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the print version of this title.]



Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky

Yale University Press New Haven and London

 Frontispiece: Bruno Walter (ca. ).
Courtesy of sterreichisches Theatermuseum.

Copyright by Yale University.

All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ryding, Erik S.,
Bruno Walter : a world elsewhere / by Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references, filmography, and indexes.
ISBN --- (cloth : alk. paper)
. Walter, Bruno, . . Conductors (Music)
Biography. I. Pechefsky, Rebecca. II. Title.
ML.W R
. dc
[B] -

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.

 For Emily, Mary, and William
In memoriam Rachel Kemper and Howard Pechefsky
 Contents

Illustrations follow pages and

Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv

Bruno Schlesinger
Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg,

Kapellmeister Walter
Breslau, Pressburg, Riga, Berlin,

Mahlers Second-in-Command
Vienna,

Composer and Conductor
Vienna,

Premiere Performances
Vienna and Munich,

Generalmusikdirektor
Munich,

Delia
Munich,

New and Old Worlds
USA and Berlin,

A New Opera Company
Berlin,

Gewandhauskapellmeister
Leipzig,

Nomad Again

Dies Irae
Vienna and Paris,

Guest Conductor on Two Coasts
New York and Los Angeles,

Musical Adviser
New York,

Gains and Losses
Los Angeles, New York, Europe,

Mostly Mozart

C
viii

Columbia Symphony Orchestra
Los Angeles,

Recommended Discographies
Filmography by Charles Barber
Notes
Index

C
ix
 Preface

During his sixty-seven years at the podium, Bruno Walter touched a huge
number of listeners. At their greatest, his interpretations were revelatory, as
audiences and critics acknowledged throughout his career. He succeeded
again and again in discovering the essence of a musical composition and af-
fording his listeners a passage to its inward panorama. He could make the
opening theme of Beethovens Fifth sound as fresh as a newly composed
work, and he could galvanize Wagner and Verdi with an unsurpassed dra-
matic electricity. In doing so, he not only revealed the soul of the music he in-
terpreted but also brought his listeners, through art, nearer to the passions
and ecstasies and tragedies of lifeall of which he knew from firsthand ex-
perience.
Walters story constantly skirts tragedy yet finds a comparatively happy
ending. An impassioned devotee of German art, he found himself perse-
cuted by German nationalists as the Nazi Party gained momentum. He held
key musical positions in Austria and Germany during the first two decades
of the twentieth century and was friendly with some of the leading com-
posers and authors of his day. Then the troubles began. Expelled first from
Munich, then from Germany, then from Austria, and finally from Europe,
Walter settled in the United States, where he would successfully reestablish
his career. In this regard (though in few others) he somewhat resembled the
ancient Roman war hero Coriolanus, who fought for his country but,
through the political maneuverings of others, found himself an exile and ul-
timately joined the enemy forces. In Shakespeares version of the story, as
Coriolanus leaves Rome, he utters the famous line There is a world else-
where, from which we have taken our subtitle. The words, however, also
seem appropriate for Walter if taken in a different sense, for throughout his
mature life he was committed to the spiritual world, which had greater im-
portance to him than anything on this temporal globe. In his final years he
became a devoted student of the teachings of Rudolf Steiner and thought
continually about the higher spheres and the dangers of materialism.
Assessments of Walter have varied over the years. Many have praised
him for his sincerity, warmth, and musical genius, though in recent times
some have been quick to characterize him as a sentimental, ambitious hyp-
ocrite. The truth, as is often the case, lies somewhere between the extremes.
He was not a saint and had no desire to be treated as such. One can cite in-
stances of backbiting, narrow-mindedness, and prevaricationwhich point
to a distinctly unattractive side of his personalitybut these were the excep-
tion rather than the rule. We have followed almost every day of his long ca-
reer from about to , scouring thousands of letters to and from Wal-
ter, and have interviewed over sixty people who had known him personally
or worked with him professionally. The picture that emerges is of a man who
was for the most part generous, open-minded, forgiving, and loyal to his
friends. He could be evasive, especially when the feelings of others might be
hurt, but he could also be brutally honest if a situation called for bluntness.
In searching for news of Walters activities, we have combed through
well over , reviewsmost of them in German and Austrian newspa-
persand there is no question that positive accounts of Walters contribu-
tion to music have far outweighed negative ones, though certainly a chorus
hostile to Walter existed almost from the beginning of his career. Without
overloading the reader with passages from contemporary journals and
newspapers, we have tried to give a balanced picture of Walters critical re-
ception, offering a somewhat greater percentage of negative reviews than we
actually encounteredpartly in an attempt to be even-handed, partly be-
cause critical reviews are often more revealing (both of Walters stylistic
manner and of his critics prejudices) than sterling reports.
The most frequently cited grievances against Walter as a conductor are
that he was too sentimental and that his beat was unclear. Here its
surely best to turn to Walters recordings and draw ones own conclusions.
What seems sentimental to some might strike others as deeply sensitive; an
unclear beat to one listener might sound like subtle rhythmic flexibility to
another. While the relaxed tempi in some of Walters later recordings seem
flabby, unadventurous, and too gemtlich to some ears, those very record-
ings offer a mature, unhurried beauty, wedded to an almost erotic caressing
of the lines, that few Walterians would be without. Even the most committed
enthusiasts, however, will allow that some of Walters stylistic peculiarities
could be unfortunate; his tendency, especially in the earlier recordings, to
slow down for the lyrical themes in works by classical composers like
Mozart, even when the execution is skillfully carried off, can be disruptive
and disconcerting. (This was, of course, a characteristic not of Walter alone,
but of several generations of post-Wagnerian conductors; it is almost absent
P
xii
in his last recordings.) And his aversion to repeating the exposition in sonata
form sometimes resulted in lopsided structure. But many will gladly tolerate
such idiosyncrasies in return for the sumptuous musical banquet that Walter
served.
Complaints of another kind dogged Walter for decadesindeed, when-
ever he performed before anti-Semitic critics. In some cases, the racial mo-
tives for a critics animosity are made abundantly clear throughout a review,
but in many instances the tastes of the critics could not obviously be attrib-
uted to racial bias. There are, for example, devastating reviews of Walters
original compositions that trounce him for lacking a genuinely creative gift
a line of attack often leveled at Mahler by those who believed that Jews were
incapable of originality and higher creativity. Its tempting to see such at-
tacks on Walter as part of the general propaganda against Jewish composers;
yet one of the loudest critics in this vein was the Jewish reviewer Julius Korn-
gold (father of the wunderkind composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold), whose
attacks were hardly likely to have been prompted by a political or racial aver-
sion to music composed by Jews. On the other hand, the Munich critic Paul
Ehlers, who supported the Nazi Party early on, rarely wrote a harsh word
about Walter over the course of several years.
Walters style has often been characterized as lyrical, but perhaps vo-
cal would be a more accurate term. To be sure, Walter continually urged his
players to sing, but singing is not just lyricism. Sing out, yes, but always
with different inflections; sing recitativo as well as arioso. In Walters inter-
pretations, we are often aware of intense drama; it is most obvious in the
realm of opera, but the purely symphonic works are also often charged with
feral energy. Even when his readings reach a frenzied pitch, however, the in-
struments are allowed to breathe, to create resonant tones that fit into deftly
shaped lines; in prestissimo passages, one almost never feels that the instru-
ments are gasping for breath. And the vocal model no doubt provided the
textural ideal that Walter strove to achieve: the polyphonic fabric of his or-
chestral timbres surely owes a debt to the harmonies of human voices, where
a subordinate line rarely serves as mere accompaniment but almost always
has its own identity.
In his relations with orchestral musicians, Walter was perhaps the first
world-renowned conductor to achieve a reputation for treating his players
with courtesy rather than roughness, putting himself forward as primus in-
ter pares. His disapproval was often expressed with the genial formula: My
friends, I am not quite happy. Please, once again. But this is not to say that
P
xiii
he was a pushover; in fact, for all his courtliness, he could be quite firm with
his players, until they gave him what he felt they were capable of giving.
Gentlemen, please give me my piano, he would say again and again, almost
possessively. As Isaac Stern has remarked: He was just as much an autocrat
in his gentle way as Toscanini was in an explosive way. . . . But in a sense a
musician must be, because above all a performer has to impose his will,
firstly upon the orchestra, if hes a conductor, and then upon the audience,
and that imposition of will comes from an inner strength and conviction at all
times. 1
Throughout his career, Walter was regarded as one of the greatest inter-
pretive masters of the orchestral repertoire. In , when Hans Joachim
Mosers Musik Lexikon appeared in Berlin (a city that had effectively ousted
Walter for racial motives two years before), the entry for Walterhis inclu-
sion was a surprise in itselfastonishingly referred to the Jewish-born musi-
cian as one of the most outstanding conductors of the present time.2 Al-
though short books on Walter began to appear as early as , there has
been no serious study of Walters life in English since the publication of his
own autobiography in .3 This is extraordinary, given both his impor-
tance as a twentieth-century figure and the wealth of primary sources avail-
able, which could furnish material for a study many times the length of the
current volume. Ours is the first account of Walters life to make full use of
the Bruno Walter Papers at the New York Public Library for the Performing
Arts, which contains some seven thousand letters to and from the conduc-
tor. In addition, we have combed through the substantial collections of the
New York Philharmonic and Concertgebouw archives (each containing sev-
eral hundred letters connected to Walter), and numerous smaller reposito-
ries of Walteriana, such as the Daniel Gregory Mason Collection at Colum-
bia University and the Alma Mahler Werfel Collection at the University of
Pennsylvania. Despite the temptation to add passages from every letter and
every review that excited our interest, we have tried to be selective with our
sources and to construct a readable narrative, in the hope that this biogra-
phy, which necessarily omits much, will serve as an introduction to a life rich
in event and richer still in musical achievement.

P
xiv
 Acknowledgments

We are grateful first and foremost to those peopleseveral of whom have

since passed awaywho shared their memories of Walter with us, even if
some of the interview material sadly but inevitably ended up on the cutting-
room floor: Kurt Adler, Pierrette Alarie, Lucine Amara, Georges Andre,
Julius Baker, Rose Bampton, Samuel Baron, Schuyler Chapin, Van Cliburn,
James Decker, Ranier De Intinis, Norman Dello Joio, Thea Dispeker,
Maureen Forrester, Thomas Frost, Felix Galimir, Irma Geering, Maxim
Gershunoff, Loren Glickman, Albert Goltzer, Ernst Haefliger, Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, Walter Hendl, Jerome Hines, Laurel Hurley, Eugene Istomin,
David Kates, Igor Kipnis, Henry-Louis de La Grange, Siegmund Levarie,
William and Mary Lincer, David Lloyd, Ruth Martin, Kurt Masur, John
McClure, Homer Mensch, Yehudi Menuhin, Alfio Micci, Arnold Michaelis,
Mildred Miller, George Neikrug, Morris Newman, Jarmila Novotn, David
Oppenheim, Martin Ormandy, Roberta Peters, Regina Resnik, Elsy
Ruschmann, Virginia Sease, Lopold Simoneau, Johannes Somary, Maria
Stader, Jnos Starker, Ris Stevens, Wolfgang Stresemann, Nathan Stutch,
Koho Uno, Theodor and Jean Uppman, William Vacchiano, Sandra War-
field, William Warfield, Theodore White, Frances Yeend, Manuel Zegler,
and Bruno Zirato Jr.
Three devout Walterians, who were extraordinarily generous with their
time and knowledge, deserve special mention: James Altena and Rolland
Parker, who read through the entire manuscript in an earlier form and of-
fered countless helpful suggestions for improvement, and Jon Samuels, who
shared with us a large body of information on Walters recordings and later
concert programs, which Jon had gathered over the years.
Special thanks must also go to the New York Philharmonics archivist/
historian,Barbara Haws,and to her colleagues Richard Wandel and Michele
Smith. Barbara has served as an invaluable guide through the well-stocked
archives of the Philharmonicwhich include letters, contracts, live record-
ings, and memorabilia of immense valueand has also helped to bring some
of Walters long-lost broadcast recordings into circulation again.
Many others who helped with this biography have earned our heartfelt
thanks: Jean van Altena, Allan Altman, Lisa Amend (Bayerische Staatsbib-
liothek), Jean Ashton (director, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Colum-
bia University), Stefana Atlas, Paul Banks, Charles Barber, JoAnne E. Barry
(archivist, the Philadelphia Orchestra), Gregor Benko, Claudius Bhm
(archives, Leipzig Gewandhaus), Andrew Bolotowsky, Joseph Boonin, John
Canarina, Edward Cardona, Bridget P. Carr (archivist, Boston Symphony
Orchestra), Matt Cavaluzzo, Donald Chankin, Sedgwick Clark, George
Dansker, James Dixon, Stephanie Dyson (archives, Boston Symphony Or-
chestra), Michelle Errante, Mary Ann Feldman (program annotator and mu-
sic adviser, Minnesota Orchestra), Roland Folter, Anthony Fountain, Ernes-
tine Franco, Anita and Erika Frey, Walter Frisch, Takashi Fujita, Ernest
Gilbert, Stanley Gillman (Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation), Johan
Giskes (historian, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra), Marie-Luise Hahn
(Deutsches Exilarchiv 19331945, Die Deutsche Bibliothek in Frankfurt
am Main), Tom Halliday, Jane Halpern, Gerda Hanf (Internationale Gustav
Mahler Gesellschaft), Harry Haskell (Yale University Press), Johanna
Hegenscheidt, Clemens Hellsberg (president and archivist, Wiener Philhar-
moniker), Mary Hurlbut, Betty Izant (festival archivist, Ojai Festivals, Ltd.),
Jane Jackson (archives, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), William
Josephson, Jack Kamerman,Lars Karlsson (Royal Stockholm Philharmonic
Orchestra), Ann Kersting-Meuleman (Musik- und Theaterabteilung, Stadt-
und Universittsbibliothek, Frankfurt am Main), James Klain, Friedrich
Kleinknecht (chairman, Musikalische Akademie), Lotte Klemperer, Loanne
Rios Kong, Karen Kopp, Orly Krasner, Michael Lalla, Lars Larson (Mu-
nich), David Lennick, Victor Litwinski, Luca Logi (librarian, Maggio Musi-
cale Fiorentino), David Lowenherz, Wes Madison (library assistant, Cincin-
nati Symphony Orchestra), Victor Marshall (artistic administrator, Dallas
Symphony Orchestra), H. Ward Marston, James North, Miwako Nozawa-
Burleigh, Margaret Otzel, Emily Pechefsky, John Pennino (archives, Metro-
politan Opera), Lisa Philpott (University of Western Ontario), Debra Pod-
jed (Publications Department, San Francisco Symphony), Herbert Poetzl
(Max Reinhardt Archive, Binghamton University, State University of New
York), Doug Pomeroy, Edward Reilly, Steve Reveyoso, Philippe Reynal,
Richard Rodzinski, Dennis D. Rooney, Angela Rckschloss (Stadtarchiv
Wrzburg), Karin Ryding, William Ryding, Harvey Sachs, Luitgard
Schader (Paul-Hindemith-Institut, Frankfurt am Main), Edith Schipper,
Helga Scholz (librarian, Universitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vi-
enna), Axel Schrder (Landesarchiv Berlin), Jarrett Seals, Michele Selvini,
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Peter Serkin, William Shank, Nancy Shawcross (Special Collections divi-
sion of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania), Wade
Smith, Steve Smolian, Henriette Straub (archives, Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra), Mary Jean Stresemann, Brigita Stroda (Latvian National
Opera), Hajime Suga, Don Tait, Anthony Thomas, Teri Noel Towe, Robert
Tuggle (director, archives, Metropolitan Opera), J. Rigbie Turner (Pierpont
Morgan Library, New York), Sam Ugbo (Munich), Koho Uno, Frank Villella
(archives, Chicago Symphony Orchestra), Vita and Ishmael Wallace (the Or-
feo Duo), Johann Weissensteiner (Dizesanarchiv, Vienna), Nra Wellmann
(archives, Budapest Opera), Irene Wenkel (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Antje
Werkmeister (Berliner Staatsoper), Warren Wernick, Fredric W. Wilson,
Seth Winner, Elizabeth Witherell (Special Collections, University of Cali-
fornia at Santa Barbara), and Claude Zachary (University Archives and
Manuscripts, University of Southern California).
We are also grateful to the following institutions: Brooklyn Public Li-
brary; Bundesarchiv (Berlin); Columbia University (New York); Czech
Philharmonic; Deutsches Theatermuseum (Munich); Goetheanum (Dor-
nach); Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.); sterreichische National-
bibliothek (Vienna); sterreichisches Theatermuseum (Vienna); Prinz-
regententheater (Munich); Sony Music Entertainment; Staatsbibliothek
(Berlin); Staatsbibliothek (Munich); TASIS, The American School in
Switzerland (Montagnola); Texas Christian University (Fort Worth); and
Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut).
Finally, we owe an enormous debt to all the helpful librarians at the New
York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with its invaluable resources,
particularly Karl Baranoff, Frances Barulich, George Boziwick, Charles Eu-
banks, Tema Hecht, Robert Kosovsky, John Shepard, and Channan Willner.

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Bruno Schlesinger
Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

A beautiful song, a masterly song

How shall I grasp the difference?
Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg

Wagners Ring cycle received its first complete performance in

August . The works dimensions are huge even by operatic
standards, its entire duration sometimes exceeding fifteen hours.
A special theater was constructed in the out-of-the-way German
city of Bayreuth specifically to stage the tetralogy, and audience
members dutifully set aside four days to take in this tour de force,
one day for each installment of the cycle.In its richness and scope,
the work extended the limits of opera far beyond anything previ-
ously imagined, somewhat as Tolstoys War and Peace, written at
roughly the same time, reset the boundaries for the novel.
If Wagners Ring signified the quintessential romantic deliv-
erance from classical musical constraints, an event that took place
shortly afterwardthe premiere of Johannes Brahmss Sym-
phony no. , presented on November , marked a move in a
very different direction. This too was a large-scale orchestral
work, employing the melodic and harmonic language of the later
nineteenth century,yet it was written with due reverence to classical
ideals. Balance, compact motivic development, artfully restrained

passion, and an adherence to familiar forms were all among the earmarks of
Brahmss first completed effort in the symphonic genre.
Grand in scope, both works demanded a virtuoso leader to keep the
large forces together, to mold the thick textures into coherent works of art,
and to tease out melodic strands from the rich fabric of sound.Each required
an interpreter with insight and imagination, not just a time-beater. Between
the premieres of these two nineteenth-century masterpieces fell the birth of
Bruno Schlesinger, who would become not only a major interpreter of
Brahms and Wagner but also one of the foremost conductors of the twenti-
eth century, capable of both classic refinement and ecstatic surrender.
The son of Joseph and Johanna Schlesinger (ne Fernbach), he was
born on September , , not far from Alexanderplatz, at Bschings-
platz and Mehnerstrasse, Corner no. .1 His was a middle-class, Jewish
family residing in the northern section of Berlin.He had a brother,Leo,three
years his senior, and in acquired a sister, Emma. While his father, a
bookkeeper in the garment industry, had a deep appreciation of music, it was
his mother who possessed the actual talent and training, having attended the
Stern Conservatory, founded in by the choral conductor and peda-
gogue Julius Stern. With a mixture of affection and vexation, Johanna
Schlesinger recorded in a small collection of memoirs some of her sons ear-
liest accomplishments.These included such irksome habits as stuffing every
keyhole he could reach with paper cuttings and yanking pages out of musical
scores.
But Bruno also displayed prodigious musical talent at an early age, and
Johanna was the first to recognize her sons unusual abilities. At the age of
five he gave a hint of his future profession. His mother regularly took him to
the National Theater Garden, in which a little band entertained visitors.
One day, the band became the center of interest to Bruno, who, to every-
ones delight,set himself up before them and imitated every movement of the
conductor, without growing weary, and could not be removed before the
music had ended.2 His immovability on this occasion was paralleled by
stubbornness on others. It was difficult for Johanna to satisfy her sons cu-
riosity and to control his shifting moods; she could calm the wild little colt
only by playing for him at the piano. Then the little man listened, his mouth
agape, and sat fully enchanted by it, and one day he asked: Mama, does that
simply come out of your fingers, or are you doing something as well? Then
his mother placed him on her lap and showed him how the playing was ef-
fected; Bruno listened attentively to her words, then attempted to play on the
B S

keys. He said: Please, mother, let me learn how to play like you. Thereafter
he received daily lessons from his mother and made rapid progress.
In school he was an intelligent but not exemplary student, his imagina-
tion already rebelling against the shackles of routine as it would,in a different
way, later in his career. The dreamer in him made him forget his pencil to-
day, his tablet or notebook the next day, his mother wrote; yet when he
learned to read,he would devour books,relishing works like Robinson Crusoe
and the Leather-Stocking Tales, as well as legends of the ancient Greeks,
which he knew well enough to identify scenes from ancient mythology de-
picted in works of art at the museum.
Aware that her son had talent beyond the ordinary, Johanna told her hus-
band one day that she thought Bruno would develop into a great musician.
He laughed. Your maternal vanity is too great. I certainly think very
highly of my children and will be proud and satisfied if they become compe-
tent, good people, but I dont envision anything like that.
Time will tell, she replied.
Josephs attitude toward his son changed soon enough. The occasion
was a family wedding. The professional piano player, when asked by
Brunos uncle to let the boy play, shrugged his shoulders and unenthusiasti-
cally made room for him. Though unable to reach the pedals, Bruno played
Mendelssohns Song Without Words in F Major from memory. It was a rav-
ishing performance, according to his mothers partisan account, and the
professional pianist, predicting that the boy would indeed become great,
recommended taking him to the pianist and pedagogue Robert Radecke,
one of the artistic directors of the Stern Conservatory and a conductor at the
Berlin Royal Opera (as well as the composer of numerous lieder). Radecke
tested his ear, confirmed his mothers declaration that he had absolute pitch,
and admitted him to the conservatory.3 Radeckes assessment of Bruno
Schlesinger would remain with him for the rest of his life: Every inch of this
boy is music.
The conservatory was now developing and expanding under the direc-
torship of Jenny Meyer, his mothers former voice teacher, who took a special
interest in Johannas son. Entering the conservatory at the age of eight, Bruno
became known there as the little Mozart and soon enjoyed the attention of
the young ladies, who pampered and spoiled him, popping candies into his
open mouth; he would in fact enjoy the attention of female admirers for
much of his life.
At the age of nine, Bruno decided to try his hand at composition. His
B S

mother asked her children to think up a surprise for their fathers ap-
proaching birthday. Without reflecting long, Bruno shouted: I shall com-
pose a sonata for violin and piano and perform it with Leo [who had recently
begun violin studies].
But you have no idea how its done, his mother said.
Youll see; Ill be able to do it.
And indeed, without having any idea of theory or training in composi-
tion, he wrote a charming little duo. Unfortunately, his mother added, the
little piece has been lost, probably destroyed as a worthless thing by Bruno
himself. She knew her son well.
He made good progress at the conservatory, though at first he needed a
special elevating contrivance to allow his feet to reach the pedals. After a
brief preparatory period under Franz Manstdt, he was assigned to the ad-
vanced piano class taught by Heinrich Ehrlich, at that time the most eminent
piano and music-history teacher at the conservatory and a critic for the
Berliner Tageblatt, one of the citys most prestigious newspapers. Ehrlichs
course of study,to judge by his published technique manual,How to Practice
at the Piano, was both careful and rigorous, giving Walter a secure technique
that would stand him in good stead throughout the years to come.4
Indeed, by , the twelve-year-old Bruno appeared destined for a ca-
reer as a concert pianist. Not long after the Stern Conservatory had moved
to a more spacious building on Wilhelmstrasse, Ehrlich informed Herr
Schlesinger that his son was ready to play in public and arranged for him to
take part in a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic.5 According to the re-
views, the debut was a complete success; the Vossische Zeitung reported that
he made an especially impressive appearance, playing a movement from
Beethovens Concerto in B-flat Major with graceful polish and a robust, al-
most manlike tone. The Berliner Tageblatt was hardly less effusive, report-
ing that the boy Bruno Schlesinger played his first movement with full as-
surance and a freedom of expression reaching far beyond his age.6
In the year that followed, the young pianist continued to develop,
driven by his desire to interpret the great literature for the piano and inspired
by a concert he heard in Berlin by his contemporary, the prodigiously tal-
ented Josef Hofmann. His brilliant Berlin success, which I witnessed, and
his exceptional performance encouraged me in my own plans and hopes and
kindled my zeal, Walter related in his autobiography.7 In February he
performed again, this time in a concert that included both solo works (the

