Forbidden Music (32 page)

Apart from his short comic opera from 1927,
Scherz, List und Rache
⁵⁴
based on Goethe's libretto for the composer Phillip Christoph Kayser (1755–1826), Wellesz remained during his interwar years wedded to the world of antiquity.
Die Bakchantinnen
,
⁵⁵
1929–30, would be the culmination of this experimentation with dance, movement, chant and pageantry.

Wellesz's previous operas had enjoyed success in German opera houses. Ernst Toch was taken with
Alkestis
following its premiere in Mannheim, and the two composers became friendly despite their very different aesthetic ideas: Wellesz's highly individual style was, if anything, extraordinarily
subjective
, propelling him beyond the conventional boundaries of new-objective Modernism, while steering clear of Expressionistic excesses.

The premiere of
Die Bakchantinnen
under Clemens Krauss at the Vienna State Opera in 1931 was an unqualified success, not just with new-music enthusiasts, but with the general public. Its position as one of the most successful experiments in musical theatre from the interwar years was thwarted by the Nazis when they forced the cancellation of a planned 1933 Munich production. Its high energy, a result of an often relentless syncopated rhythmic drive combined with a declamatory and sometimes Monteverdian treatment of text, is perhaps only matched in originality by the two operas of Wladimir Vogel,
Wagadus Untergang durch die Eitelkeit
⁵⁶
of 1930 and
Thyl Claes
from the 1940s, both of which combine rhythmic spoken chant with a mixture of often seductive harmonic lyricism. Neither of these extraordinary works, however, enjoyed the critical recognition of
Die Bakchantinnen
.

Wellesz wrote over 40 articles for
Anbruch
and he features as the subject in nearly as many again. It is surprising that
Die Bakchantinnen
, which uniquely among Wellesz's stage works was not published by Universal Edition, is not singled out for a dedicated essay, as previously with his major works. The most substantial review came from Julius Korngold in the
Neue Freie Presse
, spread over the first four pages of the newspaper. The critic astonishes first of all with his understanding of Euripides as a historian, author and poet. The breadth and depth of his classical education informs his review of Wellesz's treatment. He mentions the history of classical subjects and opera, and he correctly identifies Gluck as Wellesz's model. He also sees
Die Bakchantinnen
as part of a larger trend that includes Stravinsky's
Oedipus Rex
and admits to a certain bemusement that contemporary operatic fashions appear to offer up various versions of the
Zeitoper
and its diametrical opposite: works that hearken back to antiquity. He praises the way Wellesz solves dramatic problems, and mentions that the best bits of the opera are those involving the chorus, and that ‘fortunately, there are a lot of scenes with chorus’.
⁵⁷
He goes on to write that Wellesz's connection with Schoenberg's circle and his association with the ISCM will guarantee no shortage of admirers and positive publicity. From here, however, the review goes downhill, but not in the way one might expect. And as is often the case with Korngold, it is the very points he criticises that make the work so remarkable.

There follows a further comparison with
Wozzeck
, concluding with the observation: ‘
Wozzeck
in its everyday use of language is more original – as indeed Alban Berg is the more spontaneous and differentiated – and in fact technically superior composer.‘
⁵⁹
To be damned by Julius Korngold in an unfavourable comparison with Alban Berg was no doubt insulting, especially as Wellesz had campaigned assiduously to have
Wozzeck
first performed in Berlin, and even more because Korngold had rarely condemned a work as thoroughly as he had
Wozzeck
, suggesting that people attending performances might prefer to leave their ears at home (though in fairness, Korngold is generous in his praise of Berg's undeniable brilliance).
⁶⁰

Clemens Krauss left the Vienna Opera in 1934, and
Die Bakchantinnen
was not revived in Austria. Wellesz had in any case turned a corner:
Die
Bakchantinnen
would be his last stage work until
Incognito
, an opera based on William Congreve written for the Oxford Opera Club in 1950 and submitted to a competition run by the Arts Council of Great Britain. After
Die Bakchantinnen
, Wellesz next turned to a sequence of tone-poems based on Shakespeare's
The Tempest
, which he entitled
Prosperos Beschwörungen
(
The Spells of Prospero
), a project that subsequently provided Wellesz – living in British exile after the war – with a template for an exploration of that most Austro-German of musical forms, the symphony. All nine of Wellesz's symphonies were written in the last 25 years of his life, the first of them completed in 1945.

