The Political Orchestra

The Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics

During the Third Reich

By Fritz Trumpi

Translated by Kenneth Kronenberg

University of Chicago Press, 327pp, HB, 35 [pounds sterling]

ISBN 978-0-226-25139-4 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-226-25142-4 (e-book)

Despite its title, this is not another penny dreadful about music in the Third Reich. First, it is a genuine work of scholarship; secondly, it is not confined to the years 1933-45. As Dr Triimpi observes, the politicisation of classical music in Germany began, not with the Nazis, but with the 1914-18 war. And his story goes further back than that.

The Vienna Philharmonic began life in 1842 as a fellowship of local musicians who drew their livelihood from the court opera. By the 1880s, this private orchestral association had joined the state-sponsored opera as one of the jewels in Vienna's imperial crown. But already a new creature was on the prowl: Bismarck's German Reich, which in 1882 spawned its own Philharmonic. Though entirely independent of the state, the Berlin Philharmonic quickly came to mirror the aggressive 'Made in Germany' brand that was now challenging Europe's older industrial, military and cultural hegemonies. Nor was this simply a commercial challenge. The new Reich's Orchestra looked and sounded different:...