B S

first movement of Bachs Italian Concerto and Chopins Variations in B Ma-
jor) and ensemble (Moscheles Concerto in E-flat Major, once more with the
Berlin Philharmonic). The National Zeitung praised his passagework, the
reliability of his memory, andsignificantly for a musician who would
achieve fame for his work with othersthe assurance of his ensemble play-
ing, while the Vossische Zeitung commented on his natural phrasing and
rhythm; he gave no appearance of being drilled.8 He was passing beyond
the stage of mere student diligence and was already displaying the originality
of interpretation necessary to a true concert artist. Yet despite his serious de-
sire to excel as a musician, he lost none of his childlike nature while
preparing for his recital; when he finished work and his diligent practice,he
could jump and romp like a playful child.9
Bruno Schlesinger was displaying other talents as well, drawing acclaim
as accompanist for Jenny Meyers students. If that was not enough, he con-
tinued to compose, though he was later to dismiss his compositions from
that time as wholly lacking in originality.10 Developing concert pianist, ac-
complished vocal accompanist, and budding composer, the young musician
seemed set in his path. But a momentous experience soon changed his mu-
sical plans forever: he saw Hans von Blow conduct.
Until that time, Walter admitted later, he had scarcely noticed the con-
ductors of the Berlin Royal Opera and the Philharmonic. But now he was
seated on the stage, behind the timpani, with a full view of Blows facial ex-
pressions, and as he listened to the orchestras expressivity, it became clear
to him that it was that one man who was producing the music, that he had
transformed those hundred performers into his instrument, and that he was
playing it as a pianist played the piano. That evening decided my future.
Now I knew what I was meant for. No musical activity but that of an orches-
tral conductor could any longer be considered by me, no music could ever
make me truly happy but symphonic music.11
Walter, of course, was not the only one upon whom Blows conducting
made a deep impression. If Richard Wagner is to be believed, conducting
earlier in the nineteenth century left much to be desired; orchestra directors
were merely time-beating hacks, and some orchestras were even led by the
concertmaster (though, as various orchestras without conductors have
demonstrated, this in itself does not necessarily imply a lack of precision
or interpretive subtlety). Even competent conductors like Mendelssohn,
Wagner maintained, were too concerned with hurrying the music along;

B S

they lacked the rhythmic flexibility necessary for an expressive perfor-
mance. Wagners opinions of his predecessors must certainly be taken with a
grain of salt. Since he credits himself with being the first truly creative con-
ductor, he surely exaggerates the defects of those who came before him, and
Wagners prejudices (racial and musical) with regard to Mendelssohn are
well known. Nevertheless, Wagner must have infused his orchestras with a
remarkable intensity of expression, for those lucky enough to hear him con-
duct came away at once dazed and enlightened. Amy Fay, a young pianist
from Boston who saw Wagner conduct in Berlin in , described how he
controlled the orchestra as if it were a single instrument and he were play-
ing on it. He didnt beat the time simply, as most conductors do, but he had
all sorts of little ways to indicate what he wished.12 By all accounts, Wagner
is at least justified in claiming to be one of the first orchestra leaders to take
the burden of musical interpretation upon himself, and Hans von Blow was
his self-styled heir.
Both Walters and Felix Weingartners recollections of Blows con-
ducting accord with descriptions of Wagners method, in that the orchestra
seemed to be a single instrument, on which Blow played as on a pi-
anoforte.13 Weingartner, whom Walter would later encounter as Mahlers
successor in Vienna, went on to describe how valuable Blows concert
tours with the Meiningen orchestra in the s were for both players and
public: how, as a result of hearing them, other conductors and orchestra
members realized that it would not do to go on simply beating time and
playing away with the old reprehensible carelessness and thoughtlessness,
for that would certainly lower them in the eyes of the public, which, after
once having nibbled dainties at the table of the great, would no longer be
content with canteen-fare.14
Weingartners estimation of Blows musical choices, however, was far
from adulatory. In his essay on conducting, he described at some length
what he considered the harmful features of Blows conducting, first and
foremost of which was what he called Blows pedagogic element. In his
desire to make his interpretations audible to the listeners, Weingartner be-
lieved, Blow deliberately exaggerated his tempo modifications, took overall
tempi that were either too fast or too slow, and was prone to give excessive
prominence to details.15 Weingartner admitted that these exaggerations be-
came more pronounced at the end of Blows life,but that was the time when
Walter would have heard him, and Walter himself reported that a sublime
artistic purity shone from [Blows] interpretations. They were never
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marred by disturbing liberties.16 On the other hand, Walter confessed in
his own book on interpretation that in his youth he, too, was guilty of exces-
sive tempo modifications and that it took him some time to learn enough
from my mistakes to be able to correct them and attain to a purer style of
making music, so it is certainly possible that he remembered Blows inter-
pretations as sublime because they satisfied his youthful tendencies to-
ward over-expressivity.17 While it is always dangerous to judge a conductor
by performances from the last years of his life, the recordings of Weingartner
that have come down to us, particularly those of the Brahms symphonies
made with the London Symphony Orchestra ( ), reveal a conduct-
ing style given more to subtly expressive phrases, rhythmic tautness, and
clear dynamics than to changes in tempo, though Weingartner was certainly
capable of skillful rubato when the music demanded it.
We can never know just how exaggerated Blows tempo modifications
and interpretations of musical details really were, but Blows so-called ped-
agogic element had the effect of inspiring Walter to embark on a career as a
conductor. He continued his piano studies with as much effort as ever and
continued to accompany singers, an activity that he later stressed, both pub-
licly and privately, as being among the most necessary for aspiring conduc-
tors. But meanwhile he also gained admission to Robert Radeckes conduct-
ing class at the conservatory and found himself in the fertile lands of score
reading, thoroughbass (still considered an essential skill in those days), in-
strumentation, and eventually choral and orchestral rehearsals.
Most people passionately involved in music have had, in their adoles-
cence or later, a sudden encounter with a previously unfamiliar composer
that brings about a radical change in their musical tastes. What was once
considered the height of musical expression now seems dull and common-
place; what was foreign and strange, the reason for existence. The young
Bruno Schlesingers encounter was with Wagners Tristan und Isolde. At
that time, however, the Stern Conservatorys faculty, as well as Walters par-
ents, other relatives, and acquaintances, were mostly anti-Wagnerians, hold-
ing up Brahms as the true mainstay of the classical tradition and eschewing
Wagners recent operas, though Der fliegende Hollnder and Lohengrin
were considered acceptable. Hearing Wagner constantly denigrated had the
natural effect of making Walter curious, especially since he knew that one as-
pect of Wagner that his mentors considered dangerous was sensuality, which
he found rather interesting and by no means wicked.18 So he decided to
attend a performance of Tristan and judge for himself.
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 All the anticipatory excitement and high expectations in the world
could not have prepared him for the effect the music actually had on him. He
recalled how he sat in the topmost gallery of the Berlin Royal Opera House,
astonished and overwhelmed: Never before had my soul been so deluged
with floods of sound and passion, never had my heart been consumed by
such yearning and sublime blissfulness, never had I been transported from
reality by such heavenly glory. I was no longer in this world. After the perfor-
mance, I roamed the streets aimlessly. When I got home I didnt say anything
and begged not to be questioned. My ecstasy kept singing within me
through half the night, and when I awoke on the following morning I knew
that my life was changed. A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and
I wanted to become his prophet.19 Today Walter might be considered more
the prophet of Mahler than of Wagner; since we lack any complete record-
ings of Walter conducting a Wagner opera, his youthful dreams of interpret-
ing Wagner might seem to have fallen victim to impermanence. And Walter
was never to conduct at Bayreuth, mainly because he was Jewish, though an
unfortunate meeting with Cosima Wagner in in which he unwisely
praised Verdi probably did nothing to increase his chances of being
invited.20 Still, audiences in Vienna, Munich, and Berlin, to mention only a
few, would for many years thrill to the privilege of hearing Walter conduct
Wagner.
There were, to be sure, other objections to Wagner besides sensuality
that no doubt inspired extreme distaste on the part of Walters relatives and
instructors. Walters piano teacher, Heinrich Ehrlich, actually admired Wag-
ners music and poetry to a high degree but had serious doubts about Wag-
ners personality and beliefs. Wagner was not only an anti-Semite, Ehrlich
wrote in , but a hypocrite as well: If Wagner was so much against Jews
that he repeatedly denied them all loftier understanding, how is it that he
nevertheless took money from Jews to fund Bayreuth and also negotiated
with them . . . ? And theres more. How was it possible that Wagner, who de-
clared Jews incapable of understanding Christianity, appointed a Jew, Her-
mann Levi, the court Kapellmeister from Munich, to conduct his Parsi-
fal ?21 But despite his perception of Wagners reprehensible qualities and
less-than-honorable actions, Ehrlich could not help being moved by Wag-
ners creations. How many insoluble riddles lie within his works, Ehrlich
exclaimed; how much that is great, beautiful, and sublime has this man cre-
ated as musician and as poet!22 Ehrlich had, of course, hit upon one of the
dilemmas that continue to plague lovers of Wagner today: how could some-
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one capable of such reprehensible beliefs and dishonorable actions create
such works of genius? As for the young Bruno Schlesinger, he must have
heard remarks and insinuations concerning Wagners undesirable qualities
as a man, but he was evidently too caught up in his admiration of Wagner as
a creator to let them tarnish his enthusiasm for Wagners operas. In fact, Wal-
ter later came to believe that true geniuses should be remembered for their
great works of art, rather than for their shortcomings as human beings.
Only musical value shall determine our choice of programs, he wrote
shortly after World War II, in response to the suggestion that Hans Pfitzners
music should be banned from concerts. To make this choice dependent
upon political considerations means introducing a Nazi doctrine into our
cultural life, he insisted, though he agreed that, in the case of true Nazis (he
maintained that Pfitzner was not one), a certain restraint must be applied
in the application of such an idealistic principle.23
Ehrlichs memoirs were published when Walters studies at the Stern
Conservatory were nearly at an end, and Walter probably never read them,
for he makes no mention of them in his autobiography. Though he valued
Ehrlichs thoroughgoing teaching methods from the standpoint of tech-
nique, he remembered considering him old, devitalized, and barren, and,
upon hearing him give a moving performance of Beethovens Ham-
merklavier Sonata, was surprised at the mighty spiritual sluice-break that
evening.24 Walter might have been even more surprised to read the praise
Ehrlich heaped on Wagner as composer and poet, and it seems a pity that
Walter remained unaware of another admirer of Wagner, another potential
ally, at least in purely musical terms, in the WagnerBrahms conflict that di-
vided so many musical circles in late-nineteenth-century Germany.
This conflict is no neat fiction of twentieth-century musicologists and
critics; it had a strong effect on many young musicians. Ethel Smyth, for in-
stance, described how her first serious teacher in England played through
Wagner scores for her, causing her to be bitten by the operatic form of Art
and dream of someday having an opera produced in Germany, only to have
these dreams quashed for a time when she entered the bitterly anti-Wagner
circles in Leipzig.25 But Walter, though now living more for Wagner than for
any other composer, refused to give up Brahms. Instead, he just loved both
of them without trying to reconcile what, according to the opinion of so
many high-principled people, was plainly irreconcilable.26 Nonetheless, a
certain amount of frustration and loneliness accompanied his attempts to
gain intimate familiarity with Wagners operas, necessitating as they did the
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scraping together of funds from his jobs as an accompanist in order to pur-
chase tickets to performances, since he could hardly expect his parents to
support his new obsession. He made secret trips to the Berlin Royal Library
to study Wagners scores and read his writings, which influenced him almost
as much as Wagners music, especially the famed essay on conducting.
When Jenny Meyer had one of her students sing an excerpt from Die Meis-
tersinger, kindly remarking that she didnt care for it herself but wanted to
give pleasure to our Bruno,27 he was naturally relieved. Absolved and en-
couraged, he could now devote himself to his new hero openly and whole-
heartedly.
The Royal Library also helped him prepare for a conducting career in
ways not directly connected to Wagner. Walter went there almost daily to
familiarize himself with all the instruments, and the librarians placed at his
disposaldespite his youthall the pertinent works, much to the irrita-
tion of the critic Wilhelm Tappert, a former editor of the Allgemeine deutsche
Musikzeitung and an early scholar of lute music, who would become furious
whenever he had to wait for a book from which Bruno was dutifully making
drawings of the instruments.28 He also made his own piano reductions of
orchestral scoresinexpensive study scores did not yet existand in the
standing-room section of the opera house he would follow his reductions,
scribbling notes to himself in the dim light of the gallery.29
The aspiring conductor, often lacking an instrument upon which to
practice, is in a unique situation among musicians. Walter himself discussed
this problem at some length in Of Music and Music-Making, stressing that
since an orchestra would not be available to prospective conductors until the
latter part of their studies, or even after their studies were complete, they
must ready themselves in other ways, by coaching singers, attending con-
certs and observing other conductors, studying scores, and, more generally,
by reading works of great minds and living life with relish: The studies of
the conductor must not be restricted to music. The world of music encom-
passes so much of the spiritual and human . . . that the value of a conductors
artistic achievements is to a high degree dependent upon his human quali-
ties and capacities; the seriousness of his moral convictions, the richness of
his emotional life, the breadth of his mental horizon, in short, his personality,
has a decisive effect on his achievements.30 The young Bruno Walter fed
his imagination with works of great literatureby Defoe and Shakespeare,
Goethe and Schiller, Kant and (later) Schopenhauerand broadened his
musical awareness, immersing himself in lesser-known operas by Russian
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composers, traveling to Bayreuth to hear Felix Mottl conduct (and, while
there, visiting Wagners grave). But he was eager to turn his newfound
knowledge into practical experience in the opera house, for until that time
came, he would be unsure if he truly possessed the ability to command those
large and unruly forces that make up an operatic production.
Walter hoped to begin testing himself by acquiring a coaching position
with one of the Berlin theaters. He was often called on by Jenny Meyer to ac-
company her students for theatrical auditions,and at a charity concert in De-
cember he played the piano for a number of conservatory singers. But
at this time there appeared to be few openings for coaches in Berlin and,
even more disheartening, no one to recommend Walter for the positions that
might exist.
The tide began to turn for him when Arno Kleffel replaced Robert
Radecke at the Stern Conservatory. Almost nothing is known about Kleffel
today, beyond Walters description of him as the leading conductor at the
Cologne Stadttheater,but at that time he was familiar enough in Cologne cir-
cles for Walter to be called a student of Arno Kleffel upon making his de-
but. Walter studied composition with Kleffel and on March , , ap-
peared publicly in the capacity of conductor and composer, presenting his
own Meeresstille und glckliche Fahrt for chorus and orchestra (a setting of
Goethes text), dedicated to Jenny Meyer. Presented in the hall of the Sing-
akademie, the concert marked Walters unofficial conducting debut with the
Berlin Philharmonic, the not-so-humble assisting orchestra. While under
Kleffels tutelage, Walter also composed a song, Der Ritter ber den Bo-
densee, and was secretly working on an opera, Agnes Bernauer, based
upon Hebbels tragedy, which he later condemned (after composing about
two acts) as thoroughly immature and, strange to say, quite un-Wagner-
ian.31 Kleffel seems to have thought highly of his young protg; his recom-
mendation to Julius Hofmann, the artistic director in Cologne, resulted in a
years contract for Walter as a coach, beginning in September . Thus
ended Walters student days, and he set off for the former Roman colony
with trepidation and high hopes.
Any nervousness accompanying the assumption of his first real job was
soon dispelled by the sheer burden of work. The position of coach appears
to have been the equivalent of a dogsbody, for Walters duties ranged from
coaching the lead singers to giving the director opinions on new operas,
auditioning new singers, and rehearsing backstage trumpets. In a letter to his
parents of January , , he apologized for having worried them with his
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long silence but said that the last four months had gone by quicklyone
day is just like another, and owing to this sameness you dont notice at all
how swiftly the time flies.32 He developed friendly relations with most of
the main singers, particularly the baritone Baptist Hoffmann (who would
later sing at the Berlin Royal Opera and become known especially for his in-
terpretations of Wagner, making some recordings in the first decade of the
twentieth century). Sometimes Walters ability to work well with individual
singers was a source of frustration, for details honed in coaching sessions
were often lost in the actual stage productions; the intensity of expression I
had developed disappeared at the stage rehearsals and performances be-
cause of the conductors excessively fast tempi, crumbled because of his
dragging the music, or were rendered ineffective by the stage directors in-
structions.33 He was, in fact, being introduced to the pitfalls of opera, to the
never-ending pushing and pulling that stemmed from the struggle between
musical ideals and theatrical shortcomings.
This struggle was by no means new or particularly prevalent in Co-
logne. Weingartner, too, complained bitterly of the problems an opera con-
ductor faces: lack of adequate rehearsal, too many performances, stagings
that dont afford singers a full view of the conductor, stage managers and
stage directors who are ignorant of music, to cite merely a handful of Wein-
gartners grievances.Weingartner went so far as to regard his years in the the-
ater as a time of uselessly squandered labour, forcible suppression of my ca-
pabilities, anda few isolated bright spots exceptedvain struggles to get
even one step nearer the ideal.34 Bruno Schlesinger at the age of seventeen
was too much of an optimist to allow himself to lapse into that kind of bitter-
ness. But he hadnt been in Cologne very long before he, too, began to be
oppressed by similar frustrations. I began to suffer from the dramatic and
musical indifference of the performances,he recalled,and from my power-
lessness against the prevailing spirit of routine.35 Further, he was discover-
ing that he had higher ideals, both musical and dramatic, than most of his
older colleagues. A picture now begins to emerge of an extremely talented
young man, socially shy but musically confident, depressed when physical
performances do not live up to artistic goals, but enabled by his buoyant
spirit to strive for ideals in the next performance.
Perhaps Walters frustrations would have grown more burdensome had
he been relegated to the role of coach for many years. Early on, however, he
was entrusted with the musical direction of two nineteenth-century light
worksCarl Reineckes Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe (a cross between
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pantomime and ballet) and Johann Nestroys play Lumpazivagabundus,
which included musical numbers. Though Walter acknowledged that the
works were below the dignity of a regular operatic conductor, he was de-
lighted to have an opportunity to direct the orchestra.36 Then came the
turning point, the work that Walter himself subsequently used to mark his
official conducting debut. A mere seven months after arriving in Cologne, in
March , he was given the opportunity to lead a revival of Waffen-
schmied, a light and charming singspiel by Albert Lortzing. Known more for
his comic and theatrical gifts than for serious operatic productions, Lortzing
was naturally a far cry from Wagner, but his works contain enough melodic
inventiveness and ensemble difficulties for a young conductor to prove him-
self. When Waffenschmied was first given in Vienna on May , , the Vi-
ennese press and public appeared unimpressed; but it must have had a
greater success in Germany, since by the late nineteenth century it was firmly
ensconced in the repertoire of German opera theaters, and Walter would
again be called upon to conduct it when he went to Breslau in . Though
never an enthusiast for light operahe would later refuse positions where it
seemed likely that he would have to conduct a large amount of itWalter
naturally retained a certain affection for this one, his first opera.
Reviews of Walters debut were almost unmixed in their approbation.
The Kln-Zeitung on March , , praised his keen rhythmic sense and
great feeling for the beauty of sound. The Klner-Tageblatt gives a more
detailed picture of Walters first professional conducting appearance: Fre-
quent acceleration of tempo was characteristic of the new conductor. Herr
Schlesinger, undoubtedly a very talented musician, conducted with as-
suredness and determination, and displayed remarkable discretion. It is un-
derstandable, in a debut of so young a director (Herr Schlesinger might not
yet have passed his nineteenth year), that he indicated and accompanied
many inessential introductions and entrances with arm and head move-
ments and also at times left the instruments in the rear to their fatesnever,
of course, disastrous for an orchestra such as ours.37 From this description,
one gains an impression of a young conductor who, though not completely
in control when it comes to deciding which instruments to focus his atten-
tion upon, nevertheless has a clear idea of the overall musical interpretation,
and one cannot help wondering whether these arm and head movements at
inessential places were in fact symptoms of Walters desire to let nothing
go, to show to himself and others that he, like his hero Blow, was more than
a mere time-beater.
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 His debut was on a Wednesday, and the following Saturday, at the last
minute, Waffenschmied was performed again. Now, however, came an im-
portant event for me, Walter wrote to his parents early in April, proceeding
to relate how, because of a singers indisposition, the management decided
to cancel La Fille du rgiment and put Waffenschmied in its place, with two
singers who hadnt performed their roles in years. When Walter heard the
news, he was not even at the theater; assuming that he had the evening off, he
had gone to coach Baptist Hoffmann. Walter rushed back to the theater, only
to find the various directors in close consultation, evidently having serious
doubts about entrusting a last-minute performance to a newcomer:
I went into the directors office, and there stood the director, Ockert
[the stage director], Mhldorfer, and Grossmann [two conduc-
tors]. I came in just as Grossmann said, No, that seems to be too
dangerous, I dont want to risk it, a much older conductor belongs
there in order to hold the people together who no longer have any
idea of whats going on. I went up to the director.
What, do you want something? he said.
To conduct, of course, Herr Direktor, I said.
Then Grossmann clapped me encouragingly on the shoulder
and said, Well now, youre going to get your miracle. Thus I con-
ducted and happily held the performance together through alert-
ness, energy, and attentiveness.38
Despite Grossmanns half-skeptical comment, Walter again came through
his trial by fire unscathed, even with unrehearsed singers. But his two suc-
cesses had the unfortunate effect of releasing a serpent of envy into the
Cologne Opera. Probably this serpent had been slumbering for some time;
the letters suggest that Walter was not one to keep his musical opinions to
himself, and the sight of a seventeen-year-old, jumping up to the directors
podium at the last minute and managing to hold things together as he seems
to have done, was the final straw for those of his colleagues who were less se-
cure in their abilities.
Earlier in his letter, Walter complained to his parents that, even after the
first performance, neither Hofmann nor Ockert had said anything to show
that they appreciated his success. Ockert in particular appears to have been
put off by Walters show of confidence; perhaps he and Walter had clashed
over staging matters. In any case, after the Saturday performance, Ockert
and the director continued to remain silent. What was worse, as Walter told
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his parents, the tenor, Bruno Heydrich, conspired with one of the newspa-
pers to get Walter a poor review: And then an article appeared in the Sonn-
tags-Anzeiger which was written with such nastiness against me that I was
speechless over it. Then another paper took my side, so a fierce battle
has developed around me.39 By this time, Heydrich was well known as a
Wagnerian and had sung in many German opera houses in addition to the
one in Cologne; but he was also the composer of two operas, one of which
he conducted himself in Cologne the following year, so it is possible Hey-
drich feared that Walter was edging into the position he himself wished to
occupy.
Walters parents were no doubt intimately acquainted with their sons
high ideals and his tendency to state them to the point of appearing critical.
They must have expressed some reservations, even hinting that Walter
might have brought some of this on himself,for in a letter the following week,
Walter assured them that he was careful the entire time, that these people re-
ally were as difficult as he had described: You wrote me that the hatred or
the hostility . . . puzzled you, or was brought about through indiscretion on
my part. In this last you are mistaken, for from the beginning, I have been
very careful with remarks here. Heydrich is one of these people in whom the
smallest success of every other person provokes the greatest envy and ha-
tred.40 Accompanying the letter are amusing, if unflattering and rather
crudely drawn, caricatures of Heydrich and the others.41 Though the entire
episode motivated Walter to send in his resignation, he evidently held on to
his boyish sense of humor.
Walters pleasure and pride that his debut and subsequent emergency
performance went so well were spoiled by these outbreaks of jealousy and ill
will, and he was overjoyed to be engaged as a coach by the Hamburg
Stadttheater. The former choral director has been dismissed, he wrote to
his parents. A colossal bit of luck.42 But Walter had no idea just what a
stroke of luck this would turn out to be, for the leading conductor in Ham-
burg was Gustav Mahler.
Walters meeting with Mahler in Hamburg was the beginning of a close
personal friendship and artistic collaboration that would last until Mahlers
death in . According to one report, Mahler, on first seeing Walter, was
struck by the young mans resemblance to his own younger brother, Otto,
who had recently committed suicide; still pained by the loss, the composer
felt it was Providence that had brought Walter into his life.43 Walter, even be-
fore this initial encounter, had read unfavorable reviews of Mahlers First
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Symphony, and, as with the earlier aspersions cast on Wagner by his col-
leagues and his family, the negative comments about Mahler had excited his
curiosity. The first meeting between the two men, as recounted by Walter,
became a much-cited incident among Mahlers sisters and is well known
among Mahlerians and Walterians. Walter ran into Mahler at the Hamburg
Opera House.
So you are the new coach, Mahler said. Do you play the piano
well? Excellently, I replied, meaning simply to tell the truth, be-
cause a false modesty seemed inappropriate in front of a great man.
Can you read well at sight? Mahler asked. Oh, yes, everything,
I said again truthfully. And do you know the regular repertoire op-
eras? I know them all quite well, I replied with a great deal of as-
surance. Mahler gave a loud laugh, tapped me on the shoulder
pleasantly, and concluded the conversation with Well, that sounds
quite splendid.44
Mahler was soon to discover that his young assistant had not exaggerated,
and Walter would soon learn that Mahlers reputation as a virtuoso conduc-
tor was not inflated.
Mahlers conducting would have an even greater effect on Walter than
his discoveries of Wagner and Blow. As with Hans von Blow, Mahlers
control over the orchestra awed many listeners. The American composer
Arthur Foote recalled that with him you felt that it was he that played, the
orchestra being his instrument.45 In the very first rehearsal of Mahlers that
Walter witnessed, he was both amazed and a little intimidated. Never had I
encountered so intense a human being, he remembered; never had I
dreamed that a brief, cogent word, a single compelling gesture, backed by
absolute clarity of mind and intention, could fill other people with anxious
terror and compel them to blind obedience.46 Seeing what Mahler could
do and what he could get others to do had the effect of making Walter dissat-
isfied with his own accomplishments thus far. His apparent ease in conduct-
ing those performances of Waffenschmied seemed a small achievement com-
pared with the dramatic expression and depth of interpretation that Mahler
exacted from his performers, though the Cologne review makes it clear that
the Waffenschmied performances had much to recommend them. But now,
under Mahlers influence, Walter wished to strive for greater heights of ex-
pression coupled with greater precision. Achieving a balance between pas-
sion and precision as Mahler seemed to do became his goal, and, he owned
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somewhat wryly in his autobiography, There was much to learn for a lad of
my questionable tendency to neglect musical correctness for the sake of
feeling.47
Despite Walters occasional feelings of depression that he would never
achieve anything so exalted as Mahlers performances, observing Mahlers
rehearsals was liberating insofar as he now saw what could be done. Al-
though I was still young, I had an old enemy: workaday triviality. I was no
longer afraid of it. Here was a man against whom it was powerless, who re-
newed himself every minute, and who did not know the meaning of slacken-
ing either in his work or in his vital principles.48 There can be no doubt that
Mahlers influence on Walter, in terms of both working habits and musical
aims, was profound and long-lastingso profound that Walter was later to
experience the anxiety of influence, and at the cost of grave soul-search-
ing, he took pains to establish that he was not a copy of Mahler but had his
own artistic personality.49 Nevertheless, Walters highly charged
recording of the first act of Die Walkre, made more than twenty years after
Mahlers death, probably owes a debt to Mahler. Alma Mahler Werfel, recall-
ing a performance of Walkre under Mahler in Vienna, observed that there
was a tempo in the orchestra such as I never heard before or since, and then,
with somewhat underhanded praise, admitted that Bruno Walter, at first
awkward and inexperienced, came very near to realizing Mahlers ideals.
And when it came to conducting Mahlers own works, of course, Walter
gladly undertook to interpret the symphonies in accordance with his memo-
ries of Mahlers performances of them on the piano and in concert, as a com-
parison of Walters recording of Mahlers Fifth Symphony with the New
York Philharmonic and Mahlers piano roll of the first movement strikingly
shows. Here Alma was more unstinting in her appreciation of Walter, assert-
ing that he mastered . . . every subtlety [of Mahlers music] and gave his
own original interpretation.50
But even in Hamburg, where Walter willingly gave himself up to Mahlers
guidance, he was learning that he could not be like Mahler in one very im-
portant wayhe could not be a tyrannical dictator. For, as the critic Ferdi-
nand Pfohl observed, Mahler was a tyrant with the orchestra; he sat at his
podium looking dark and threatening.51 Pfohl, reminiscing on his acquain-
tance with Mahler from his Hamburg days, related how Mahler cruelly
humiliated a flute player during a rehearsal, calling him a wretched dilet-
tante in front of the entire orchestra when the poor musician could not, af-
ter several tries, play a phrase exactly the way Mahler wanted it (the flutist
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eventually ran from the room with tears in his eyes). Walter did not mention
the incident himself, but he doubtless witnessed many similar occurrences.
The problem of authority in conductinghow to keep so many different
personalities and interpretations under one rulebegan to plague the
young conductors thoughts. In order to achieve the kind of consummate,
unified performance he so admired in Mahler, he felt the conductor must
have authority, must reign supreme over the orchestra, and he was finding
that he was decidedly wanting in this quality. His youth at that time pre-
vented him from being able to exercise the control that comes with the musi-
cians respect for experience, and, despite his strong musical opinions, his
compassionate nature precluded his humiliating people, even for the sake of
artistic aims. So he began to search for ways to coax musicians, rather than
command them: What was more natural . . . than the desire of both singers
and musicians to escape from the intimidating rule of the feared man and
find restful relaxation in the presence of a wholly unfearsome youth? I could
readily understand that, and so I tried to influence the artists by psychologi-
cal methods appropriate to and in conformity with my nature. While my ef-
forts were not always successful, they at least afforded me a comforting in-
sight into a side of my nature to which I had paid no attention before: I
became aware that I had an educational instinct.52 This essential distinc-
tion between himself and Mahler, which Walter was discovering, even at an
early date, was not all due to youth and was remarked on by contemporaries,
including the poet and critic Richard Specht, whom Walter first met during
his sojourn with Mahler in Steinbach am Attersee in the summer of .
Walters conducting, Specht maintained, was outwardly similar to Mahlers
and, during his first years as assistant to Mahler in Vienna (beginning in
), Walter even took on some of Mahlers mannerisms, particularly his
intense, imploring movements while conducting. But Walters innate per-
sonality was completely different from Mahlers. Walters nature was gen-
tler, responded less vehemently to matters of life and art, had the wonder-
fully beautiful innocence of one who is cocooned only in his own special
dreams.53 The unrelenting tension Specht heard in Mahlers performances
was relaxed somewhat in Walters hands; for Walter was more romantic,
more dreamy, more exuberant . . . was not so fierce in the execution of cli-
maxes, and often had for all that something wavering, irregular, since he gave
himself up extemporaneously to his sudden inspirations, and in that way, for
all his supreme command in wielding the baton, he sometimes made the