The most potent of Prospero's spells, however, saved Wellesz, Bruno Walter and Ernst Krenek from Nazi arrest and certain annihilation. Walter had programmed a series of concerts in Amsterdam in which the works of two living Austrian composers would feature: Wellesz's
Prospero
and Krenek's Second Piano Concerto. Krenek had composed this to be simple enough to perform himself, since he needed income following the banning of his music in Germany.
⁶¹
The Jewish Austrian pianist and noted Schoenbergian, Peter Stadlen also attended the performances, which took place over the weekend of Hitler's annexation of Austria and triumphant march into Vienna. Wellesz, Walter, Krenek and Stadlen all fled to England. Gál would follow soon thereafter and together, he with Wellesz and Stadlen would remain in Britain, becoming respected writers and academics, while their reputations as composers were of only marginal interest to the British musical establishment. After the war, Gál, with the help of Rudolf Bing, became one of the founders of the Edinburgh Festival.

What both Gál and Wellesz represented was the view that there were different ways of reacting to the post-Wagnerian Romanticism identified by Alfred Einstein as the ‘debilitating condition’ that undermined German music's capacity of reinventing itself, and thus maintaining its supremacy. There were, however, several young, Austro-German Jewish composers who believed that the musical ideals of Wagner represented the better way forward, lining themselves up behind such established figures as Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, Siegfried Wagner and Franz Schmidt. To them, post-Wagnerian Romanticism was not at all a spent force but a legitimate direction that offered plenty of scope to a younger generation of composers.

The Romantic Renewal and Houston Stewart Chamberlain

At this point, it's worth recalling the cultural upheaval resulting from the First World War. Though Germany and Austria had sued for peace in 1918, they assumed that the war, which had ground on for four years, had ended in a stalemate. Neither side had gained any significant advantage and both had suffered unimaginable casualties. Germany, Austria and their allies sustained
losses of approximately 8.5 million, compared with the 5 million casualties of the Entente and its various partners. But the sabre rattling and armaments race before 1914 had been as intense among the Triple Alliance of France, Russia and Britain as it was among the Germans. The gunshot in Sarajevo was, from the Austrian perspective, an act of aggression. For the rest of the world, it was merely the starting pistol that unleashed pent-up tensions throughout Europe. By 1914, Germany as a unified state was only 43 years old; unification had come at a cost to the French, and with the accession of Wilhelm II the new state gained imperial aspirations with only limited room for geographical expansion.

These ambitions need to be put into context. Wilhelm I, who became the first German Emperor in 1871, was born in 1797, only 11 years after the death of Frederick the Great. Wilhelm went on to live to the age of 91. When he died in 1888, his son, Frederick III, only survived him by 99 days before the crown passed to Wilhelm II, who remained Emperor until the fall of the House of Hohenzollern in 1918. Wilhelm I was a Prussian with little comprehension of Bismarck's united Germany. He believed that being Emperor of Germany was a distraction from being King of Prussia, and legend has it that on the eve of his imperial coronation in Versailles, he wept with despair. Wilhelm II, however, was a child of the Empire and thus the first (and only) German Emperor whose allegiance to Prussia was secondary to his allegiance to Germany. His Germany had, since 1871, undoubtedly become more Prussian, but Prussia had also become more German. Wilhelm II was a man who looked forward to the twentieth century, while his grandfather had looked back to the eighteenth. While Wilhelm I found Bismarck a necessity who aided the mechanics of running the complex network of German states beyond Prussia while managing a compliant but irritating parliament, Wilhelm II dismissed him, sending him into long overdue retirement.

Several factors might be held responsible for starting the war: most obviously, it was the Austrian need to avenge the assassination of their future Emperor and his wife. Nevertheless, Germany found it convenient as an excuse to flex its muscles on a global scale in competition with France and Britain. It presented Austria with an opportunity of establishing its hold amongst the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and thus bettering Russia. One could even blame the British – fearful of Germany as a rival colonial power – and the French, over-eager to regain Alsace-Lorraine and to redress their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Even the Americans were not entirely blameless; though at first reluctant to participate, they too eventually joined in the European brawl if only to keep German expansion in check. In short, the world was ripe for conflict. The fears that had been
projected into art and literature for decades had finally been fulfilled. Nobody knew how it would end, but everyone thought that they would be better off, almost regardless of the outcome.

Yet even before the war, it was clear that a new age was imminent. Mechanisation held the same hidden promises that technology holds today. If the war could produce an undisputed victor it was science's transmutation into industry, which had provided the advanced weaponry of modern battle. By 1918, it had supplied the tools for conquering both the monarchy and the church. Even if the old order had passed, the strong emotions that once pounded in every patriot's heart, and continued to find expression in art, literature and music, had not been totally destroyed and demanded new validation.