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Napolean is dead - but Beethoven lives. Bruno Walter

Introduction: Bruno S. Walter of Berlin

Born near Alexanderplatz near Berlin, on September 15, 1876, Bruno Walter, [true name Bruno Schlesinger] would become one of the best known conductors in Europe and the United States. An accomplished pianist also, he hailed from a traditional Jewish family . Studying/conducting under Mahler, by 1901 he had already conducted in Riga Ltvia and in Berlin. While apprenticing under Mahler in Vienna, Walter conducted Mahler's 9th , "Das Lied von der Erde". By 1913, Walter had obtained the postion in the Munich Opera of director, and between 25 and 1929, he was widely known and influentional as the Director of the Berlin State Opera [Berlin Statische Opera] and in 29-33 the Leipzig Gewandhaus.^1,2

Bruno Schlesinger Walter and the Shoah

Because of his eminence in German Music, he was also a frequent target of criticism and degradation by Hitler himself who decried Jewish and hence degenerate influence in his view in State sponsored Music endeavors. Bruno Walter was not just mentioned vaguely, but even by name, as Hitler condemned the Jewish conductor at the Berlin Opera, naming Walter and adding "...alias Schlesinger" referring to Jewish parentage. ³ Walter, the Director of Leipzig Symphony, had concerts canceled, declared, "a threat to public order".

Walter in Germany under the Third Reich was somewhat of a complex figure: he was both targeted and later dismissed by Hitler in the 1933 registry 'dejudification' of musicians, in which over 100,000 'classical' musicians were registered,^7,8 yet at the same time he was in agreement at least philosophically with Goebbel's musicial censorship (see Banned Music) as he decried as unworthy, American Jazz and Atonal music,⁴ though he ended up eventually in Vienna with the 'Vienna Trinity' of Berg, Schoenberg and Webern. His mentor Mahler, had also been non-traditional at least in form and style as evidenced in "The Titan".

Likewise, Gustav Mahler, a Jewish composer had compromised with the Austrian government to convert to Catholicism since the highest posts in the Vienna Music world required Catholic Church membership, and while Walter never compromised, his social world included a friendship with Eugenio Pacelli, later to become Pius XII.⁴ Regarding Hitler however, there would be no misunderstanding his feelings, as he referred to the reign of the National Socialists as:

The Regime of the Devil⁴

In the purge of artists, musicians and academics in 1933, Walter, like many lost his post and fled to Vienna, and until the Anschluss (1938-9) continued his work, appearing between 1933 and '36 in Amsterdam and New York as well. Walter's daughter was arrested by the Nazis in Vienna while he was visiting in France, although he was able to bring about her release. ⁴ As the German army though occupied Austria, the same German-Jewish musicians and artists were again forced to flee before the invading Nazis, and Walter was able to travel to France and then Switzerland, and later expatriated to the United States.

Bruno Walter: A Conductor With and Without a Country

When Bruno Walter arrived in the United States, he spent much of his time between New York and the Los Angeles area, eventually conducting the NBC Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, as well as guest-conductorships at the LA Philharmonic,and the Metropolitan Opera, where he, like Mahler his predecessor mentored another famous Jewish conductor by the name of Leonard Bernstein. in the 1940s. In 1946 he obtained citizenship, and in his later years moved to Beverly Hills CA where he lived among other German expatriates including the writer Thomas Mann (Look Homeward Angel). Walter's influence was also felt in the movie industry, laying the foundation for 'movie music' moving to a higher art form than its early beginnings.

Music and Justice

Bruno Schlesinger Walter died in 1962 in the United States, having provided one of the most significant influences on Modern music in all realms, both in Europe and the United States as both a staid and somewhat conservative Classical musician, though a pioneer in modern Opera forms, and the emerging musical forms of Television and the Film Industry. While many can not see beyond the bitter injustice of a great Conductor and Pianist being ousted based solely on racial issues in the Third Reich, by the end of his life, there was a sense of immanent justice. His music continued and grew, though his posts were robbed from him. His influence grew worldwide in his positions in the United States where contemporary media was in its nativity. He lost his students and staff, yet fostered such as Leonard Bernstein who brought classical music back in the 20th century to School children internationally: there could have been little more done in a lifetime.

One acquaintance of Walter's in Germany had been another widely known composer: Pfitziner,⁵ alternating as friend and rival, who authored "Palestrina". Pfitziner had taken appointments from the Nazis and looked the other way at Walter's dismissal and exile. In his later years, his 'rival-friend-adversary' was bankrupt and lived off opportunities sought from Bruno Walter. The gifted classical composer and conductor who loved Mozart, though nearly losing his life and losing most of what he owned in the 1930s, later became even more eminent and influential than he could have imagined, in divine justice.

Quotes by Walter | Biography | Bruno Walter Conducts Mozart's Requiem | Theme and Variation: An Autobiography | Of Music and Making⁶ by Bruno Walter |