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members of the orchestra uncomfortable, since they always had to be ready
for new surprises every moment.54
While Walter might have made the musicians uneasy by demanding
their full concentration in order to bring out the smaller nuances Specht de-
scribes, his intent was not to embarrass them personally. Recordings and
videos of rehearsals from his last years show a cajoling, even seductive, con-
ductor, as opposed to an autocratic one, expressing his disapproval with
words such as, My friends, I am still not happy. Yet he was still quite capa-
ble of surprising his players, keeping them alert; during the initial read-
through of the first movement of Brahmss Second Symphony in Vancouver,
he lingers over the flutes high F in the first statement of the opening theme;
the next time through, he passes over it as if it were of no importance what-
soever.55 Here we are seeing Walter at the pinnacle of his rehearsing skills;
his special, relaxed stance was in part the result of the assurance that comes
with years of experience, but it must have been something he aimed for early
on.From his first observations of Mahler in Hamburg,Walter not only found
new greatness in music, but learned more about himself.
During the summer of Walter had the pleasure of hearing the be-
ginnings of Mahlers new symphony, the Third, a work that Walter himself
would later conduct on several occasions to great acclaim. Mahler knew that
he was at work on a masterpiece; he also predicted with painful accuracy that
the critics would hate it.56 In this massive symphony, he aspired to encom-
pass what is awe-inspiring in the natural, human, and divine realms. When
Walter arrived at Steinbach am Attersee in July, Mahler met him on the jetty
and carried his luggage. On the way to Mahlers house, Walter gazed at the
craggy Hllengebirge (literally, Hellish Mountains). Mahler commented:
You dont need to lookI have composed all this already!57 During Wal-
ters sojourn, Mahler played what there was of the score to Walter, who in
turn became well enough acquainted with the music to play some of it for the
violist Natalie Bauer-Lechner.58
Walters admiration of Mahler was not one-sided; Mahler was deeply
impressed with Walters abilities and, according to Ferdinand Pfohl, con-
vinced the theaters director, Pollini (whose actual name was Bernhard
Pohl), to let Walter conduct a performance of Aida, which, as Pfohl ob-
served, is always a difficult opera, even in the hands of an experienced con-
ductor. But Mahler appeared confident that Walter would distinguish him-
self, praising Walter so highly that he led [Pfohl] to expect wonderful

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things, expectations which the most gifted beginner could not have ful-
filled. Naturally Pfohl needed no urging from Mahler to attend the perfor-
mance, which took place on November , , during Walters second sea-
son in Hamburg. In front of the conductors podium, Pfohl recalled,
I saw a pale young man of about twenty, who through the assurance of his
conducting, his energy, and his feeling for the scenes, without a doubt de-
served the trust Mahler had placed in him. The performance proceeded
smoothly until the finale of the second act, where some ensemble difficulties
occurred that Pfohl attributed to the young directors not being completely
equal to the task of commanding such large forces: It was a dreadful confu-
sion of chorus and soloists, of orchestra and on-stage musicians, which most
surely would have led to a fatal catastrophe if with the entrance of the majes-
tic Triumphal March the dispersed musicians had not found unity and pro-
ceeded together to a satisfactory conclusion.59
Though Pfohls narrative makes it seem as though this were the very
first time hed heard Walter conduct, he had actually reviewed a perfor-
mance of Marschners Hans Heiling two months earlier (in September) and
had been favorably impressed then as well. It is astonishing, he wrote,
how flexibly and prudently this young man conducted the orchestra, with
what assurance he controlled the giant instrument, how tastefully he made
music.60 Evidently the size of Marschners ensembles presented less of a
technical challenge than that of Verdis. Like Specht, Pfohl commented on
Walters exuberance, which he seemed to find refreshing, for he hoped that
we never detect in him that phlegma which persists when the spirit goes to
rack and ruin. Walters so-called exuberance, however, proved too much at
times. After the performance of Aida, Mahler himself criticized Walter in a
letter to his protge Anna von Mildenburg, who had sung the title role, say-
ing that the end of one of her arias had not gone as planned because Walter
took the preceding aria too fast, not allowing her enough time to breathe.61
But despite these occasional hitchesthe natural result of the learning
process, but no doubt displeasing to the young director who had set such
high standards for himselfMahler continued to hold his assistant in high
esteem.
Mahlers relationship with Pollini eventually began to sour, since Pollini
apparently liked to engage big-name singers and pay them high salaries but
didnt schedule the necessary rehearsal time for the kind of tight, dramatic
productions that Mahler wanted (Pollini also paid the chorus and orchestral
musicians only a fraction of what the star singers received), and Mahler soon
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began to consider leaving Hamburg, eventually going to Vienna in .62
He took steps to secure a new position for his assistant, fearing that, if Walter
stayed in Hamburg, their close association would be detrimental to Walters
career. Though infinitely grateful for Mahlers influence, Walter was eager to
strike out on his own, for he worried that daily association with a musical
personality as strong as Mahlers might be a hindrance to his own develop-
ment.63 As a result of Mahlers efforts, Walter was offered a position as sec-
ond conductor in Prague and was on the point of accepting when he and
Mahler noticed that, according to the local newspaper, the second conduc-
tor directed light opera more than anything else. That was naturally not
what I had in mind, Walter wrote to his parents.64 So Mahler wrote another
letter, this time to Theodor Lwe, director of the Breslau Stadttheater, who,
Walter told his parents, wanted to engage him immediately. This would be
Walters first real position as a conductor; Lwe had a reputation for high
artistic standards (before taking over direction of the theater, he was known
mainly as a poet and a philosopher), which gave Walter confidence that the
proffered appointment would be a fulfilling one.65 But it was offered with
one disagreeable condition: since there were so many Schlesingers in Bres-
lau (the capital of Silesia, now known as Wroclaw, Poland), Bruno Schle-
singer would have to change his name.
Throughout Walters life, and even after his death, people would now
and then let fall remarks about his giving up his Jewish name in order to fur-
ther his career, although Walter was neither the first nor the last to do such a
thing. Whether Lwes stipulation really stemmed from a desire to conceal
the ethnic stamp of his second conductors name is unknown; in any case, it
was not something Walter did happily. Having to change his name was ter-
rible, he wrote to his parents; a name wasnt just a piece of clothing that
you can simply slip off. But, he continued, it seemed clear that he had to
take this position for the sake of his career; the Mahlers (that is, Mahler and
his sisters Justine and Emma) were also pressing him to change his name.
Makes you shudder, doesnt it? he lamented.66
In his autobiography, Walter attributed the choice of name to its associ-
ations with Walther von Stolzing in Meistersinger, the medieval poet Walther
von der Vogelweide (who also appears in Tannhuser and was Walthers
chief literary inspiration in Meistersinger), and Siegmund in Walkre, who
wished to call himself Frohwalt but had been compelled to call himself Weh-
walt.67 Having a name that would remind him of these illustrious person-
ages, whether real or fictional, might have made the change of name more
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palatable. But, as he described in a letter to his brother, Leo, Walter had ac-
tually suggested several names, which Mahler wrote down and gave to
Lwe, who returned the contract with the name Bruno Walter. Walter sus-
pected that Mahler had submitted that name alone, perhaps because it gave
him the best feeling. (Ironically, as German names go, Walter is even more
common than Schlesinger.) Meanwhile, Leo Schlesinger seems to have been
chastising his brother, for Walter asked him: do you think positions for me
grow on trees?adding, with a touch of bitterness perhaps left over from
his Cologne disappointments, that if a person is out of the ordinary, the en-
tire world regards him with scorn; things come easily only to the mediocre.
But, he hastened to add, this position was a colossal stroke of luck.68 So,
armed with a new name and new hopes, refreshed from his summer vacation
with Mahler in Steinbach am Attersee, he arrived in Breslau to take up his
baton with renewed energy and, he expected, greater authority.

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Kapellmeister Walter
Breslau, Pressburg, Riga, Berlin,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

A singer doesnt earn the title of master in a single day.

Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg

Almost immediately upon his arrival in Breslau, Walter was unfa-

vorably impressed by what appeared to be indolence, indiffer-
ence, and general laziness on the part of the singers and directors
of the Breslau Stadttheater. The musicians seemed fonder of mak-
ing cynical jokes than of rehearsing or improving their craft, and
Lwe proved more interested in the staging than in the musical as-
pects of opera, virtually ignoring the young conductor. Walter ap-
parently complained of this to his parents, who wrote back that he
should simply speak up for himself; but the prospect of acquiring
greater responsibilities within such a depressing work environ-
ment was thoroughly repellent. It would, I think, take only a few
words from me to get more [conducting opportunities], but I
dont want it; that would in any case place me in a state of greater
moral obligation to him [Lwe], he wrote to his parents in De-
cember , just a few months after arriving, filled with great ex-
pectations. It was, he thought, far better to distance himself as
much as possible, which would make it easier to leave if a more at-
tractive position presented itself.1

 Meanwhile, the bleakness of the town, despite its distinguished univer-
sity, also depressed him. This, coupled with the puritanical character of his
landlady (who objected to his singing through parts of Bachs Mass in B Mi-
nor on Sunday, because music, even profoundly religious music, was forbid-
den on the Sabbath) and his lack of real friends, allowed him little in the way
of social compensation for his unfulfilling work life.2 Breslau is a very dull
town, he wrote to his parents; despite the university, intellectual life is
zero; Silesian phlegma is very great.3 He enjoyed some evenings, drinking
and smoking long Dutch pipes with colleagues in a Silesian tavern, but did
not much care for the ensuing hangovers.4 He did make friends with the
great Swedish bass Johannes Elmblad, whose repertoire ranged from
Mozart to Wagner; but, as he lamented to his parents, they had little time for
each other.
Walter undoubtedly could have put up with these deficiencies in his so-
cial life if he hadnt felt himself being dragged down artistically. Despite his
desire to avoid greater responsibility, he had already managed to attract at-
tention by substituting for another conductor at the last minute. Because
nothing is appreciated so much at the theater as versatility and quick-witted-
ness, I found myself in favor all at once, he confessed in his autobiography.
Operas came pouring in on me.They were repertoire performances, operas
that needed no rehearsing.5 He began to take an almost sporting pleasure
from jumping in at the last moment and holding things together,but this plea-
sure in itself depressed him, since it was so far removed from satisfying the
lofty ideals and high aspirations he had acquired under Mahlers influence.
To be sure, his entire time in Breslau was not spent substituting; he was
in fact entrusted with a production of Lucrezia Borgia, for which he was
given a sufficient amount of rehearsal time and which, to judge by a review in
the Breslauer Zeitung, was a decided success. The reviewer, Emil Bohn (a
professor at the university), praised Walters careful preparation, especially
in the ensemble numbers, noting with a touch of irony that serious classi-
cal German works seldom receive such a well-prepared performance.6
Around the same time, Walter also directed a new production of Die Zauber-
flte, in which Elmblad doubled as Sarastro and the stage manager. Walter
now had the chance to work with someone whom he respected and with
whom he could strive for higher goals, not to mention the opportunity of
overseeing the production of a work that would come to have special mean-
ing for him. Walter later remembered little about the actual production
only the anticipation coupled with relief when it was decided that he and
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Elmblad would work together on itbut this series of performances was
also successful.7 The critic for the Breslauer Morgen-Zeitung noted that
Walter conducted not only with distinction and assurance, but also with
the proper feeling for style, through which the orchestra and chorus were
inspired to truly beautiful achievements. Interestingly, it was the chorus
that particularly impressed this reviewer, who wrote that the subtly nu-
anced, noble singing of our choristers deserves to be stressed especially,
since this part of the company so seldom can earn praise for themselves.8
Despite these two respectable productions, Walter seems to have felt
that his time in Breslau was spent regressing rather than progressing. But he
was in fact learning a great deal, and though his conducting appearances did
not match the high standards he had set for himself, he did not lapse into the
dreaded role of time-beater but continued to experiment with a subtle and
daring rubato. How much tempo modification was too much, however, gave
rise to conflicting critical opinions in Breslau; reviews of a performance of
Waffenschmied early in October disagreed on precisely this point. The re-
viewer from the Breslauer Morgen-Zeitung praised Walter for his energetic
and flexible rhythm and observed that the instrumental niceties, in which
Lortzing is in no way lacking, were brought out in a loving manner.9 On the
other hand, flexibilityor an excess of itwas the very aspect of Walters
conducting that Emil Bohn criticized in the same performance. While prais-
ing the tightness of the production, particularly in the ensemble numbers, he
carped that it was only to be regretted that owing to the elegant working-out
of the details, the regulation of the music did not keep to an overall uniform
pace; the music for Waffenschmied scarcely needs to be handled with such
delicacy.10 Bohn, a distinguished scholar and the director of a series of con-
certs at the university, was no doubt a discerning listener.11 Yet Lortzing was
perhaps not to his taste; Bohns concert series featured a remarkable amount
of complex earlier music, including works by Frescobaldi and Byrd. His re-
views of Waffenschmied and, later, of Lortzings Die beiden Schtzen carry an
underlying hint of scorn, and he seems not to have considered light opera
worthy of more subtle touches. The amount of rubato used by the young
conductor and its appropriateness, however, are not as important as Walters
employing it in the first place; he was still trying for subtler effects, still at-
tempting to refine his craft, even in the face of opposition or indifference.
On the whole, the tone of these reviews was encouraging, even welcom-
ing. Despite Walters feelings of loneliness, one senses that he had allies in
the reviewers, who seemed overjoyed that someone was at last subjecting the
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company to more rigorous standards. It is almost poignant to read the Bres-
lauer Morgen-Zeitungs critics hopeful observation that one had the im-
pressionand this impression became stronger and stronger during the
course of the eveningthat this young Kapellmeister will yet serve our
opera extremely well, when we know that Walter, desperately unhappy, was
already making plans to leave.12 But the effort needed to maintain a high
standard of musical production proved too great even for a young man of
Walters optimism and energy, and he declined Lwes offer of a contract for
an extended period. Strangely enough, though Walter was convinced at the
time that Lwe took little interest in his activities, he heard years later that
Lwe had spoken very highly of his achievements in Breslau. And during a
chance meeting on a train, Walter saw the eyes of the then aged man sparkle
with pleasure and heard him say words of praise of myself.13 In his estima-
tion of the old theater director, Walter himself was eventually guilty of some
hindsight glossing, writing for Lwes hundredth-birthday celebration that
he remembered the friendly interest that he [Lwe] showed in the young
musician.14
But at the time, Walter was convinced that he had fallen into the depths
artistically, and he allowed his spirits to sink still further; he began to be
plagued by feelings of worthlessness. In March he wrote a wistful letter
to his uncle, longing for home, the company of his parents and their friends,
and even the food he imagined they would eat. Heavy clouds from the skies
of Breslau hang over me, he groaned, and I feel ill at ease.15 Even the an-
ticipated homecoming was not enough to assuage his bruised musical soul,
however, for he spent the summer brooding over his moral defeat in Bres-
lau, though coaching the Berlin Operas heroic tenor Ernst Kraus, with
whom he would work on many subsequent occasions, kept him from wal-
lowing too much in self-pity.16 He must also have felt some sense of artistic
accomplishment, for one of his finest songs, Vorbei (later published in his
collection of lieder, opus ), was performed publicly in a recital given by
Louis Bauer on March . Although Walter played a few solo works for the
concert under his new name, he apparently wished to keep his activity as a
composer secret, since the song is attributed simply to Schlesinger.
Meanwhile, he visited Mahler and his sisters in ViennaWalters first
trip to the ornate, sensual city that he would one day, after many struggles
there, consider his home. As he wandered around the Ringstrasse, eating
bread and goulash, listening to Viennese music played by a ladies orchestra,
he quickly began to feel that this was where he belonged. The Vienna di-
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alect sounded harmoniously and pleasantly in my ear. I felt that I belonged in
Vienna; that I had not found it, but had re-found it. Spiritually, I was a Vien-
nese.17 Writing from a distance of almost fifty years, Walter might have ro-
manticized his spiritual homecoming; yet even at the time, he confidently in-
formed his parents that, as a city, Berlin couldnt compete with Vienna.18
Walter determined to remain jobless rather than continue with what he
regarded as mediocre activities in Breslau. Sometime near the end of the
summer, however, he was offered the position of chief conductor at the Riga
Stadttheater, where Wagner himself had conducted from to an
offer he gladly accepted. Since the job in Riga was not to begin until , he
was wondering how he would spend the intervening year when he received
a telegram from the director of the Stadttheater in Pressburg (now known as
Bratislava, in Slovakia), also offering the position of chief conductor. Despite
the citys distinguished history (it was once the capital of Hungary and the
coronation site of its kings), the opera company in Pressburg was small and,
by Walters own admission, unpretentious; it was therefore a perfect place
for the founderingor so he feltyoung conductor to regain his artistic in-
tegrity. In addition, it was only about an hour and a half s train ride from Vi-
enna, which would allow him more opportunities to hear Mahler conduct.
And so, in the fall of , he sailed down the Danube for Pressburg, deter-
mined to make his mark on the city.
Outwardly, at least, he appears to have done so, for his earliest reviews
were glowing. A review of his performance of Pagliacci, which must have
taken place shortly after his arrival, reported: For this years opera perfor-
mances, it appears that we have a splendid, musically sensitive conductor.
Thus far Kapellmeister Walther has offered us quite beautiful performances,
well rounded in ensemble. One might indeed have a differing view over the
degree of individual strengths, but for the entirety, an air of pleasing security
always rests over the performance when Mr. Walther has the conductors ba-
ton in his hand.19
Indeed, Walter found to his surprise that there was none of the apathetic
resistance he had encountered at Breslau, that his assistant conductors, the
lead singers, choristers, and orchestra members (none of whom are remem-
bered today) were more than willing to respond to his vigorous attempts to
raise the little companys standards of performance. To judge by the reviews
and by his own memories of crowded performances and loud applause, his
efforts met with success. But inwardly, Walter was still suffering. He took
long meditative walks along the Danube, subjecting himself to mental whip-
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pings, and descended into the cave of despair, which offered him a wonder-
ful solution for his disquiet: I felt powerfully attracted by death.20
Walters suicidal impulse during this period of personal confusion and
professional uncertainty was eventually allayed by an epiphany that music,
however intangible, was not a dream. Let all material things be unreal; mu-
sics immaterial essence was surely not a deception of the senses. Here I had
an unquestionable reality to which I could cling confidently.21 This rever-
sal of the importance of the material and immaterial spheres would become a
leitmotif throughout his life. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was at this time,
he wrote,that the writings of Jean Paul,especially Titan,led him back again
to the faith, to Christendom, to which I had come close years before, from
which I had strayed, and which I was never to lose again.22 Precisely when
Walter had initially come close to Christendom is something of a mystery,
but he would soon enough be compelled to adopt Christianity as his official
religion.
While gazing within and wrestling with the eternal questions of life and
whatever succeeds life,he was continuing his work in the everyday world,re-
fining his abilities and developing his style. His interactions with other mu-
siciansboth vocalists and instrumentalistsgrew more subtle, sometimes
even oversubtle. Singers have often remarked on Walters ability to direct
with a firm hand while at the same time allowing them room to breathe. This
sensitivity to the needs of singers, no doubt aided by his learning to coach
and accompany at such an early age, figured prominently in one of the Press-
burg reviews:
We have followed Bruno Walters direction of the Opera with great
interest, and we believe that in him we have before us a musical per-
sonality who stands completely on his own two feet. In spite of a
certain nervousness with which he directs the orchestra, chorus,
and soloists, he demonstrates great assurance and, what is far more
significant, a decided originality, which raises him above many far
older and more established opera directors. The nuanced playing
of his orchestra is uncommonly refined and sensitive, and we no-
ticed with great pleasure how he managed to keep down every [po-
tentially] obtrusive statement of the individual instruments and, at
the same time, to indulge the soloists in their intentions. In this last
instance, Herr Waltermay he forgive us this slight reproach

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 perhaps went too far, for he acted contrary to his own taste on ac-
count of singers who were inclined to drag.23
As he gained experience, Walter naturally became more assured and
less likely to compromise his own interpretation, if that was in fact what he
did. Regina Resnik, who sang Leonore in Walters Fidelio at the Metro-
politan Opera, recalled that Walter was very definitive in his musical ideas,
but at the same time extremely elastic about singing, because he wanted
the most beautiful performance you could give.24 Since the singers for this
Pressburg performance have fallen into obscurity and are not preserved on
any recordings, we have no way of knowing what kinds of liberties they
might have taken, but the reviewers comment gives us an intriguing glimpse
of Walters early awareness of the voices unique demands.
After this busy year of outward triumphs and inward soul-searching,
Walter took a trip through the Balkans, tasted his first Turkish coffee, and re-
turned to Berlin by way of Budapest and Vienna, where, he tells us, he
spent the summer dreaming of the glories awaiting the future chief conduc-
tor of the Riga Opera.25 And glories there would be, along with some dis-
comforts concomitant on living in Riga (then part of Russia); for while the
theater in those days was almost entirely run by Germans playing to German
audiences, a large part of the population was, of course, Russian, with cus-
toms foreign to the young man from Berlin. Meanwhile, the Lettish portion
of the population was, according to Walter, almost entirely denied the op-
portunity to hold important positions in society. In his autobiography Wal-
ter described how he received the score to an opera from a native Lettish
composer accompanied by a letter written in faulty German, revealing to
him a striving for higher goals as well as the bitterness of the oppressed.26
Much as Walter had been forced to change his name when he assumed
his duties in Breslau, so he had to agree to another major change in his life in
order to work in Riga. As his daughter Lotte recalled, In Russia you could
not travel if you were a Jew at the time. It was completely anti-Semitic, and
you didnt get a passport, and you couldnt get in.27 So Walter converted to
Christianityalmost certainly to Catholicism, for his remains rest in the
Catholic cemetery of Sant Abbondio in Montagnola, near Lugano. While
Lotte admitted the very practical reason behind her fathers conversion, she
was quick to add that he would not have converted had he not truly been a
Christian. He was a Christian, and a very good one. And the older he got,
the more religious he really became. Walters own comments about the up-

