Bartók Against the Nazis? Or How to Become a 'Musician of Freedom' in a Post-Totalitarian State...

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Bartók Against the Nazis? Or How to Become a ‘Musician

of Freedom’ in a Post-Totalitarian State.

Nicolò Palazzetti

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris)

Nicolò Palazzetti – Music under German Occupation – Manchester – 1 April 2015

‘Bartokian wave’ of Italian post-war culture

1940s-1950s • Gian Francesco Malipiero: String Quartet No. 6 (1947);

Symphony No. 5 (1947), etc. • Alfredo Casella: Concerto for piano, strings, timpani and

percussion, Op. 69 (1943). • Goffredo Petrassi: Noche Oscura (1950); Concertos for orchestra

No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 (1951-54), etc.. • Giacinto Scelsi: String Quartet No. 1 (1944). • Bruno Maderna: String Quartet No. 1 (1945); Concerto for two

piano and orchestra (1947-49), etc. • Franco Donatoni: String Quartet No. 1 (1950); Concertino for

brass, timpani and strings (1952), etc. • Massimo Mila, Brunello Rondi, Mario Zafred, Roman Vlad,

Diego Carpitella, etc.: music critics. • Aurel M. Milloss: choreographer.

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Bartók was the expression of absolute freedom. GOFFREDO PETRASSI (1986), Una biografia raccontata dall’autore e raccolta da Enzo Restagno [A Biography Told by the Composer and Written by Enzo Restagno], in Enzo Restagno (ed.) (1986), Petrassi, EDT: Torino, p. 34.

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MASSIMO MILA (1947), ‘Béla Bartók. Compagno e grande musicista’ [Béla Bartók. Comrade and Great Musician], L’Unità, 14 December 1947.


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The faith in the power of freedom and a genuine solidity rooted in folk tradition constitute the spiritual environment that informs Bartók’s creativity. We acknowledge Béla Bartók as “the musician of freedom”. MASSIMO MILA (1947), Béla Bartók. Compagno e grande musicista [Béla Bartók. Comrade and Great Musician], «L’Unità», 14th December 1947.


Where was Bartók to be situated amid the matrix of Communism, Nazism, nationalism and capitalistic democracy? [...] He was claimable for Communism [...] because of his membership of the Music Directorate under Béla Kun’s [...] Communist government in 1919, for nationalism because of his early anti-Habsbourg sentiments [...], and for capitalistic democracy because of his decision to take refuge in America. Bartók was certainly no Nazi, yet was equally not the stalwart figure of resistance beloved of the biographies. MALCOLM GILLIES (2001), Bartók in America, in Amanda Bayley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Bartók, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 190-201: 192-193.


Given his reputation as ‘easily the most outspoken antifascist’ of the modernist composers [the definition is Taruskin’s], it comes as a surprise to learn that Bar tók encouraged Ger man performances of his music after 1933. [...] His absence from German concert halls after 1933 [as a pianist] was not [...] for ideological reasons, but rather due to lack of engagements. JOAN EVANS (2003), ‘Stravinsky’s Music in Hitler’s Germany’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 525–594: 585-587.


•  Philosophical continuity between Modernism and Fascist Ideology.


• Cultural resistance of Fascist Italy to Nazi Germany (especially after 1938).

• Historical continuity between Fascist and Cold War Italy.

ROGER D. GRIFFIN (2007), Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler, Palgrave Macmillan.


Modernism is still constructed as a cultural phenomenon having a natural affinity with (left-wing) socio-political phenomena. In contrast, we are presenting it [...] as a palingenetic force that can express itself directly in revolutionary social and political movements, left and right. [...] ‘Modernism’ can provide a tool for understanding why fascism could attract the allegiance of some avant-garde artists. ROGER D. GRIFFIN (2007), Modernism and Fascism: the Sense of a Beginning under Musssolini and Hitler, Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke (UK), pp. 67-69.


Alfredo Ambrosi, Aeroritratto di mussolini aviatore (1930)

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Giuseppe Terragni, Monumento ai caduti (1933), Como Gerardo Dottori, Trittico della velocità: la corsa

(1927)

•  1923-28: Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche •  1930: Festival Internationale di Musica Contemporanea, Venice •  1932: Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena •  1933: Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence


Bartók’s reception in Italy

• 1911: Bartók’s music is performed in Italy for the first time (Rome) • 1925-29; 1939: Bartók’s piano performances in Italy • 1936: Italian premiere (Venice) of String Quartet No. 5 • 1937: Italian premiere (Venice) of Music for strings, percussion and celesta • 1938: Italian premiere (Florence) of Bluebeard’s Castle • 1939: Italian premiere (Venice) of Sonata for 2 pianos and percussion (B. Bartók and D. Pásztory) • 1942: Italian premiere of The Miraculous Mandarin (Teatro alla Scala, choreography: A. Milloss).


Rapallo (Liguria), Italy

Sanremo (Liguria), Italy


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Engelbert Dollfuss, Benito Mussolini and Gyula Gömbös

Galeazzo Ciano (Foreign Minister of Fascist Italy),

Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring


Without recanting the heinous prohibitions signed by both parties (against Jewish, Bolshevik and anti-German composers), Fascist musical c u l t u r e t r i e s t o c l a i m i t s independence. FIAMMA NICOLODI (2013), Gli esordi della Scuola di Vienna in Italia fino alla seconda guerra mondiale [The Viennese School’s Reception in Italy until Second World War], «Rivista italiana di musicologia», pp. 211-243: 241.


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Rome, early 1940: Chamber and piano works by Berg, Hindemith, Stravinsky.


Opera di Roma – La Scala (Milan), autumn 1942: •  A. Berg, Wozzeck •  B. Bartók, The Miraculous Mandarin. •  F. Busoni, Arlecchino •  L. Dallapiccola, Volo di notte •  A. Honegger, Amphion •  G. F. Malipiero, I capricci di Caillot •  C. Orff, Carmina burana •  G. Petrassi, Coro di morti

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Attilia Radice as Chosen One

(The Rite of Spring)


The Rite of Spring (Roma 1941), choreography: Aurel M. Milloss

Aurel M. Milloss as Petrushka

Aurel M. Milloss : Il Mandarino meraviglioso

Teatro alla Scala, 12 octobre 1942 (recorded and broadcast)

Based on the story by Menyhért Lengyel. Set and costumes designer: Enrico Prampolini. Choreography: Aurel M. Milloss. Music: Béla Bartók (A Csodálatos Mandarin, pantomime in one act, Op. 19, 1918-19, revised in 1924 and in 1926-31). Main performers: Attilia Radice (La ragazza), Aurel M. Milloss (Mandarino); János Ferencsik (conductor).

Further performances: Teatro Adriano, Rome – December 1945.

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Enrico Prampolini, Set design for The Miraculous Mandarin (1942)


Aurel M. Milloss dancing The Miraculous Mandarin


Béla Bartók experienced an immense sorrow when he came to know that his homeland had being occupied and destroyed by a blind and cruel war. [...] But he was aware to have raised [...], through his Art, a monument for Hungary that could not be destroyed [...] by any human tragedy. ALFREDO CASELLA (1947), In memoria di Béla Bartók, Biblioteca dell’Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma: Roma, pp. 7-8.


Nicolò Palazzetti – CRAL/EHESS

[email protected]

https://ehess.academia.edu/NicoloPalazzetti


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