Andrew Carlan said with regard to my question about his ranking of
conductors:

>Felix Delbruck from the little place down-under lays this trap:

I'm sorry, I give you my word my posting was written with no (at least no
conscious) intention to trip you up.  To be honest, I was so taken aback by
the thorny thickets of your Wagner posting I wasn't even going to try to
venture in there ;-).

I haven't heard any recordings by Pfitzner yet, but I've heard about the
reputedly wonderful 6th Beethoven symphony.  Just two days ago, I bought
Mengelberg's famous recording of Strauss's 'Hero's Life' from 1928 and have
added a new conductor to my own pantheon.  The man is the Josef Hofmann of
the orchestra - the same 'speaking' tone-colours, free and eloquent
phrasing, astonishing transparency, and wonderfully sprung rhythm.

'Anti-Nazi prejudice' wasn't in any way a jab at you specifically.  The
fact is that there are quite a few people who will reject men like these
outright for their political decisions, and I am not at all sure to what
extent that is justified.  I'm in no doubt that the anti-Furtwaengler
hysteria in the USA was stupidly self-righteous and over the top.  Pfitzner
on the other hand was, as far as I can gather, a very nasty and embittered
character indeed.

You asked yourself:

>"how could someone who could understand that Beethoven was poking
>fun at himself take that inflated Corporal seriously?

As far as I can gather, P's motivation for supporting the Nazis was
specifically connected with his own musical paranoia.  He hated all
avant-guarde music and had for years already fiercely campaigned against
it, and he seems to have been mainly drawn to the Nazi reactionary stand
on music and culture.  I think that's about as far as it went for him.
Certainly, he was not paranoid or hate-filled about Beethoven, so he may
very well have been able to play him in a relaxed and highly humane manner.

>Mengelberg was a little more sinister.  He fostered Mahler's music as no
>one else did.  But he saw the writing on the NEAR wall.  Too bad, he was
>so shortsighted.

That's what you can probably rightly accuse all three conductors of,
in different degrees: a certain moral egocentrism or lack of political
perspective. P. was obsessed with his musical politics. Furtwaengler on one
level I admire enormously as a person - he wasn't a wilting flower in the
face of the Nazis, and you can even say that it took a lot of courage to
stick it out in Germany rather than pack it all in, like Thomas Mann, who
lived in comfortable security in California and was free to pontificate
from the moral high ground. But while his decision to continue to support
his orchestra and music in Germany was morally upright on one level, it was
a purely personal morality, and it allowed F. to overlook the political
obligations that arose from his prominence and standing in the German and
international cultural scene.

There's the rub, the political shortsightedness, and no doubt that was also
Mengelberg's failing.  But why was he more sinister than Pf.? Because he
was less overtly vindictive and paranoid than Pfitzner, and therefore more
insidious? - but surely that should go in his favour.  To say the truth, I
don't know at all enough about M.'s circumstances - that was the reason why
I was scanning the list archives for him.  In the end, of course, he was
treated far more harshly than either Pf.  or F - stripped of his honours
by the Queen personally and booted out of the country.  My instincts tell
me very strongly that that degree of punishment was unjustified, that the
man was a scape-goat, but who knows.  To what lengths did his accomodation
of the Nazis go? What happened, for instance, to Jewish members of his
orchestra? Did he conduct in other occupied territories than Holland
itself? To what extent did he approve of the Nazis' political line?
Pfitzner did to an extent, Furtwaengler, as far as I'm aware, not at all.

As regards my opinion on Wagner, you'll be familiar with it from my other
postings on that subject.  Yes, Wagner was an ego-maniac, and there are
traces of that in the operas, but there is also a great deal more, and if
you only see megalomania lurking everywhere in his works, you yourself are
missing out on a great deal of wider human insight.

Felix Delbruck
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