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lifting effect that Christianity had on him during his desperate stretch in
Pressburg suggest that his official conversion truly reflected his inner lean-
ings. He talked to me very much about Jesus when I was a child, Lotte re-
membered. He was completely engrossed with Jesus; the Jesus figure
played a very important role in his life. In April Lotte was confirmed in
Munich, as Thomas Mann noted in his diary, which points again to Walters
continuing acceptance of Christian orthodoxy.28 Yet Walters later willing-
ness to embrace the ideas of Rudolf Steiner suggests that his notions of
Christs place in the history of Western thought and religion were flexible.
Before Walter even set foot on Riga soil to encounter the social lessons
awaiting him in the capital of Latvia, another turning point had taken place.
As he related somewhat formally in his autobiography, a vital personal
question had been decided . . . before my arrival29namely, his meeting
with Elsa Korneck,a lyric-dramatic soprano of the Riga Opera and his future
wife.30 According to Walter, he did little more than gaze at her, reclining in a
seat and looking rather ill from the voyage, before knowing with full certainty
that he wanted to marry her. They married a few years later and remained
married until her death in . Yet, despite her near-constant companion-
ship throughout the many changes of locale that Walters dramatic career
brought, it is difficult to form a clear picture of her character, or even of her
appearance. A photograph taken shortly before their marriage reveals a seri-
ous young lady with a pleasing, round face; deep-set, almost poetic, dark
eyes; and a determined mouth. In later photographs of Elsa and Walter with
various friends, her face is almost always turned to one side, giving the im-
pression of reticence; nevertheless, Wolfgang Stresemann referred to her as
the exceedingly lively, domineering wife of Bruno Walter.31 Her position
in these later photos probably stems not from reticence at all, but from a de-
sire to talk with anyone standing nearby, for a series of home movies taken in
Salzburg and elsewhere, sometime near , reveals a very animated Elsa,
who, in fact, is having a difficult time standing or sitting still.32
In her earlier years Elsas energy, which must have been immediately ap-
parent to Walter despite her seasickness, stood her in good stead on the
stage. Reviews of her performances under Walters baton attest to her ability
as an actress, perhaps even more than as a singer. Of her performance as
Agathe in Freischtz, the reviewer for the Rigasche Rundschau commented:
The young singer of Agathe, Frl. Korneck, possessed a very beautiful,
highly engaging soprano voice. She sang with exemplary pureness and gave
noble expression to the yearning and soulful feelings of love.33 Of her per-
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formance as Marguerite in Faust, Carl Waack, the reviewer for the Dna
Zeitung (and also the editor of several Wagner scores), praised the lack of
sentimentality and the natural quality she brought to the role, though in this
and in other reviews he tended to emphasize the smallness and lightness of
her voice.34
That Elsa had a soulful side is clear, not only from these early reviews,
or from the expression in her eyes in one of the few youthful photos that have
survived, but also from a story told by Klaus Mann, Thomas Manns oldest
son and a playmate of Walters daughters. Mann gives us one of the most ex-
tended accounts of Elsa, describing how Walter sometimes managed to
spare an hour or two to sit down at the piano and to explain to his daughters
and Klaus and Erika Mann the charm and structure of an opera. Klaus re-
called with palpable nostalgia Walters impersonation of Papageno: He is
very funny. Our hilarity resounds throughout the house. Frau Walter rushes
downstairsall fluster and disapproval in her spectacular dressing gown.
She laments and scolds: Bruno ought to change his clothes, it is high time for
the opera; Gretel hadnt yet learned her lessons; Lotte ought at last to write
that letter; and as for us,the Mann children,why,we had nothing in mind but
mischief, as was generally known. But she could not help laughing as Walter
answered her with the comic pantomime of Papageno, whose mouth has
been locked by the three cruel ladies. Then Mann goes on to relate how the
children begged Elsa to let Walter finish the act, and naturally she surren-
dered. Ten minutes, she decided, and added with a surprisingly tender
smile: Of course, Id like to hear Taminos aria myself.35
Sadly, Walter provided no details in his autobiography of his and Elsas
early romance, nor is there even a mention of her in the letters to his parents
(the only letters of his to have surfaced from this period), though this is not
all that surprising, given how sluggish the young tend to be when it comes to
informing their parents of their amatory relationships. So we can only guess
at what point during the fateful steamer journey they were introduced. Per-
haps the first meeting took place later, during rehearsals for Freischtz? Wal-
ter was, throughout his long life, intensely private and not inclined to reveal
personal history and in his autobiography merely tells us that their engage-
ment was announced on Christmas Eve of . It might in fact have been
, for by December , Walter and Elsa would have known each other
only four months, though such whirlwind courtships are certainly not un-
heard of. In any case, their announcement was made at the home of the
Irschick family, whose youngest son, Oskar, wrote to Walter some fifty years
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later, and the two old men exchanged a brief reminiscence of those long-ago
days.36 As to the courtship, Walter left it to the imaginations of his readers.
It is possible, however, that the stirrings of love fueled his long and
somewhat breathless letter to his parents of early September , in which
he waxed rhapsodic about his successes in Riga: how well the orchestra fol-
lowed him, how receptive the press and public had been, how the musical
committees there wanted him to hold chamber music recitals and conduct
orchestral concerts, what a nice place he had to live in, and so on.37 At the
same time, he was clearly beginning to feel firmly established as a musical
force to be reckoned with, which in itself would be enough to inspire the joy-
ous tone of this letter.
What must have been especially gratifying to Walter was the respectful
tone of his first Riga reviews (of Freischtz), which mention his youth only in
passing before going on to describe his conducting talents in some detail,
though Carl Waack took Walter to task for what he considered excessive
movements on the podium: A man still very young, but from all appear-
ances of a considerable efficacy, a capable, energetic conductor. One could
indeed be happy with the seriousness and fervor that carried over from the
podium to the performers. . . .With the exception of small,insignificant dis-
turbances, he held the stage and orchestra apparatus firmly together and also
knew how to make his intentions clear. . . . Herr Kapellmeister Walter must
endeavor to break only one habit: making a showy display to convey the
beat. Inner temperament and fire should not be mirrored too much in ones
movements, otherwise conducting . . . can easily become foppery.38 Exces-
sive motion among conductors clearly irritated Waack, for two months later
he again chided Walter, remarking in a review of Lohengrinthe perfor-
mance of which he seemed to regard highly overallthat, We do not wish
for Herr Walter suddenly to stand still like a wall at the podium, but some-
what fewer gymnastics, somewhat smaller outward illustrations would nev-
ertheless be desirable.39 Despite Waacks preference for less movement, his
accounts of Walters performances throughout his tenure in Riga remained
highly complimentary, even when it came to works by composersMeyer-
beer in particularthat Waack did not especially care for. Though a few
years later Viennese critics also pointed to what they considered excessive
motion, it is possible that Walter eventually paid some heed to these admo-
nitions, for the critics around began to comment on his controlled
movements, and footage of him conducting much later in life reveals almost
spare, if impassioned, movements. But it is also certainly possible that he
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felt, perhaps rightly, that opera conducting required more energetic move-
ment, and it is to be deeply regretted that little footage of Walter conducting
opera survives. An excerpt of him conducting Orfeo ed Euridice in Salzburg
is too fleeting for us to see if there are any excessive motions.40
In contrast, the other reviewers in town seem not to have been bothered
by Walters youthful propensity for exaggerated motions and were over-
whelmingly positive in their accounts. Friedrich Pilzer, reviewer for the
Rigasche Rundschau, expressed his immediate enthusiasm for Walters
Freischtz, summing it up as follows:
There was no evidence at all that the new,young director,Herr Wal-
ter, was allowed only a few days to acquaint himself with new
singers and musical personnel. On the contrary: the striking confi-
dence in the collaboration of all these forces would have made one
suppose that this was an ensemble that had played together for a
long time. Most especially gratifying was the highly stimulating,
musical-poetic exactitude that poured forth full of life, along with
which there emerged, from this orchestral and vocal ensemble, the
mysterious shiver of romanticism in nature, the blossoming of folk
and popular characteristics, and the most ingenious as well as most
powerful lyrical-dramatic transformations of the opera. Through
this conducting achievement, Herr Walter introduced himself in
such a way that, with his further musical direction and inspiration,
the best can be expected from our Opera.41
With reviews such as these, and the first flowerings of romance, this must
have been an uplifting time for the young conductor, unlike anything he had
yet experienced, and it is no wonder that, in his autobiography, he describes
his time in Riga in glowing terms. During his two-year tenure there,
crammed full of standard repertoire, his local premieres included Spinellis
A basso porto, Rubinsteins Der Makkaber, Massenets Werther, and
Siegfried Wagners Der Brenhuter,and he introduced new productions of
Nesslers Der Rattenfnger von Hameln, Glinkas A Life for the Czar, Wag-
ners Der fliegende Hollnder, Goldmarks Die Knigin von Saba, Gounods
Romo et Juliette, Humperdincks Hnsel und Gretel, Verdis Rigoletto, and
other works.42
There were, of course, occasional notes of criticism in some of the re-
views, but here again they seemed to stem from the reviewers personal pref-
erences, and not from any signs of youthful inexperience on Walters part. Of
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Walters performance of Der fliegende Hollnder, for example, the reviewer
for the Rigasche Rundschau admired the many fine details of the score
brought out by Walters interpretation, and in particular his ability to call at-
tention to individual strands of the polyphonic fabric, but he felt that Wal-
ters contrasts, however thrilling, were overdone.43
In this case, however, Walters use of excessive contrastsexcessive by
the reviewers lights, in any casewould appear to reflect a musical decision
he made early on and adhered to through much of his career. Walters
recording of the Hollnder Overture, made with the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra in the mid-s, displays a sharp contrast between the opening
Dutchman theme and the following Senta theme, a contrast which, to be
sure, is somewhat dictated by Wagners use of the tempo markings Allegro
con brio and Andante, respectively. Walters somewhat broad interpretation
of Andante, however, was not necessarily common practice, for in Karl
Mucks contemporaneous recording of the same overture (made with the
Berlin Staatsoper Orchestra), the opening tempo is comparable to Walters,
the Andante a bit quicker, so Mucks return to the opening theme does not
require quite as much of an accelerando as Walters, and the snatches from
Sentas theme that creep in later on in the overture are not underscored with
as much tempo modification. Further, Walter takes more liberties within the
Andante itself, beginning the ritardandi marked by Wagner earlier than
Muck (and earlier than many conductors do today), making the Senta theme
sound even more expansive than its base tempo would indicate. Interest-
ingly, Walters stereo recording with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra
from preserves all these tempo modifications, deviating less from his
earlier interpretations than do some of his other late recordings. And very
possibly it was just these distinctive liberties that impressed the Riga re-
viewer, though not so favorably.
Walters first season in Riga contained one major source of unhappi-
ness, his temporary clash with Mahler. In October , only a couple of
months into the season, Mahler wrote to him confidentially that Richter and
Johann Fuchs were leaving the Vienna Hofoper and that he would like to en-
gage Walter; if Walter agreed, they would see how to get you out of Riga as
fast as possiblewith any luck by the following fall.44 Much as Walter ad-
mired Mahler and even sought to emulate him in many ways, he was unwill-
ing to tear himself away from a musical environment in which he was scoring
such high successes and in which he was regarded not as someones assis-
tant, but as the guiding musical force. So he refused Mahlers offer, writing to
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his parents that, as he had explained to Mahler, The beginning of next fall
would be too soon; in the first place I could not get away from here, in the
second place I need another year in order to develop fully; the longer he
[Mahler] would postpone my engagement, the surer he could be of my suc-
cess in Vienna; I would ask him only that, if he engaged me, to introduce me
openly as Richters replacement; great demands would certainly be made on
me, but I dont fear them; I only feared a so-called gradual introduction,
since in the beginning it would not be known at all what I should actually do
there, and I would perhaps be regarded as a kind of examinee, which would
make my position very difficult at first.45
In addition to his desire to be given more time to develop his artistic per-
sonality independently, away from Mahlers influence (no doubt over-
whelming at times), Walters letter to his parents reveals his fear that simply
showing up in Vienna to be Mahlers assistant would not guarantee the kind
of position he might have, or what sorts of duties would be assigned to him.
Having been exposed at a young age to the treacherousat times downright
nastypolitical behind-the-scenes maneuvering so common in operatic es-
tablishments, he was clearly worried that Mahlers good word might not be
enough and that, unless it was openly declared that he was the successor of
the highly esteemed Richter, he might find himself with only a tentative po-
sition in Vienna.
Mahler, on the other hand, simply brushed aside his friends reserva-
tions, and his reply from around November of that year makes light of the
matter. What is all this beating about the bush? he asked. If I make you an
offer, I do really know what I am doing. He sought to persuade Walter by in-
forming him that, at present, he was conducting everything himself, and if he
didnt have Walter with him by , he would most certainly be dead. Be-
sides, he added, you will not be a finished conductor in two or even ten
years. If we are anything at all, we are always learners. You yourself will not
be able to say where at present you could learn more than with me.46
This last remark, instead of persuading Walter to come to Vienna, prob-
ably had the opposite effect, making him all the more determined to stay in
Riga; for, once having chosen the road to independence, artistic or other-
wise, few care to hear they have taken a wrong turn. Nevertheless, as the days
passed, he began to fear that his refusal would result in a serious breach be-
tween him and his most important mentor. By December he was already re-
lenting, relating to his parents how he had refused an offer from Mannheim
because the pay was too little (a position for which Mahler had originally
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recommended him), and thought Mahler would still be a good enough
friend to let him go if he was unhappy.47 A month later he was on the verge of
despair, telling his parents that Mahler had not answered a twelve-page letter
in which he told him he would come how, when, and as he wished.48
Without Mahlers support, Walter worried over what would become of
him when his contract with Riga expired. Above all, he wanted to return to
Germany, but he wondered if there would be any positions open. Berlin is
perfectly satisfied with its Muckish mediocrity, he wrote peevishly to his
uncle; it is the same in Munich with Stavenhagen and in Dresden with
Schuch; people like myself are really quite superfluous. Perhaps, he men-
tioned in passing, he might even go to America. At least, he consoled him-
self, it was splendid in Riga, where I am indisputably the master of the
whole situation, and . . . everyone bows before me.49 To be in artistic con-
trol was one of Walters great desires, and we can only hope that his worries
for the future did not prevent him from enjoying the advantages of the pre-
sent, and that his nagging doubts about his career expressed in these letters
to his relatives were not always uppermost in his thoughts.
In the end Walters fear that Mahlers silence was symptomatic of deep
resentment, and that there might even be a permanent breach between them,
proved to be unfounded, for Mahler eventually wrote that Walter had com-
pletely misinterpreted his silence: You know how lazy I am when it comes
to writing letters. . . . WellI have long since forgiven you, if there was any-
thing to forgive. I cannot even remember what it was all about.50
As it turned out, neither Richter nor Fuchs was ready to leave the Vi-
enna Hofoper just yet, so Walters misgivings were justified. In any case, his
short-lived conflict with Mahler was resolved, and when, in November ,
Walter was offered a five-year contract as Royal Prussian Conductor by the
Berlin Opera, he was careful to consult Mahler before accepting.51
Admired as he was by the press and public in Riga, and gratifying as it
must have been to be the master of the whole situation, he simply could
not refuse such an offer. The caliber of the artistic personnel in Rigare-
spectable enough for what was basically a provincial theatercould not
possibly match the likes of Emmy Destinn and Ernst Kraus (Walters old
friend), with whom he would be working in Berlin. Even before the Berlin
offer came, by the beginning of the next season, Walter was already com-
plaining to his parents that his performances were not going to be up to stan-
dard, that he was right to be worried about the new personnel engaged for
that season, and that he would like to have a visiting card printed up that
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would read: Bruno Walter, Conductor of the disgraceful performances at
the Riga City Theater.52 Further, the Berlin position would mean more fi-
nancial security, allowing Walter and Elsa Korneck to marry. Above all, there
was the lure of conducting in the opera house of his youth, where he had first
heard Wagners Tristan, an experience that had been partially responsible
for launching him on his present course. Think of it! he exclaimed with
unusual vehemence in his autobiography. The venerable house in whose
top gallery I had received the decisive impressions of my boyhood years . . .
was to be the scene of my own activity.53 Still, it was with a touch of nostal-
gia for what he was leaving behind that he described to his parents the
farewell festivities accorded him in Riga, how people presented him with
gifts and flowers, how it would be impossible to describe the ovations he re-
ceived, how people waited for him in the street after a performance and ap-
plauded. Isnt that incredible? he ended the letter in wonderment.54 Per-
haps the goodwill of the audiences in Riga emboldened Walter to include six
songs of his own composition, sung by Elsa and other singers from his
troupe, in a concert given near the end of his tenure there.55 This time he
credited the author as Walter, not Schlesinger. It was no doubt with aspira-
tions of becoming a great composer-conductor like Mahler that Walter pre-
pared himself mentally for his return to Berlin.
But Royal Prussian Conductor or no, Elsas parents persuaded the
young couple to put off their marriage until the end of Walters first season in
Berlin; so Elsa accepted a one-year contract with the Stadttheater in Basel,
while Walter procured a bachelor apartment for himself on Derfflingerstrasse
near his old school, the Falk Real-Gymnasium, which, as he commented
ironically in Theme and Variations, about nine years before, I had left with
so much impatience.56
Walters seemingly triumphant homecoming was naturally picked up by
the press. A number of articles stressing his Berlin origins appeared in vari-
ous local newspapers. Some even printed a handsome engraving of the
young conductor in which he sported a small goatee (grown at the urging of
the Mahler family to make him appear older for his Riga engagement). His
appearance at the podium was anticipated to the point where, in a harsh re-
view of an apparently less-than-satisfactory Lohengrin, the critic exclaimed,
Where are Messers Strauss and Muck,where is the newly engaged Mr. Wal-
ter?57 (As it turned out, this critics prayers were answered, for the hapless
conductor who had been responsible for one of the worst performances the
critic had ever suffered through was promptly relieved of his duties and re-
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placed by Walter at the last minute in a performance of Carmen.) Nor, on the
whole, did Walter disappoint; the opening reviews (of Freischtz) were re-
spectful and complimentary. Three of the major Berlin papersthe Berlin
Lokal-Anzeiger, the Vossische Zeitung, and the Welt-am-Montagidentified
him as belonging to the same school of modern conductors as Mahler,
with whom his association was well known, and Nikisch, in both his ap-
proach and movements.
Walters notices for the fall of remained complimentary in tone, de-
spite a performance of Sieg fried that was, according to the Berlin Lokal-
Anzeiger, not well rehearsed, and he received especial praise for a concert in
which he conducted the Berlin Tonknstler Orchester, performing Berliozs
Symphonie fantastique, Wagners Der fliegende Hollnder Overture, a fu-
neral march from Pfitzners Rose vom Liebesgarten, and Beethovens Violin
Concerto with Willy Burmester. (One critic, however, complained about the
length of the program, which didnt end until after :.) In the Violin Con-
certo, Walter experienced one of his earliest artistic differences of opinion
with a soloist, for the conductor felt the third movement should be taken at a
pace more moderate than the exaggeratedly fast tempo preferred by the
violinist. The resulting tempo war did not escape at least one critics ears.58
On the whole, Walters orchestral concerts in Rigadespite scattered re-
marks in his letters to his parents that the performances seemed less than
perfectprepared him well for orchestral conducting in Berlin. The assess-
ments of the Berlin critics of Walters opera and orchestral conducting were
not so laudatory as those in Riga, often pointing to details of the perfor-
mances that they felt were unsuccessful, but this was to be expected from
critics in a major cultural center.
For the first time in his life, Walter was conducting at one of the foremost
opera houses in Europe, directing singers considered the stars of the day; in
addition to Emmy Destinn and Ernst Kraus were the bass Paul Knpfer and
the tenor Julius Lieban. He was also entrusted with some local premieres
(including Webers singspiel Abu Hassan), the most important of which was
the first Berlin performance of Hans Pfitzners neo-Wagnerian Der arme
Heinrich, given on December , . As he recounts in his memoirs, he
had come across this score several years before, while in Hamburg. When he
studied the music, he felt he had struck pure gold. . . . At first, I was in-
clined to see in the initial scenesdeeply moving atmosphere of illness a pow-
erfully expressive but rather Tristanesque sequel to Wagner. But the farther I
got, the more clearly I recognized the inspiration and original inventiveness
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of a creative dramatic musician.59 Many Berliners apparently agreed. The
opera was a popular success, with the composer receiving numerous curtain
calls throughout the performance. He owed the greatest debt, the Berliner
Tageblatt noted, to Kapellmeister Bruno Walter, the conductor for the
evening, who prepared the exceedingly difficult work with evident devo-
tion.60 Over the years, Walter recalled his first encounter with Pfitzner as
having occurred in or , but their work on Der arme Heinrich in
Berlinthe first of many collaborationsno doubt marked a turning point
in their relationship. Walter had gained a friend, though the friendship that
ensued would travel on a bumpy road.
As the season passed, Walter found himself increasingly dissatisfied
once again, mainly because the Berlin Opera was run by Prussian officials in
a manner too bureaucratic for his taste. Artistic decisions were apparently
dispensed in the form of commands, rather than suggestions, and Walter
found himself face to face with the problem of whether performers could be
ordered to produce certain results. Having already decided early on that it
was more beneficial for all concerned to inspire rather than command, Wal-
ter quickly concluded that autocracy and art do not mix well. Artists could
be made into subordinates and commanded by instructions, but not in con-
nection with the exercise of art, which in the absence of freedom loses its es-
sential character, he wrote with regard to his year in Berlin. No oboist obe-
dient to a masters command is able to play a solo beautifully: his soul must
lend charm to his playing, and the conductor, respecting its freedom, must
influence it by methods more subtle than a superiors paralyzing com-
mand.61 In addition to his inherent objection to bureaucrats involving
themselves in artistic mattersor perhaps because of itWalter did not
succeed in endearing himself to His Excellency Count Hochberg, the gen-
eral director of both theaters for opera and drama in Berlin. This, however,
made it easier for him to have his contract annulled when Mahler once again
sought to entice Walter to Vienna.
Meanwhile, the Operas general management decided to begin a series
of lighter operas at the Kroll Theater, presumably to generate more income.
As the youngest conductor, one who had proved his ability to handle light
works with successful performances of Lortzing and Auber, Walter was nat-
urally elected to conduct Gilbert and Sullivans Mikado. Though no great
lover of light opera, he rather enjoyed this one, and, as he recalled, the pro-
ductions excellent cast made it a big success, so much so that the manage-
ment hastened to present another, less attractive work (to Walter at least),
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Lecocqs La Fille de Madame Angot, another local premiere. Faced with this
and certain managerial absurditiessuch as the casting of singers in pro-
ductions at both houses on the same evening, which made them rush back
and forth, hardly able to breathe, much less singWalter eventually peti-
tioned Hochberg for an annulment of his contract, which was granted. He
was now free to join Mahler in Vienna.

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Mahlers Second-in-Command
Vienna,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Nothing is less important than what the press here says:

it is a company of idiots; they bark like hounds at every new face,
they growl for a while, and after a few years, youll be our Walter.
Mahler, quoted by Walter in

In the landscape of history, turn-of-the-century Vienna juts up as

a cultural peak. The new and the old thrived in all the artsin
music perhaps more than anywhere else. Shortly before Walters
arrival in the fall of , Richard Strauss had given the Viennese
premiere of Ein Heldenleben; Gustav Mahler, the belated world
premiere of his cantata Das klagende Lied. In the same year, the
young tenor Leo Slezak joined the opera company at the Hofoper,
where he would soon assume many of the leading heroic roles,
and before the end of the decade, he would be thrilling audiences
at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Eduard Hanslick,
the champion of absolute music and the model for Beckmesser in
Wagners Meistersinger, was the senior music critic of Viennas
principal newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse, while Ferdinand
Lwenow remembered, if at all, as a misguided editor of Bruck-
ners scoresloomed as a notable force in Viennas music world.
As a conductor, he regularly presented masterpieces of the sym-

phonic and choral repertoire, among them Bachs Mass in B Minor (then
rarely heard), in a performance that featured an oboe damore.1 The use of
an authentic instrument in this performance, incidentally, serves as a re-
minder that an interest in early music and period instruments grew steadily
during the years that Walter spent in Vienna. Indeed, Saint-Sans himself
was president of the Socit des Concerts dInstruments Anciens, which of-
ten performed in the city, introducing rare baroque and pseudo-baroque
compositions to turn-of-the-century audiences. And Wanda Landowska
also visited Vienna on many occasions, playing recitals on the piano and, of
course, the harpsichord, an instrument that (in one form or another) Mahler
and, later, Walter himself would employ for accompaniment.
While the racy plays of Arthur Schnitzler predictably appealed to many
Austrian theatergoers, the Viennese imagination was excited as well by the
writings of Oscar Wilde, who died in , not long after a harrowing two-
year prison sentence. His plays were performed frequently in the Austrian
capital,and his other writings,in German translation,ran in the newspapers.
Some composers closely connected with Walter recognized the artistic and
commercial appeal of Wildes works. For the text of his scandalous but un-
deniably successful opera Salome, Richard Strauss turned to Wildes
equally scandalous play, while Franz Schreker wrote music for a ballet based
on Wildes story The Birthday of the Infanta, which in turn lent some of
the inspiration for Schrekers later opera Die Gezeichneten.
Like music and literature, the visual arts were receiving new impulses
that moved painting, sculpture, and architecture out of the nineteenth cen-
tury and into the twentieth. In Vienna the most striking new movement in
the visual arts was that of the Secession School, led by Gustav Klimta
school that would inspire a kindred movement in music that counted
Arnold Schoenberg and Bruno Walter among its members. The Secession
Schools best-known by-product was Jugendstil, the Austro-German ver-
sion of Art Nouveau, which has left a lasting mark both on Viennas public
buildings and in art galleries around the world. Klimts paintingsalive
with sensuality, sometimes disturbingly decadenthelped pave the way for
Expressionism (somewhat as the musical Secessionist Schoenberg moved
from an aesthetic of the overlush to one of experimental pantonality).
Among the women who came into intimate contact with Klimt at the turn of
the century was the irresistible Alma Schindler, a woman soon to attract the
attention of Gustav Mahler.

M S--C

 On May ,,a few months before arriving in Austrias splendid capital,
Walter and Elsa Korneck were married in Berlin.The event was cause for cele-
bration, but also for concern, since the position in Vienna was not absolutely
secure.Mahler wrote that Walter would have a yearly salary of florins and
a two-year contract, to be renewed at a higher rate after the first two years were
completed.2 The emperors permission, however, was required before Walter
could work at the Vienna Hofoper, and the imperial assent was long in com-
ing.Walters salary began on July ,though he was not yet living in Vienna,and
Mahlerwho needed a healthy assistant at the opera, not a nervous
wreckadvised him to get a really decent holiday.3 In August, relaxing at
the seaside resort of Sopot,near Elsas native city of Danzig,Walter wrote to his
parents about his situation; Mahler,though desperately in need of help,would
wait even till September for Walter to come as his assistant. He would have
Walter or no one. Mahler again behaved in a touching and splendid manner,
a friend of the utmost loyalty and nobility. Without these assurances from
Mahler, Walter confessed to his parents, my situation would have been un-
bearable, making any rest and relaxation impossible.4
The imperial assent eventually came through, and on September
Walter was conducting the first of the countless operas he would lead at the
Vienna Hofoper. Mahler had originally hoped to launch Walters career in
Vienna with something unusualperhaps Les Contes dHoffmann or Puc-
cinis La Bohme (which hadnt yet been performed in Vienna).5 In the event,
Walter conducted the old war-horse Aida, with a cast that included Anna von
Mildenburg as Aida, Edyth Walker as Amneris, and Leo Slezak as Radams.
Walter viewed the performance as a great success, telling his parents it had
gone most excellently. The orchestra followed him with zest and thronged
about him after the ends of the acts to offer kind words.Mahler had told him af-
terwards that he had become quite a fellow.6 In fact, according to Natalie
Bauer-Lechner, Mahler was delighted with the performance, declaring that
from now on he could let Walter conduct in his place with complete confi-
dence, and turn everything important over to him. Listening to somebody else
conduct, she added, he usually experiences so many musical discomforts
that he becomes practically seasick.But in this case you could see from his ex-
pressions and gesturesas from his frequent enthusiastic exclamationsthat
he was completely in agreement with what was going on.7
Nevertheless, when the critics comments appeared, Walter found them
unencouraging, irrelevant, stupid, even laughable. The Neue Freie Presse
meted out praise and caution in about equal measure:
M S--C

 The conductor was certainly once undervalued! Nobody made
much fuss if one conductor or another had superbly conducted a
symphony or an opera. With the increasing difficulty of the scores,
with the ever growing complexity of the modern orchestral appara-
tus, the conductors duty acquired greater responsibility; the repu-
tation of the spiritual leaders grew visibly, and their position natu-
rally moved more into the foreground! Nowadays, we perhaps
esteem the baton somewhat above its genuine value. Music, which
to be sure readily follows fashion, has found its Superconductor!
Herr Walter, who today sat for the first time at the conductors desk
in the Court Opera and conducted Verdis inspired opera Aida,
carried us off into this excursus. Still very young, he has been en-
gaged previously at Breslau, Hamburg, and then Berlin; he seems
unusually assured and quick-witted, thoroughly acquainted with
his score, and inclined to rush rather than to drag. No liability
there! But the fidgety movements, which at present belongor so
the uninitiated believesto the tools of an energetic conductor,
are also made by Herr Walter. These nervous gestures seem dash-
ing and precise to the public, but for the performers they signify an
unnecessary and dangerous annoyance!8
The Neues Wiener Journal also raked Walter over the coals for his exagger-
ated movements; a strongly individual conductor like Mahler could get away
with such gesticulations, which came naturally to him. Yet in Walter, the
critic observed, they seemed affected. Nevertheless, Walters devotion and
energy left a positive impression.9 The reviewer for the anti-Semitic
Deutsches Volksblatt made sure to mention that Herr Walther and Herr
Schlesinger were one and the same person.10
Despite the less-than-glowing reviews, Walter felt inspired by his outing
before the opera orchestra that, then as now, doubled as the Vienna Philhar-
monic,and he entertained thoughts of conducting the players for the Philhar-
monic concerts.Mahler was no longer in charge of their concerts,and the mu-
sicians didnt care much for Schalk; they now had Joseph Hellmesberger,
a master-cobbler of the first order.11 As a result, Walter was setting his
sights on conducting the Philharmonic concerts as early as the following year,
an aspiration that would not be realized quite so easily, nor quite so soon.
But he kept busy in the opera house. By the end of he had con-
ducted Der fliegende Hollnder, Tannhuser, Aida, Un ballo in maschera,

