Steve Schwatz replies to me:

>I don't know whom you've been reading, but Schoenberg was anything but
>straightforward - he was quite often careerist.

That's fine but in this particular instance I see little that is careerist
about Schoenberg.  We see just a passing comment about the character of a
man from someone who knew him privately.  While the point could be argued
endlessly I do not necessarily think Schoenberg was being vindictive
towards Walter.  Whatever the case I certainly did not use the expression
'impartial' to describe Schoenberg.  That is mainly because it could be
argued that nobody's comments about another person character could ever be
regarded as 'objective'.

>The most famous instance I would say is his treatment of Weill - so
>friendly to Weill that he nominated him to the Prussian Academy of Arts.
>Friendly until Weill's success outstripped his own - then Schoenberg
>excommunicated Weill from serious discussion of Modern Music.

They had a fall out.  That is fine by me.  The same thing happened between
Schoenberg and Richard Strauss.

>...  he flattered Stokowski to perform his works and, when that happened,
>privately badmouthed the performances.

In other words the performances did not live up to his high expectations
as you can for example read in the letters where Schoenberg critisises
Stokowski's recording of Gurrelieder.

>Schoenberg's memorial tribute to Gershwin - a composer, incidentally, I
>like very much - is sufficiently fulsome, but Schoenberg scholars have
>combed over it for insincerities.  They wouldn't have done that if
>Schoenberg was in the habit of speaking his mind directly.

I don't necessarily think that Schoenberg was being insincere towards
his long time tennis partner.  There is also an essay in which Schoenberg
expresses obvious delight at the Blue Danube Waltz.  He even calls it a
masterpiece.  He tended to regard Gershwin in the same sort of light:
with warm affection if not with deep reverence.

>Well, here's a suggestion.  Both Klemperer and Furtwaengler, unlike Walter
>(Mahler excepted), still did a lot of modern music.  Perhaps it was a
>matter of getting one's foot in the door.

The example of Stokowski clearly shows that merely doing lots of
modern music didn't stop a conductor from being thoroughly critisised by
Schoenberg.  Schoenberg expresses admiration for Klemperer as a conductor
long after their fall out with respect to at least to dodecaphony.

>>Even a close friend such as Thomas Mann remarked that Walter for example
>>owned a hugh stereo system at home on which he played 'nothing except
>>himself'.
>
>No, the comments are different.  In Mann's comment, you see a child's
>vanity.  In Schoenberg's, you get something more sinister.

I am not so sure myself.  Of course it is all a matter of interpretation
so I shall flatly refuse to labour the point, but I personally tend to see
in it a comment that reveals a deep seated egoism in this conductor.  His
friends may have joked about it and tolerated him (friends being friends)
but for someone not so close to Walter as Schoenberg it clearly came across
as something intolerable.

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to endulge in some character
assassination of Walter.  In fact I agree totally with Schoenberg:  Walter
IS a "magnificent conductor".  However I take issue with the sickly angelic
stereotypes of him as a conductor.  At his finest Walter has a frightening
demonic intensity which makes nonsense of these stereotypes.  It is
presicely that which I admire him for.  He is one of my very favourite
conductors.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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