed 28 June 2011).

428

(Accessed 24 May 2011). (Accessed 2 May 2011). (Accessed 20 June 2011). (Accessed 2 May 2011). (Accessed 2 May 2011).

429

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Jason P. Hobratschk was born in La Grange, Texas in 1975 and grew up on his family’s farm. Jason graduated summa cum laude from Concordia University at Austin, Texas with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Church Music – Organ, Church Music – Conducting, and Environmental Science in May 1998. During his undergraduate studies, Jason served as a university Chapel Organist and as Apprentice in Church Music at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church. After a stint as an environmental consultant for the firm Terracon, Jason moved to Portland, Oregon in order to further his musical education. In 2005, he was awarded a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance from Portland State University (PSU) in Portland Oregon, where he studied organ with Dr. Lyn Loewi. Jason was also a baritone in the internationally- acclaimed PSU Chamber Choir under the direction of Dr. Bruce Browne. He first encountered the choruses from Joan von Zarissa while singing in this ensemble. Additionally, Jason directed the PSU Men’s Chorus. While in Portland, Jason was Organist and Handbell Director at Bethany Presbyterian Church and Minister of Music at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Jason matriculated at Florida State University in Fall 2006. From September 2009 through July 2010, Jason lived in Munich, Germany where he conducted research for this dissertation, made possible by a Fulbright Full Grant. Upon his return from Germany, Jason moved to Vero Beach, Florida. He is currently Organist and Choirmaster at Trinity Episcopal Church and Assistant Director of the Vero Beach Choral Society.

430