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Carmen, Der Freischtz, Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, LAfricaine,
Orfeo ed Euridice, and Les Contes dHoffmann. The Neue Freie Presse passed
over the new Kapellmeisters part in most of these performancesmost
readers, after all, were interested only in the singersthough he received
special mention for his Ballo: The performance, carefully prepared and
most skillfully conducted by Herr Walter, was a complete victory.12 Some
critics for other newspapers, however, made a special point of attacking Wal-
ter. One was Richard Wallaschek, chief music critic of Die Zeit, a Left-lean-
ing newspaper focusing on literature and the other artsa man who had
gained an international reputation as a musical scholar in the late nineteenth
century for his early work in what is now known as ethnomusicology.13
Wallaschek seems first to have encountered Walter in a performance of
LAfricaine in October, which elicited an unpromising comment: One
Herr Walter conducted the performance. He is already the third conductor
this year who wishes to learn something at our opera. On the damage accru-
ing to our ensemble through these and other experiments, we shall return
shortly for a more thorough treatment.14 As promised, a lengthy essay ap-
peared on October , ominously entitled Conductor Woes in Vienna.
Grumbling and despairing, it is a jeremiad over the sorry state of conducting
in the Austrian capital. As Wallaschek tells the story, Mahler, patently over-
burdened at the Hofoper, had hired second-raters as his assistants, and they
were now wreaking havoc on Viennas musical life:
In the course of the year . . . no fewer than three young, inexperi-
enced conductors have appeared, one of whom (Herr Mickorey)
disappeared immediately, while the other (Herr B[r]echer) is in-
deed still engaged, but he doesnt appear [at the podium].15 A pity
that the third conductor (Herr Walter) didnt follow his example.
He appears rather often at the conductors desk, and it was quite
odd to see how, in the recent performance of Ballo, every singer, at
the beginning of his aria, took his own tempo, without considera-
tion for the interpretation of his partner. Where the conductor did
enforce his will, as in the finale of Act I, this occurred with such un-
natural distortions and affected shadings that the original concep-
tion of the work was scarcely recognizable.16
Walters youth was also a liability in Wallascheks eyes, since the mature
artists he had to direct would feel a legitimate displeasure working under

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someone considerably younger than themselves and would not give their
best in performance.
Like any other critic, Wallaschek had his own agenda, and Walters use
of rubato was clearly an irritant to him, as he made clear in several scathing
reviews. He expressed quite definite opinions about rhythm, arguing at
great length in one of his books that music had its origin therein: Rhythm,
taken in a general sense to include keeping in time, is the essence in music,
in its simplest form as well as in the most skilfully elaborated fugues of mod-
ern composers.17 No doubt some of Wallaschecks hostility toward Walter
sprang from a fundamental difference of opinion regarding the application
of rubato, and indeed that very issue had already become (and would re-
main) a recurring motive in other critical assessments of Walters work.
Certainly Die Zeit was not the only journal to criticize Walter. Other
newspapers also pounced on Mahlers young new protg. After a perfor-
mance of Tannhuser, Walter was shocked to read a furious attack in the
Neues Wiener Tagblatt, a prominent, widely read newspaper. It was the first
time in my life, he wrote, that I had been so violently abused. The expres-
sions used were so extravagantly uncomplimentaryone of them was that I
would not do as the leader even of a riflemens bandthat the obvious mal-
ice should have weakened the general effect. I was nevertheless deeply dis-
mayed, and my bewilderment increased when a number of similar voices
were raised against me in quick succession.18
Mahler tried to comfort Walter by explaining that the attacks were
largely indirect attacks on himself. Walter had obviously expressed concern
about imprecision in the ensemble, for Mahler, with the voice of long experi-
ence, wrote to allay his fears in the winter of : If that goose [the soprano
Elise Elizza] makes a mess of things and [Leo Slezak] is slovenly, then it sim-
ply means the ensemble cant be got to work. Dont worry yourself to death
about it.19 Nevertheless, faced with an onslaught of negative criticism such
as he had never experienced before, Walter found himself thoroughly un-
nerved.
Social hostility added to the tensions created by critical abuse. If Walter
felt Viennese in his heart, there were some in Vienna who were hardly will-
ing to welcome him as one of their own, and the citys widespread hostility to
Jews brought him no comfort. Karl Lueger, an open anti-Semite, was Vi-
ennas highly popular mayor. (He had once objected that the Jew Mahler
was going to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic for a benefit concert in ;
to their credit, the members of the orchestra refused to play under anyone
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but the conductor of their choice, Mahler.20) In November Walter wrote to
his father about the spiteful anti-Semitic newspapers, thanking God, in an
unintentionally ironic aside, that no one read such papers in Germany.
Anti-Semitism is, at least on paper, immensely widespread. There are pa-
pers in which you find nothing but Jewish swindlers, Jew-nastiness, once
again a Jewish dirty trick, and so on.21 By May the newspapers would
carry stories of a particularly savage pogrom in Kishinev, on the Russian bor-
der near Rumaniaone of many reminders that anti-Semitism involved far
more than ugly words on paper.
Before long, with critics against him and bigots spreading their venom,
Walter faced a crisis; he was losing his self-confidence and didnt know how to
regain it. The Cologne Opera made him an attractive offer that he was sorely
tempted to accept, despite having a position as regular conductor in one of the
greatest musical centers of Europe, working closely with perhaps the worlds
foremost composer-conductor. Elsa, concerned about her husbands well-
being, secretly visited Mahler to ask his advice, and he told her that Walter had
lost the game, that anyone who had once lost in Vienna could never again
be victorious, a verdict she communicated to her husband. Despite his shock
at hearing the grim prognosis from his friend and mentor, or perhaps because
of it, Walter decided to stay: I suddenly felt strong, was conscious of my re-
sponsibilities to myself, and quite certain of my decision: I had been done a
wrong, and it would be cowardly to take it lying down.22
But his confidence in his technique wavered; he became wary of the
rhythmic liberties he was taking and began to fear that perhaps he simply
didnt know how to conduct. For all that, he was still capable of directing the
orchestra, performance after performance, with a constantly varying reper-
toire. And soon an opportunity arose that allowed him to show he was a
thinking musician, not just another baton-waving Kapellmeister. The music
historian Ludwig Schiedermair was writing a series of articles for the new
periodical Die Musik on the four Mahler symphonies then in existence. For
the most recent symphony, the Fourth, Schiedermair hoped that Mahler
himself would offer some exegetical assistance. Critics were doubtful about
how to approach the symphony. Was it absolute music? If so, why was the
last movement a song-setting of Das himmlische Leben from Des Knaben
Wunderhorn? If it was a programmatic work, what was the program for the
opening three movements?
Mahler deputized Walter, as the person who best understood his inten-
tions, to respond to Schiedermairs inquiry. In a long letter, Walter explained
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that the opening movements were to be taken primarily as absolute music.
Was a program really needed, Walter asked (speaking for Mahler), in order
to understand a movement that has a first theme, a second theme, a develop-
ment section, and a recapitulation? Or a Scherzo with Trio? Or an Andante
with Variations? After a detailed explanation, Walter ended his opening
statement with the assertion that the symphony was absolute music and
nonliterary from beginning to end, a four-movement symphony, organic in
every movement, thoroughly accessible to anyone with a taste for subtle hu-
mor.23 Then, having made his point, Walter surprisingly allowed that the
piece could indeed suggest many possible extramusical scenarios. The
opening three movements, for example, could portray a heavenly existence,
anticipating the text of the last movement. The first movement, full of joy,
might suggest a man who is experiencing the heavenly life, while the second
movement could be entitled The Angel of Death Plays His Dance, with
Death fiddling us up to heaven. The third movement might call to mind
Saint Ursula, that most serious of saints, smiling and laughing at the pros-
pect of heaven. But, Walter cautioned, this was just one way among many of
interpreting the movements.24
Schiedermair cited much of Walters letter in the last installment of his
three-part series on Mahler, not always agreeing with the Kapellmeisters
views but obviously respecting them, and this was almost certainly the first
substantial musical statement of Walters to appear in a widely read, serious
publication.25 It revealed a cultivated, intelligent mind, capable of making
fine distinctions and of expressing them with grace and eloquence.
Another boost to his ego came in the form of an invitation to play with
Arnold Ros, the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, in the fifth
concert of Ross chamber music series, which took place on March . The
Ros Quartet, often supplemented by other musicians, offered admirable
performances of the classicsBeethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mozartand
also regularly explored new music. In fact, the sixth concert in the series
brought Vienna the first performance of Schoenbergs early masterpiece
Verklrte Nacht. The concert on March presented Schuberts Quartet in E
Major, Beethovens Quartet in E-flat Major, and a premiere, Robert Fuchss
Violin Sonata in D Minor (opus ), with Walter at the keyboard accompa-
nying Ros on the violin. Though barely remembered today, Fuchs had
been one of Mahlers teachers (Zemlinsky, Sibelius, and Schreker were also
among his students), and he had won the admiration of Brahms, whose mu-
sic patently served as the inspiration for much of Fuchss own. A brief review
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of the recital in the Neue Freie Presse noted that the piano part was effec-
tively played by Kapellmeister Walter, without further elaboration on the
piece or the performance.26 Nevertheless, premiering a work by a composer
with close connections to Mahler and Brahms must have given Walter a
sense of accomplishment.
One key event in Mahlers personal life at the end of had an imme-
diate impact on all his friends: his engagement to Alma Schindler, the most
beautiful woman in Vienna, as the phrase went. Mahlers sudden, intense
affection for Alma took his friends by surprise, as did their engagement.
Many of those closest to Mahler found out about the engagement only when
they opened the newspapers. She was twenty-two, he forty-one. She was a
celebrated beauty, accustomed to splendid society life, as Walter observed,
whereas Mahler was otherworldly and solitary. People naturally harbored
doubts about the union. Clearly embarrassed about the concealed engage-
ment, Mahler awkwardly asked Walter not to congratulate him, or congrat-
ulate me quite quickly, like this; now lets not say anything more about it.27
A comical bridegroom, Walter thought. But a more serious side to the en-
gagement was that the precious hours in which Walter and Mahler had
shared their thoughts were, at least for the time being, disrupted.
Walter, of course, had other close friends, one being Hans Pfitzner,
whose opera Der arme Heinrich Walter had introduced to Berlin the year
before. Pfitzner became the recipient of long, confessional letters from Wal-
ter about his disappointments and frustrations in Vienna. Walter used the
personal form of address to Pfitzner, Du, which he used sparingly through-
out his lifeMahler and Walter addressed each other as Sieand the tone
of the letters is one of utter candor and trust. In March Walter confided
to Pfitzner that the critics were against him and laid some of the blame, per-
haps unfairly, on the conductor Franz Schalk,who had been hired at the Hof-
oper in and whose conducting both Mahler and Walter found dull and
unimaginative. Along with Ferdinand Lwe, Franz Schalk and his brother
Josef (both of whom had studied with Bruckner) were among the earliest ed-
itors of Bruckners symphonies. Walters senior by more than a decade,
Franz Schalk was Viennese (unlike Walter) and had many friends; he was
widely viewedon dubious grounds, so Walter feltas a man admirable for
his sharp mind, his strong character, his deep nature, and his modest de-
meanor. His peace offerings to Walter, however, provoked skepticism and
resentment in the younger conductor, who regarded Schalk as a slippery
hypocrite out to ruin him. Whether or not Walter painted an unjust portrait
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of Schalk at this time, there is no doubt that strong and sometimes vicious
factions were an inescapable reality in the city Walter admired so deeply.28
Naturally Walter wrote to Pfitzner about contemporary compositions,
including their own works. He urged Ros to perform Pfitzners music in his
concert series and waged a campaign to convince Mahler to bring Pfitzners
Die Rose vom Liebesgarten to the Hofoper. Unfortunately, Walter confided to
Pfitzner with brutal honesty, Mahler had an astounding antipathy against
his whole style.29 Some of the libretto, Walter pointed out, was too ob-
scure and would prove puzzling to the audience; nevertheless, he would
continue to work on Mahler. True to his word, Walter sat at the piano in De-
cember and performed a reduction of Pfitzners Quartet in D Major for
Mahler, Alma, and Arnold Ros. Mahler was delighted with the masterly
craft of the piece, enjoying particularly the expressive Adagio, a movement
that Walter had initially found hardest to penetrate. Pfitzner also gained an
important partisan in Alma, to whom he would later dedicate the quartet.30
Only Ros seemed to have reservations, which prompted Walter to brand
him, privately (and unfairly), as a Philistine.31 But Ros must have soon
overcome his doubts, for on January , , the piece had its premiere in
Vienna, given by the Ros Quartet. Walter found the performance well exe-
cuted but impersonal, objective to a fault.32 Nevertheless, Mahler was
deeply impressed and as a result reconsidered giving a performance of Die
Rose vom Liebesgarten, which Walter reported to Pfitzner with palpable ex-
citement.
However unsettling in some respects, the year brought Walter
some good notices. The Neue Freie Presse ran complimentary reviews of his
performances of Nicolais Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Donizettis Lu-
cia, and Wagners Tannhuser, for which Walter, according to the Neues
Wiener Tagblatt, now received such thunderous applause after the overture
that he was obliged to bow several times.33 Moreover, Julius Korngold, a
music critic at the Neue Freie Presse, was gaining an increasingly important
position at the paper, as Eduard Hanslick, then in his mid-seventies, pre-
pared for retirement. (He died in .) Like Hanslick, Korngold was an
eloquent prose stylist with conservative musical tastes, admired and feared
for his acerbic wit. Unlike Wallaschek, he took a distinct liking to the new
conductor, singling him out for praise in a review of Tannhuser in mid-
September. As his status increased, Korngold began contributing longer
musical essays to the paper; early in October he wrote a seven-column re-
view of Ernani under Walter. Herr Kapellmeister Walther led the perfor-
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mance with great fire, Korngold wrote; in the third act, the true Verdian
rockets rose up crackling.34 Immediately afterward, on October , Walter
scored another success by giving the Viennese premiere of Mozarts Zaide,
an early, unfinished singspiel that the critic Robert Hirschfeld completed for
turn-of-the-century audiences. The delightful concept of having a new
opera by Mozart inspired nine columns of commentary from Korngold.35
Walters conducting outside the opera house was also picking up. On
the first day of , Kapellmeister Walter no doubt took pleasure in seeing
his name in bold print in a notice for a charity concert on January by the
violin virtuoso Amlie Heller and the heldentenor Leo Slezak.36 It was to
take place in the sumptuous Great Hall of the Musikverein, with its incom-
parable acoustics, its painted coffered ceiling, and its many columns of
gilded, breast-baring women. Already the home of numerous historic sym-
phonic performances, the hall where Brahmss Second and Third Sym-
phonies had their premieres, it would become the venue for many of Wal-
ters greatest triumphs. For Heller, the Konzertverein Orchestra performed
Wieniawskis Second Violin Concerto, the first movement of Bruchs Sec-
ond Violin Concerto, Paganinis Fantasy on Mose, and Vieuxtempss Fan-
tasia appassionata. Slezak sang lieder by Beethoven, Schubert, Wolf,
Brahms, and Boieldieu. Although Walter was still acting in the capacity of an
accompanist, his duties were slowly extending into the orchestral repertoire,
a direction he very much wanted his career to move in.
But what happened to Elsas career? She apparently stopped singing
publicly when she married Walter, yet in February she and her husband
took a trip to Danzig and made what seem to have been their last professional
appearances together. Elsas sister, the contralto Gertrud Wirthschaft, was
giving her recital debut at the Apollosaal, and this was probably the stimulus
that recalled Elsa to the stage, with Walter accompanying at the piano. Elsas
singing, both technically and interpretively, was praised by the critics, and
she included in the program two of her husbands songs, Waltrauts Lied I
and II. Walter and Elsa also lent their services to a production of Gounods
Faust at the Stadttheater, much to the delight of the reviewers, one of whom
asserted that the performance had ranked among the best of the season. Wal-
ters ability to transform the orchestra into a flexible yet precise instrument
receptive to his subtle intentions was admired as an astonishing accomplish-
ment.37 It must have been gratifying to read such positive reviews after the
drubbings he had sometimes suffered in Vienna. Elsa no doubt enjoyed be-
ing in the limelight again, though her guest engagement in Faust appears to
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have been her farewell to the stage. Motherhood, which Elsa would soon ex-
perience, left women little time to maintain their art, especially at the turn of
the last century.
Its hard to say whether Walter felt any pangs of conscience about his
wifes divorce from her art, yet at the end of his career he offered a potentially
telling comment to Mildred Miller, who was then preparing for a recording of
Mahlers Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Walter. Several months preg-
nant, she arrived for her piano rehearsal and brought along her husband. Af-
ter the rehearsal Walter approached Millers husband and reportedly said:
You know, your wife is not just a singer; she is an artist. And therefore, she
must sing.You must allow her to sing.She must not have any more babies!38

In the early s conductors who wrote music were by no means excep-

tional. Felix Weingartner and Leo Blech both had serious reputations as
composers, and the wunderkind George Szell would perform his composi-
tions in Vienna during Walters tenure there. Sharing his thoughts with
Mahler, Strauss, and Pfitzner (all three capable of superb conducting), Wal-
ter was naturally spurred on to attempt a conquest of both arts. While some
know that Walter dabbled with composition, the following passage, from a
book on Walters conducting published around , will still come as some-
thing of a surprise to the modern reader: I hope it will not occur to anyone
to suppose that I am writing these observations down out of a tacit fear that
Bruno Walterwho is incidentally, as everyone knows, also a creative artist
could be forgotten.39 By creative artist, the author, Mary Komorn-
Rebhan, of course meant a composer. Ironically, things turned out just the
reverse of what shed anticipated. Unable to predict the electrical recording
process (to say nothing of the compact disc and its offshoots), she assumed
that Walters interpretations would perish in time, while his compositions
would live on. Today, however, no one remembers Walters compositions.
He is known only as an interpreter.
Walter had already been writing short orchestral works and lieder for
years, and by he had published a two-piano arrangement of Mahlers
First Symphony as well as a four-hand reduction of the Second.40 In
(or early ) he would see twelve of his songstwo sets of six, opus and
opus issued by Dreililien, a publisher in Berlin that also issued music by
the young Arnold Schoenberg.41 Walter had composed two of the songs as
early as and had already programmed some of them in Breslau and
Riga. On their publication, he sent Pfitzner copies and asked his friend for
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his frank opinion of them, but Pfitzners replies have not surfaced. Among
the texts Walter set were poems by Theodor Storm, Gustav Renner, Julius
Wolff, Hermann Sudermann, Heinrich Heine, and Henrik Ibsen, as well as
anonymous lyricsincluding Sehnsucht, from Des Knaben Wunderhorn,
the famous anthology to which Mahler so often turned for inspiration. De-
spite Walters initial excitement over the publication of the lieder, they seem
to have drawn little if any critical attention and to have inspired no significant
performances, though his friend, the tenor Ernst Kraus, possessed copies of
them.42 In a letter to his parents written in February , Walter calmly
stated that when he achieved fame, his songs would be performed often
enough, which implies that, five years after their publication, his lieder were
still languishing, unsung.43
Walters facility and versatility as a composer immediately strike anyone
who hears his music, and the early songs are no exception. Most of the songs
make ample use of late-nineteenth-century chromaticism in the harmonies
and melodies (some are littered with accidentals), and most are lyrical rather
than dramatic, though the lengthy Liebeslust is an almost operatic profes-
sion of love. At his weakest, Walter can seem stylistically lostsome har-
monies in Meine Mutter hats gewollt seem best suited to the cocktail
lounge, at least to modern earsbut this is rare. Many of the songs reveal a
distinctive voice, which reappears in the later compositions. Some of the
pieces, like the haunting Vorbei and Tragdie II, are admirably crafted
and musically unassailable. If we hear traces of Schubert, Debussy, Wolf,
Wagner, and others in his songs, these elements are deftly integrated into his
own style. Curiously enough, one genius of the art song seems to have had
little if any influence on the early lieder: Gustav Mahler. To judge from later
criticism of Walters music, however, that influence would make its presence
felt soon enough.
Walter had written to his parents already in that if he were to pre-
sent himself to the public as a composer, his entire personality would be ex-
posed, and he feared his songs would be too intimate; he therefore hoped
to write a more substantial work in the coming years before grappling with the
question of his future as a composer.44 Though the songs were his first works
to see print, he had clearly not lost sight of his aspiration to write large-scale
works, for by he had composed a serious chamber composition and
was ready to present it to that notoriously exacting audience, the Viennese
public and press. The work, a String Quartet in D Major, was given its pre-
miere performance by the Ros Quartet on November .45 Flanked by two
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other quartetsBeethovens in A major (opus ) and Brahmss in A
minorWalters piece made its debut in the best possible company. The
Allgemeine Musikzeitung allowed the quartet a mere sentence, but a compli-
mentary one, describing the piece as a rich, well-formed work, which often,
however,pushes its way out of the limitations imposed by chamber music to-
ward the area of orchestral music.46 Korngold gave it plenty of attention in
the Neue Freie Pressemore, perhaps, than Walter would have liked. He first
ran a brief notice saying that the Ros Quartet had recently brought forth a
novelty by Walter that had been awaited not without interest. Walter, it
seems, had proved himself no less a follower of Mahler the composer than he
had of Mahler the conductor. Mahler is the creator of symphonies about
which the last word will not be spoken for a long time. But he is surely the
most dangerous example to pick for someone who ultimately aspires to write
chamber music. Since a sharp difference of opinion had arisen after the
recital, Korngold wrote, he promised a little obituary notice for Walters
quartet,to be run in a later issue.The five days that intervened between Korn-
golds initial comment and his longer review must have seemed an eternity to
Walter, who was unlikely to have found any comfort when the threatened re-
view actually appeared in print.Korngold grouped the newcomer with other
ultramodern musicians who, to outdo their predecessors, ventured to
defy the limitations of their medium:
When four instruments of the same sound family, on which nor-
mally a sole voice is available, are to live fully in an important musi-
cal composition, they must remain four individuals. They should
not want to play like an orchestra, and they simply cannot. Ulti-
mately, there is no greater contrast than that between a quartet
movement and the essence of a modern symphony. . . . We find or-
chestral episodes in [Walters] work; an excess of movement and of
obfuscating voices; dramatic breaking-off, connecting, building-
up; all manner of playing with soundsmuted and pizzicato ef-
fects, a forcing of all the voices into the highest range. The spirit of
the Mahlerian symphony, especially the Fourth, haunts Walters
quartet a little, even if fully eleven thousand virgins cannot dance
within it. . . . Walters concluding movement, in which two sepa-
rate motives are varied, utterly falls apart.47
Reading this and other unfavorable reviews was undoubtedly a source
of increased tension for Walter, who seems to have suffered from stress-
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related complaints throughout his life. A cause for joy during this period
the birth of his first daughter, Lotte, on October , (indescribably
lovely, so much that her entire being, her melos, seems like the purest po-
etry)was probably also a source of anxiety, as Walters responsibilities
grew and the critics seemed determined to demolish his career.48 And per-
haps it was an accumulation of stress that forced him, less than a week after
Korngolds review appeared, to abandon a performance of Tannhuser after
conducting only the first act. He had been suddenly taken ill, and his rival
Franz Schalk was called on to substitute for him.49 The atmosphere in Vi-
enna had grown so oppressive that Walter was actively seeking employment
elsewhere. In a letter to Richard Strauss dated December , Walter confided
that hed applied for a position as Kapellmeister in Karlsruhehardly equal
to Vienna as a cultural centerand had taken the liberty of listing the com-
poser as a reference.50
However frustrated he might have felt professionally, his confidence in
his compositional ability had not been thoroughly quashed by the reviews.
In the same letter to Strauss, Walter also asked the older master to consider
including a symphonic work of his in the next Tonknstler-Versammlung in
Frankfurt. Though inspired largely by Ibsens Peer Gynt, Walter wrote, the
tone poem was autobiographical enough that it might more properly be
called Bruno Walter. In the end, Walter called it merely a Symphonic Fan-
tasy.51 Strauss must have found some merit in the work, for it was indeed
programmed for the Tonknstler-Versammlung at the end of May , an
event that also included Strausss Symphonia domestica. The musicologist
Arnold Schering, then editor of the Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik, assessed the
entire series, giving Walters piece a mixed review. The work was clearly pro-
grammatic, but the composer, following the model of his teacher, Mahler,
disdained to provide a program; unfortunately, Schering felt, it couldnt
stand on its own as a piece of absolute music, as the composer would have
liked. (A recurring grievance in reviews of this period revolved around the
omission of printed programs in performances of tone poems.) Schering
discovered some admirable spots in the piecesuch as the elegiac horn
duetand commented on the occasionally effective instrumentation,
but these did not compensate for the lack of organizational clarity.52 Ac-
cording to Alma (not always a reliable source), Walter played the piece
for Mahler, who was overwhelmed by its bloodless sterility from the first
measure onward, though he nevertheless managed to offer words of encour-
agement to his protg.53
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 Despite the ill critical reception accorded his compositions, Walters
musical life continued to grow in exciting directions. As a pianist, Walter
found an important new partner in the violinist Marie Soldat-Rger, who
had studied under Joachim. Admired as a soloist, Soldat-Rger led an all-
female string quartet whose personnel included the violist Natalie Bauer-
Lechner, who had once hoped to become Mahlers wife. With members of
the Soldat-Rger Quartet, Walter performed the Brahms Piano Trio in C
Minor on January , , and his work with these string players would con-
tinue throughout most of his tenure in Vienna.
Walter also established connections with the avant-garde composers of
Vienna, some of whom had banded together to form a new musical organi-
zation. Early in the music scholar Guido Adler wrote an article in the
Neue Freie Presse about the new Society for Creative Musicians in Vienna
(Vereinigung schaffender Tonknstler in Wien), whose members included,
among others, Gustav Mahler (its honorary president), Alexander von Zem-
linsky (chairman), Josef von Woess, Karl Weigl, Arnold Schoenberg, Oskar
Posa, Gustav Gutheil (husband of the soprano Marie Gutheil-Schoder),
Gerhard von Keussler, and Bruno Walter. Mahler and Strauss were both to
conduct some of the concerts arranged by the society, whose goals, as stated
in a circulated printed statement, were to bring contemporary composers
into closer contact with the public, to break away from the current musical
societies and create a musical secession, akin to the Secession School in the
visual arts.54 As a parallel activity to this musical secession, Zemlinsky,
Schoenberg, and the critic Elsa Bienenfeld were holding classes in music
theory.
Composing, no doubt, with an eye to future performances at the Society
for Creative Musicians, Walter worked on a piano quintet during the sum-
mer of , a work thatso he confided to Pfitznerbrought him a sense
of deep satisfaction.55 It was some months before the society arranged its
first concert, on November , for which Walter was originally scheduled to
conduct three orchestral songs by Hermann Bischoff and two by Edgar Is-
tel.56 Shortly after the initial announcement, however, the program was
changed; Zemlinsky would conduct the songs by Bischoff, and the work by
Istel ceded its place to a Dionysische Phantasie by Siegmund von Hauseg-
ger; the second half of the concert was devoted to Strausss Symphonia do-
mestica, conducted by Mahler.57 Why the change in program? Perhaps
Zemlinsky felt that, as chairman, he should be represented at the inaugural
concert of the new series, along with Mahler, the director of the Hofoper. Or
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perhaps Walter, in the view of the society, lacked the authority that its mem-
bers no doubt desired for their first concert. In any event, Walter would have
to wait until the following month before taking a more active part in the soci-
etys performances.
For all his emotional turmoil in , Walter enjoyed his share of suc-
cesses, opening the opera season with Lohengrin, which played to a nearly
sold-out house. At the same time, he was clearly gaining a reputation as a
proselytizer for Pfitzners music. On December , , Walter, Arnold
Ros, and Friedrich Buxbaum (the cellist of the Ros Quartet and longtime
solo cellist of the Philharmonic) performed Pfitzners Piano Trio in F Major
at a recital for the Vereinigung schaffender Tonknstler. Korngolds review
of the trio pointed out weaknesses but conceded that it conveyed a powerful
gusto in the act of making music. Ros, Buxbaum, and Walter, the latter ut-
terly aglow with the fire of propaganda, gave the performance their whole-
hearted devotion.58 One is often surprised today to discover how ardently
Walter championed certain modern composers earlier in his career, though
the composers he favored tended to stem from the romantic tradition and
were almost militantly proud of that heritage. It is often equally surprising to
learn about some of the composers he rejected: So far, he admitted to
Pfitzner in November, I cant understand a single measure of [Max] Regers
music.59
Another contemporary composer whose music occasionally proved
difficult for Walter to appreciate was Richard Strauss, and the relationship
between the two menfor personal as well as musical reasonswas
strained for most of their professional lives. (In Walter bemoaned the
great success of Salome, and of Strauss generally, as a sign of these wretched
times.60) Nevertheless, Walter performed Strausss works even when
during and after World War IIsome chose not to do so, in protest against
the composers political alliances. Strausss Sonata for Violin and Piano in
E-flat Major () belongs to an early phase of the composers career, and
much of it sounds like fairly standard late-nineteenth-century romanticism,
quite distinct from the Strauss of the famous tone poems. Some passages in
the Violin Sonata could momentarily be mistaken for Schumann or Brahms.
It was, in short, a work ideally suited to Walters temperament, and on Janu-
ary , , Walter accompanied Marie Soldat-Rger in a performance of
the sonata; in the same recital he sat at the keyboard for a performance of
Brahmss Piano Quartet in A Major. Once again, Walters facility and
dramatic interpretation impressed Korngold, though in places he found
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Walters attention to detail somewhat fussy: He gladly seizes expression
from the rhythmic sections and, with impassioned sensitivity to the music,
concentrates on clarifying the phrase in an emphatic, sometimes overem-
phatic, way.61
If Walters relationship to Strauss the composer was often uncomfort-
able, relations with Arnold Schoenberg were even more strained. Walter
never concealed his antipathy to atonality and serialism; nevertheless, the
compositions that Schoenberg wrote early in his career were of great interest
to Walter, as they were to many Viennese musicians and music-lovers.
Schoenberg unquestionably outranked us all as a composer, Walter re-
called decades later, and he was also able to create more of a stir in Viennas
musical life than anybody else. Verklrte Nacht, which impressed him
deeply, would appear on Walters programs long after the composer had
moved far away from its harmonic language. In spite of its Wagnerian atmo-
sphere and its infection with sequences, Walter wrote, I found it highly
original, full of ecstasy and convincing force in its moods, and at the same
time rich in musical substance.62 On January , , in the Great Hall of
the Musikverein with the Konzertverein Orchestra, the Society for Creative
Musicians sponsored the premiere of Schoenbergs Pelleas und Melisande
(conducted by the composer), along with Zemlinskys Die Seejung frau and
some orchestral songs by Oskar Posa. Walter recalled in his autobiography,
with almost palpable nostalgia, that Pelleas, like Mahlers Fourth, had cre-
ated a furor on that occasiona testament to the widespread and pas-
sionate interest the Viennese then took in music.63
For the third chamber music recital given by the Society for Creative
Musicians, on February , , Walter had the opportunity to premiere the
Piano Quintet in which he had taken such pride the previous summer.64
The Ros Quartet assisted Walter, who played the piano part. The program,
consisting of two works, opened with a Violin Sonata in C Major by Max
Reger, whose music Walter had recently criticized as utterly incomprehensi-
ble, performed by Ros and the composer. Like Walter, the veteran critic
Gustav Schnaich of the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, who also reviewed Vi-
ennese musical events for Die Musik, had little sympathy for Regers music;
he unjustly condemned the work as a truly disagreeable violin sonata that
deliberately warded off any enjoyment through harmonic and rhythmic
barbed wire and far preferred the beautiful-sounding, quite thoroughly
interesting, and melodically successful Piano Quintet by Bruno Walter.65
For its own series, the Ros Quartet gave a second airing of Walters Piano
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Quintet at the end of February. Despite the two performances, however,
Korngold omitted to review the piece. Perhaps it was for the best, given his
antipathy to Walters music.
The hostility that certain critics showed to Walters compositions and
conducting was surely the catalyst underlying an article Walter published in
the sterreichische Rundschau during the first half of . Immodestly enti-
tled On Understanding Art, the essay ostensibly treats the issue of the
proper way to approach a work of art, and the opening paragraphs focus
mainly on questions of aesthetics.66 Walter holds that those who want to un-
derstand art must be prepared to surrender themselves to something
higher, purer, unknown (Goethes words) and to show gratitude before
itplainly setting up an argument whereby he can trounce those critics
whose response to original art is anything but gratitude.
From a discussion of aesthetics, he soon turns to the question of criti-
cism, the main topic of the essay. A noticeable defensiveness permeates the
essay from this point onward. For Walter, certain critics simply dont have
the proper background or attitude to pass judgment on a work of art. An
ideal listener would be a great artist, brimming with life; the next best lis-
tener, a musically talented person, also full of life, seeking the eternal and
the one in the manifold and the mutable. Sadly, however, the self-appointed
connoisseur (Walter has the hostile critic in mind) often uses a rigid set of
criteria for judging art and regards his relationship to the artist as akin to
that of the examiner to the examinee, not infrequently to that of the judge to
the delinquent.67 The individual qualities that inevitably mark a work of
genius are precisely what alienate the connoisseur, who prefers to cherish
the familiar works of the past and to praise works that follow the recogniz-
able patterns of established masterpieces, while the genuinely original work
is usually condemned by the connoisseur, who cannot understand what is
new and original, finding it eclectic and confused. In contrast, true crit-
ics, if moved but puzzled by a new piece of music, will withhold judgment
and attribute their confusion to the limitations of their perception, perhaps
eventually gaining a just appreciation for the work in question.
As is often the case when we read Walters early writings, it comes as a
surprise that Walter should so aggressively attack the conservative critics
who were praising, for the most part, the very music that Walter himself
cherished above all. The critical responses he condemns were precisely the
kind that his own music provoked, which adds an unfortunate self-serving
tint to the essay; yet often enough hostility also greeted the music of Mahler,
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Schoenberg, Elgar, and other composers of the twentieth century whose
works are now regularly played in the concert hall. Walter was right to take
the critics to task, though its hard to imagine that his essay gained him any
new allies in the critical world.

Preparations for the Viennese premiere of Pfitzners Die Rose vom Liebes-
garten made large demands on Walters attention during the earlier part of
. He wrote to his friend on a number of occasions, informing him about
casting and instrumentation, sets and costumes, setbacks and delays. Walter
was patently thrilled that the production was finally taking place. There is a
boyish exuberance in some of his dispatches (
!!!!!!68). Though postponed several times, the premiere took
place on April , , under Mahlers masterly guidance. The performance
received mixed reviews, largely due to the difficulties of the libretto, but it
continued to generate interest for several weeks. On April Walter, with ir-
repressible enthusiasm, wrote to Pfitzner that the performance on the fol-
lowing day was totally sold out: Could the Rose become a box-office hit?
Now really, Pfitzner!!69 Pfitzner, who had been present at some of the re-
hearsals, came to conduct on May , partly, no doubt, as a stratagem to
maintain interest in the opera. When Walter conducted Die Rose in June,
Korngold observed afterward that one felt, in every measure, Walters fine
enthusiasm for Pfitzners music.70
Despite Walters devotion to Pfitzner, the two had a brief but painful
falling out at the end of the year, foreshadowing later clefts that would de-
velop between them. Pfitzner had visited Vienna, apparently in October, to
supervise a performance of his music.71 On this occasion he apparently had
little time to spare for Walter, who took his friends brusqueness as a slight.
Affronted, Walter sent two letters to Pfitzner, one of them quite long, ex-
pressing his pain and anger at Pfitzners perceived rudeness. It seems to
me, Walter wrote, that all the warmth within you is related to art, and that
human relations dont count for much to you.72 Walter had also urged
Pfitzner to be cautious when conversing with Alma Mahler, who by this time
had begun waging a campaign for Pfitzners music (she claimed to have reg-
ularly left the score of Die Rose for her husband to see on the pianos music
stand73). She, in turn, seems to have suggested to Pfitzner that Walter had
complained about him to her husband, when in fact, Walter protested, he
was merely telling Mahler about an intellectual disagreement theyd had.
Feminine malevolence, he quipped, describes this kind of thing as com-
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plaining.74 Walter probably felt somewhat threatened by Alma, who had
already altered his relationship with Mahler and was now developing an un-
settling interest in Pfitzner. Walters fears may have been justified; after all,
throughout her life, Alma pursued her interests with a passion, and artists of
genius ranked high among her interests and passions. By the end of the let-
ter, Walter was again accusing Pfitzner of not taking human relations seri-
ously, and saying that Walters own lofty conception of friendship must
therefore seem exaggerated and exalted.75
These letters, while presenting a sorry picture of Walters interior life,
also suggest his alarming physical condition at this time. Elsa, it turns out,
had to act as amanuensis for both letters (what did she think about Walters
petulant utterance on Almas feminine malevolence?), for by the end of
Walter could neither conduct nor play the piano nor write letters.76 He
was obliged even to back out of scheduled performances.77
The cause of all this was a serious problem in his arm that had devel-
oped sometime after his daughter Lottes birthhe remembered the diffi-
culty as beginning the following year, but the problem seems to have become
critical about two years afterward. Medical science called it a professional
cramp, but it looked deucedly like incipient paralysis, he wrote. The
rheumatic-neuralgic pain became so violent that I could no longer use my
right arm for conducting or piano playing. I went from one prominent doc-
tor to another. Each one confirmed the presence of psychogenic elements in
my malady. Living in turn-of-the-century Vienna, Walter had the luxury of
consulting the father of psychoanalysis himself, Sigmund Freud. Instead of
questioning me about sexual aberrations in infancy, as my laymans igno-
rance had led me to expect, Walter recalled, Freud examined my arm
briefly. . . . [H]e asked me if I had ever been to Sicily. When I replied that I
had not, he said that it was very beautiful and interesting, and more Greek
than Greece itself. In short, I was to leave that very evening, forget all about
my arm and the Opera, and do nothing for a few weeks but use my eyes. 78
Walter dutifully followed Freuds orders, fully savoring the southern
clime; but, upon his return, he still felt incapacitated by his ailing arm. Freud
advised him simply to conduct. When Walter voiced his doubts about his
ability to perform, Freud offered to take responsibility himself. Even reading
about the ensuing performances creates tension. I did a little conducting
with my right arm, then with my left, and occasionally with my head. There
were times when I forgot my arm over the music. I noticed at my next session
with Freud that he attached particular importance to my forgetting.79 In
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the end, Walter provisionally managed to control his problem, which
dogged him into the s, after altering his eating habits to conform with
the suggestions in Ernst von Feuchterslebens Dietetics of the Soul. (When
Walter heard that Toscanini was suffering from an arm ailment in , he
urged his colleague to change his diet.80) It is typical of Walter, who often
sought enlightenment in unorthodox places, that he should have treated
Freuds commonsense advice with some skepticism and trusted a book
albeit a once widely read and much-published oneon the dietetics of the
soul in dealing with his malady.

In the symphonic world the most important musical event in was un-
doubtedly the premiere of Mahlers Sixth Symphony during the forty-
second music festival of the Allgemeiner deutscher Musikverein in Essen,
held in late May. Mahlers Tragic Symphony was given on May ; on the
day before, a number of chamber works had been performed, including Wal-
ters Piano Quintet and Pfitzners Piano Trio. Both Walter and Pfitzner
played the piano parts in their works, assisted by the Munich Quartet. Die
Musik published a lengthy article on the festival, including musical examples
drawn from the works to be performed, illustrating their principal motives
and other thematic or structural points of interest.81 Walter contributed a
thematic table for his own piece, but Mahlers symphony held the dominant
place in the article, as in the festival. Curiously enough, the colossal sym-
phony that served as the festivals centerpiece, that staggeringly powerful
musical statement, is the only symphonic work of Mahlers that Walter
seems never to have conducted. The reason for this is perhaps impossible to
ascertain, though Wolfgang Stresemann, who knew Walter well later in life,
discovered a possible motive. During a walk one night, Mahler asked Walter
quite directly what he thought of the Sixth Symphony. Walter replied, with
undiplomatic frankness, that the second theme of the first movement, the
Alma theme, struck him as too sentimental.
And what did Mahler say? Stresemann asked.
Mahler didnt say anything, Walter replied.
What happened?
We just continued our walk.
They did so in silence.82
Perhaps the most revealing clue as to Walters opinion of the Sixth is of-
fered in Walters biography of Mahler, published in but drawing on
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ideas that he had developed over the course of many years. There his assess-
ment of the Sixth reveals a nearly morose reading of the works deeper mes-
sage: The Sixth is bleakly pessimistic: it reeks of the bitter taste of the cup
of life. In contrast with the Fifth, it says No, above all in its last movement,
where something resembling the inexorable strife of all against all is trans-
lated into music. Existence is a burden; death is desirable and life hateful,
might be its motto. . . . [T]he work ends in hopelessness and the night of the
soul. Non placet [It does not please me] is his verdict on this world; the
other world is not glimpsed for a moment.83 How much this says about
Walter, as opposed to Mahler, is open to question. But clearly a work that
seemed so contrary to the life impulse and so skeptical of a benign provi-
dence went very much against the grain for Walter. (Curiously enough, the
opening movement of Walters own First Symphony struck some reviewers
as presenting a relentlessly pessimistic world view to its listeners.)
In any event, Gustav Altmann wrote a long review in Die Musik of the
works presented at the Tonknstlerfest, expressing his views so bluntly that
the editors found it necessary to place a disclaimer on the first page of his ar-
ticle to the effect that Altmanns ideas did not reflect those of the editors but
were nevertheless being printed in the interest of free speech. For Altmann,
Mahlers gigantic work was merely a bloated example of Kapellmeister-
musiktrite, garrulous, and far too long. As for Walters Piano Quintet,
praised by Schnaich in an earlier issue of the same journal, Altmann dis-
patched it with one unflinching motion: a plainly wretched work in which
the sonic capabilities of the instruments are not once exploited; with its dry,
rattling motives, it gave the impression of a musical skeleton.84
By Walters status at the Hofoper had risen to the point where he
was the one chosen to present the premiere traditionally given on the em-
perors name day, October . Camille Erlangers Der polnische Jude (Le Juif
polonais), long since forgotten, was the opera selected to celebrate the occa-
sion, and the composer himself attended the first Viennese performance. It
was received, however, with something less than enthusiasm. The public re-
sponded only with occasional interest, but no warmth.85 Maximilian
Muntz, of the nationalist Deutsche Zeitung, took the opportunity to attack
Mahler for choosing, on such an occasion, a work unworthy of the institu-
tion entrusted to him. Mahler himself, Muntz argued, must have recognized
the operas worthlessness; after all, he simply turned over the opera to his
favorite, Kapellmeister Walther-Schlesinger.86 Although Muntz claims to
have been affronted on artistic grounds, his reference to Walters original
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surname, Schlesinger, suggests a motive for his hostility far removed from
aesthetics.
Meantime, Walter continued to compose, taking particular pride in his
new Piano Trio, which members of the Ros Quartet, with Walter at the key-
board (despite residual soreness in his arm), performed on January . The
work inspired several reviews, most of them focusing on the weaknesses in
the piece.87 Long after the performances, in a survey of recent chamber
works, Wilhelm Altmann wrote a distinctly unflattering, if not quite devas-
tating, critique of the piece for Die Musik. Altmann owned that the piece had
some admirable moments but judged it a disappointment overall, springing
more from reflection than from inspiration. The first two movements
made a negative impression on him. The Scherzo, however, was truly fine,
being the most unified and most clearly constructed movement of the en-
tire trio. The first half of the finale began well enough, but the second half
lacked substancehardly encouraging words for an aspiring composer. But
Altmann was not yet finished with his victim. That the composer also lacks
a sense for beautiful sound, he added, is shown especially by the treatment
of the cello. A stricter sense of self-criticism would surely have led him to the
same objections I have raised above. One final word, on Walters piano
playing: it was rather loud.88 Mahler, who attended a rehearsal of the
piece, privately and regretfully confided to Alma that he found it soporific
and that it was painful to see such creative fervor end in such wasted effort.89
Though his artistic creations met with indifference and hostility among
friends and foes alike, one act of creation was less fraught with controversy.
On September , , Walter was blessed with another child, his daughter
Gretel. She would become a captivating beauty, and her many talentsas
pianist, singer, and actresswould often make her beaming father boast
about her to his friends. Her violent death would come as an especially cruel
blow to Walter during the critical year of .

A pivotal moment in Walters conducting career occurred early in : he

was appointed to conduct the Vienna Philharmonics Nicolai Concert, held
on January . Named after Otto Nicolai, the composer of Die lustigen
Weiber von Windsor and the founder of the Vienna Philharmonic concerts,
the Nicolai Concerts had begun in and were already a venerable insti-
tution by . Members of the orchestra elected the conductor under
whom they wished to play, and it was a rare honor to be chosen. Now Walter
would at last have the chance to conduct major symphonic works with one of
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the finest orchestras in the world. The opening piece was Schumanns
Spring Symphony. Walter studied the score in minute detail, buying the
parts and marking them all. As he stood at the conductors desk and took up
the baton, he said to himself (or so he wrote to his parents): I now hold my
destiny in my hand. If things go amiss today, my career is over, and Ill have to
resign myself to a modest existence at the Vienna Hofoper. If things go suc-
cessfully, the whole case is altered. Well, they went successfully. He sent his
parents positive reviews, but far more important for him was the demonstra-
tive support of the public and the orchestra, which couldnt offer praise
enough in its enthusiastic ovations. Nevertheless, Walter still felt bitter
about the abuse hed suffered during the six preceding years. Before this tri-
umph, his battered reputation would have made it difficult for him to find a
good position elsewhere; now, however, he had real negotiating power. If the
Boston Symphony Orchestra or some other desirable ensemble were to in-
vite him to conduct, he would go in glory, with many regretting his depar-
ture.90 Korngold certainly admired the performance, suggesting that the or-
chestra need not look far to find its regular conductor and hinting strongly
that Walter would be a suitable candidate for the position.91
Along with his conducting duties, Walter kept busy as a pianist and a
composer. He assisted the Hofopers wind ensemble and performed the
Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor with the Soldat-Rger Quartet in Febru-
ary. At a Brahms celebration given by the Vienna Tonknstler-Verein in mid-
April, Walter accompanied Ros in a rendering of one of Brahmss violin
sonatas and the Trio for Piano, Violin, and Horn. (The day before, a young
pianist-conductor from Berlin, Otto Klemperer, accompanied the Dutch
cellist Jacques van Lier in a recital of Beethoven, Bach, Popper, and oth-
ers.92) By September he had written a work for chorus, soloists, and full or-
chestra, based on Schillers poem Das Siegesfest. Also in September Walter
played his First Symphonyan ambitious work lasting nearly an hourfor
Mahler, who offered no encouraging words to his younger colleague.93
Though Walter was manifestly despondent at Mahlers indifference, he con-
tinued with his creative work. By February Pfitzner had examined the
score of the symphony and, much to Walters delight, asked for permission
to conduct the first performance in Germany.94
At the Hofoper Walter gave a performance of Aubers La Muette de
Portici at the end of February, in a production that first brought the young
ballerina Grete Wiesenthal to the attention of the Viennese public. (As a
choreographer, she would collaborate with the conductor again in for a
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Salzburg production of Glucks Iphigenia in Aulis.) But a far more impor-
tant operatic event in Walters life was the Viennese premiere of Saint-
Sanss Samson et Dalila, given on May . First presented in , Saint-
Sanss dramatic masterpiece, which retains some of the qualities of an
oratorio, did not initially fare well, largely because its biblical theme was
deemed inappropriate for a sensual depiction on the operatic stage. Catholic
Vienna was certainly slow to accept it, offering it only thirty years after its
world premiere. Walters cast included Erik Schmedes as Samson and, as
Dalila, the American contralto Sarah Jane Cahier (better known as Madame
Charles Cahier), who would later sing with Walter on many important occa-
sions,most notably in the world premiere of Mahlers Das Lied von der Erde.
Korngold lauded the performance (it glistened thanks to the artistic polish
seen in all new performances at the opera theater) and offered unstinting
praise to Walter, this warm-feeling, deeply probing musician, for his work
on the musical portion of the production.95
Another new opera came Walters way about this time, though he ap-
proached it at first with grave misgivings. An Englishwoman had written to
Mahler, asking him to consider producing her new opera at the Hofoper.
Neither Mahler nor Walter had high hopes for the work, though Walter,
Mahlers Second-in-Command, reluctantly agreed to hear it. Before she
had played him two pages, she recalled, all was well.96 The composer
was Ethel Smyth, the early crusader for womens rights, and her opera was
The Wreckers. She and Walter became warm friends, and although circum-
stances at the Hofoper prevented her opera from being presented, Walter
would later conduct performances of the work in London, shortly after its
English premiere under Beecham.
Walter advised Smyth not to press the matter of her opera with
Mahler just then. In fact, a struggle that had been building for years was
reaching a crisis. Since becoming director of the Hofoper, Mahler had given
his lifeblood to Vienna, and many Viennese music-lovers knew it. Neverthe-
less, his enemies had persistently criticized him for spending too much
money at the Hofoper, for his choice of casting, for conducting too often out-
side the city, for writing music they couldnt understand, for being Jewish
in short, for being Mahler. In March Walter remarked on an energetic cam-
paign against Mahler that had begun in the press, resulting principally from
his justly disdainful relations toward the critics.97 By the end of May the
news had reached the papers: Mahler would be leaving Vienna to take up a
position at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.The news was a blow to the
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musical community, and the officials at the Hofoper scrambled to find a suc-
cessor. After some anxious months of negotiation, Felix Weingartner, a man
whose aesthetic sensibilities differed fundamentally from Mahlers, was
named the new director. For his official farewell to Vienna Mahler con-
ducted a performance of his Second Symphony with the Vienna Philhar-
monic, on November .
Fearing the consequences of Mahlers departure early on, when rumors
of his resignation began to circulate, Walter wrote to his parents that all
Mahlers efforts to get him new productions and premieres might be un-
done. The old calamities might return, and, even if only half as bad as be-
fore, they would be doubly painful because they would now be recurring
calamities.98 The departure also seems to have released some pent-up re-
sentment toward his mentor. Despite everything that I suffered through
him, Walter wrote to his parents shortly after Mahler left, and perhaps will
suffer still (there is a terrible side to him), he is one of the dearest men in the
world to me, and will remain so; and despite all the pain, I still owe him an
immeasurable heartfelt debt.99 What suffering was Walter referring to?
The question will probably remain unanswered, though Mahlers docu-
mented ruthlessness toward other musicians might well have extended to
his younger colleague from time to time. Moreover, Mahlers distinct lack of
enthusiasm for Walters music, which the younger composer must often
have sensed, would surely have left a wound.
To his friend and protg Bruno Walter,Mahler wrote a short but touch-
ing letter of farewell: Neither of us need waste words on what we mean to
each other.I know of no one who understands me as well as I feel you do,
and I believe that for my part I have entered deep into the mine of your soul.
Enclosed is the picture your wife asked for. Best wishes to both of you. Hop-
ing to see you again in May.100 The promise of seeing his friend again in
May no doubt cheered Walter, and the thought of performing without com-
petition from the greatest conductor he had ever known probably held a cer-
tain appeal for the younger man. Yet the departure of Mahlerwho for so
long had been a good friend, a magician at the podium, an inspiration as a
composer, and a powerful ally in a notoriously political environmentmust
also have left Walter feeling awkward, vulnerable, and desolate.

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Composer and Conductor

Vienna,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Yes, graceful singer, accept the laurel crown;

Your song has gained you the master-prize!
Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg

Although Walter worried that his premieres and new productions

would vanish with the change in directorship at the Hofoper, in
reality a number of new works that Mahler had slated for perfor-
mance fell directly into Walters lap. Already on January , ,
he found himself conducting the world premiere of Karl Gold-
marks new opera, Ein Wintermrchen, based on Shakespeares A
Winters Tale. Goldmarks works are little known today, though a
handful of his piecesthe aria Magische Tne, the Violin Con-
certo, and the Lndliche Hochzeit Symphonyhave not been
entirely consigned to oblivion. When Walter introduced Ein
Wintermrchen to the Viennese public, however, the seventy-
seven-year-old Hungarian-born composer had long been a fa-
vorite at the Hofoper, largely through the enormous success of
his early opera Die Knigin von Saba, an opera Walter had already
conducted in Riga. With Leo Slezak as Leontes, Anna von Mil-
denburg as Hermione, Selma Kurz as Perdita, Leopold Demuth
as Polixenes, and Richard Mayr as Valentin, the production was

anticipated with great eagerness and received wide coverage in newspapers
and journals. The composer attended the rehearsals and, according to the
Neue Freie Presse, found Walter the best and most sensitive man to carry out
his intentions.1 The opera itself was, for the most part, warmly received.
Theodor Helm commented on the care with which Walter had prepared the
production and his extremely spirited conducting, which brought out all
the beauties into the brightest light.2
Walter now had a successful premiere to his credit under the new direc-
tor, and his situation no longer looked so dire. Weingartner and Walter
would never be close friends, but they acknowledged each others talents.
Impressed with Walters performance, Goldmark sang his praises to Wein-
gartner, who had heard his younger colleague in a performance of Die
Walkre already in November and said it had been a great pleasure to
hear him conduct.3 Meanwhile, Walters symphony was tentatively sched-
uled for a performance with the Konzertverein in March (it would be post-
poned till the following year), and he had become president of the Tonknst-
lerverein. Everything seemed to be going his way.
Yet Walter felt alone. Midway through January the papers reported that
Mahler had conducted Tristan at the Met to great acclaim. Shortly afterward
Walter wrote to Pfitzner that he longed for companionship: since Mahlers
departure, its become quite desolate here, and I might run aground again in
the chilly atmosphere surrounding me. Youve got to have an elephants hide
not to freeze to death in this terrain.4 Despite the chilly atmosphere,
Pfitzner had warmed Walter a little by offering to dedicate his Piano Quintet
to his friend.
But it was another piano quintet that Walter performed with the Soldat-
Rger Quartet in February. The composer was Josef Labor, a blind pianist
and organist as well as, miraculously, the editor of Heinrich Bibers violin
music, whose pupils included Arnold Schoenberg, Alma Schindler (before
she married Mahler), and Julius Bittner. All three pupils would have exten-
sive dealings with Walter over the coming decades, and Bittners music was
to have an immediate impact on Walters career.
On April Walter gave the premiere (at the Hofoper) of Bittners Die
rote Gred, the composers first staged opera. The work had provoked more
than a little curiositypartly because its thirty-four-year-old author had
written the libretto as well as the score (in true Wagnerian fashion); partly be-
cause he was a man of law by profession, not a full-time musician, and there-

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fore the event possessed an element of novelty; and partly because he was a
native of Vienna and his story took place in Austria, which added the touch
of local appeal. Yet for all his manifest talent, Bittner, to judge from the
reviews, had not quite mastered his art in this eagerly anticipated work. Karl
Schreder, in the racist Deutsches Volksblatt, gleefully spread the rumor that
Walter had made many cuts in the score and had inserted his own material,
much to the detriment of the piece; moreover, he had outdone his model,
Mahler, in unnecessarily making the musicians slave away at their task.5
Some, however, appreciated Walters efforts; Richard Specht, for example,
found much to praise in the conductor and noted that he seemed to be as-
cending to the final step in the absolute mastery of conducting; an interpre-
tive artist of genius, Walter led the performance with incomparable fire.6
Walter soon showed off his incomparable fire beyond the borders of
Austria, traveling to Prague in Mayaccompanied by some of his leading
singersto score a triumph with Verdis Ballo, played to a sold-out house.
After nearly seven years, Walter could finally feel established as a major light
in the musical scene. At the same time, he continued to make new friends
among the Viennese intelligentsia. Walters new acquaintances included the
author Arthur Schnitzler and his wife, Olga, who had begun studying voice
with Walter as her coach and later gave professional recitals in Vienna.
Schnitzler was famous (or infamous) for his plays and stories that delved
into sexuality in a manner deemed scandalous by many of his contempo-
raries, though by our jaded modern standards the works seem tame enough,
and Walter seems not to have had any reservations about them. Indeed, in
his final year, he remembered an especially close relationship with Schnitz-
ler during this period. Through [the] years of the first decade of this cen-
tury, he wrote, our connection remained one of my strongest contacts with
the Viennese intellectual life of that time.7
Walter had already admired Arthur Schnitzlers works before getting to
know the playwright personally and had recently spent pleasant hours and
days reading Der Weg ins Frei, the authors latest literary creation.8 The
novel follows the activities of the aristocratic composer Georg von Wergen-
thina character, according to Walter, loosely based on the real-life
Clemens von Franckenstein, a man who was later to play an active role in
Walters career.9 A theme continually developed in the novel is the reaction
of Viennese Jews to their citys anti-Semitism, a subject that the Jewish au-
thor no doubt knew from firsthand experience. The topic must have struck

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a chord in Walter, thoughtight-lipped as he was on such mattershe
doesnt elaborate on it in a letter to Olga Schnitzler praising the novel. Yet
one potentially telling comment slips through his defenses: he finds the
character Heinrich Bermann extraordinary. It is Bermann who argues for
individual, interior solutions to individual problems of race and religion:
Every ones life simply depends on whether or not he finds his mental way
out. To do that of course it is necessary to see as clearly as possible into one-
self, to throw the searchlight into ones most hidden crannies, to have the
courage to be what one naturally isnot to be led into a mistake.10 The
sentiment may well have resonated in the mind of the man who would soon
be teaching his elder daughter both about Noahs ark and about the birth of
Christ, the mind of the future anthroposophist.11
While Walter made new acquaintances, he kept in touch with old
friends. The Viennese newspapers regularly reported on Mahler, who peri-
odically returned to Europe to compose and perform. His Seventh Sym-
phony was one of the most important new orchestral pieces presented in
, and he traveled to Prague to give the premiere of his latest work on
September . Walter, who was of course present, remembered the reunion
fondly: the rehearsals and performance . . . provided us with many occa-
sions for lively discussion. . . . We made an expedition by car into the pleas-
ant countryside; we talked together or in groups of friends and family; per-
fect harmony prevailed.12 It was also on this occasion that Walter made the
acquaintance of the young Otto Klemperer,who would go on to become one of
Walters greatest conducting rivals, especially of the Germanic repertoire.13
At the Hofoper, the year began with a performance of the Ring.
The production had sparked controversy in Vienna, revolving not around
Wagners ugly prejudicesas is usually the case todaybut around the cuts
that Weingartner made in the score. He tried to justify the shortened Ring in
a lengthy article, but many Viennese operagoers resented his presumption
in depriving them of several choice passages in the cycle.14 So when Walter
conducted Die Walkre in Januarydespite a partial restoration of material
that Weingartner had omittedaudience members responded to the still-
remaining cuts with shouts of Long live the complete Walkre! and
Down with Weingartner!15 While the outcry must have been unnerving,
Walter probably sympathized with the sentiment. One of Mahlers early
decrees as director of the Hofoper was to insist on performing the Wagner
operas complete, and the public was not about to yield a measure of the

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masters score.16 The Neue Freie Presse, listing the exact number of deleted
measures, observed with some asperity that the abbreviated performance of
Gtterdmmerung under Schalk ended only ten minutes earlier than usual.17
Of necessity, opera continued to be the focus of Walters energies;
in mid-January he gave the Viennese premiere of Xavier Lerouxs Le
Chemineau, a work that the critics instantly demolished. Such reactions no
doubt served to increase his desire to become more closely associated with
the symphonic repertoire, and he must have felt an edgy excitement when
his own contribution to the genre was at last to have its unveiling before the
public. Delayed for nearly a year, the performance of his First Symphony in
D Minor took place on February , , in the Grosser Musiksaal. The
Konzertverein Orchestra played Walters work as the last item in a concert
consisting exclusively of premieres. Ferdinand Lwe opened the evening
with Eine Singspiel-Overtre by the critic Edgar Istel, Jan Brandts-Buys
conducted his own Illyrische Ballade, and Walter wielded the baton for his
own symphony. The work, which survives in neatly copied parts, employs a
massive orchestra, and its temporal dimensions are Mahlerian in ampli-
tude.18 Walter wrote to Pfitzner that the symphony lasted somewhere be-
tween fifty and fifty-five minutes, the latter being the proper lengththe
Adagio would have to be taken as an Allegro con fuoco, Walter wrote to
Pfitzner, to result in the shorter timing.19
The work received enthusiastic applause from the audience,and the fol-
lowing month Walter wrote to his parents of its colossal success.20 Yet de-
spite the strong vote of confidence from the public, critical reception of the
work was sharply divided. Korngold published his review in a roundup of
recent concerts that appeared two weeks after the event. He might have de-
layed it deliberately, since writing the review seems to have caused him pain.
After all, for Walter the conductor, Korngold had nothing but the highest
praise. But Walter the composer was another matter: His new symphony
did not make an impression on us that was substantially more pleasing than
that made previously by his chamber music. . . . Witness, right off, the main
theme of the first movement in D minor, which, over bitter harmonies, tries
to extend itself temporally in Mahlers manner, but simply meanders labori-
ously, thereby having little significance. The theme of the Adagio offers a
similar picture. But even the development, the structuring, indeed the use of
materialsskilled as the composer is in thisare lacking in clarity and
deeper inner logic. Korngold owned that Walters piece was not devoid of
the occasional interesting detail or stimulating episode, and he espe-
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cially admired the demonic last movement; nevertheless, the work seemed
misguided in its determination to shun earlier models. It was the music of
the modern conductor, a genre written by those who seek originality above
all, because they know the literature too well.21
Korngolds review was no real surprise; he had never liked any of Wal-
ters music. Still, the harsh verdict must have wounded Walter. Few are im-
pervious to the sting of a negative review, least of all in a prominent local
newspaper. Other reviewers, if less brutal than Korngold, also felt that Wal-
ter was incapable of realizing his compositional ideal (a criticism, inciden-
tally, that would be leveled at Mahlers music for decades to come).22 One
important exception was Richard Specht, whose assessment of the sym-
phony for Die Musik was overflowing in its praise. The D minor symphony
had achieved a thunderous victory, under the masterly and persuasive con-
ducting of the composer. It was a weighty piece, compelling through its
musical abundance, but nevertheless a work not easily accessible, thanks
to its gigantic dimensions. No doubt aware of Korngolds objections,
Specht noted that, despite the difficulties the work presented to the listen-
ers, there wasnt the least objection to such an ecstatic creation, which
swelled expansively and didnt shy away from roughness or sonic excess.
This was true not only of the two crowd-pleasers, the life-loving Waltz-
Scherzo and the eerily demonic finale (both of which excited loud cheers),
but also of the opening two movements, which demanded more attention
from the listeners. The audience intently followed the relentlessly grim first
movement, which offered no solace and suppressed every liberating
sense of happiness with an iron fist, as well as the second movement, which
allowed the sense of happiness to break free at last. Indeed, at every mo-
ment one was conscious of musiceven where, on first hearing, the motivic
and architectonic coherence became lostand one sensed a music whose
inner urgency communicated itself to everyone. Walters piece was the di-
rect expression of a personality, and artistically, notwithstanding any objec-
tions, this was the crucial point.23
Walter was probably too busy to ruminate over the reviewswhether
encouraging or dismissivefor very long. By March he found himself in
London,giving his London debut with the Philharmonic Society at Queens
Hall. The centerpiece of his program was Schumanns Spring Symphony,
the work with which hed had such success at his first Nicolai Concert. The
response in London was no less enthusiastic. The London Times said his
performance showed that he knows exactly what he wants from the orches-
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tra and is able to secure it. What he most wants is tremendous rhythmic
vigour; and this he got in the leaping subject of the scherzo and throughout
the finale. But it was not all, for he kept a perfect balance of tone throughout
the slow beautiful movement,and succeeded in making Schumanns orches-
tration sound unusually lucid and expressive.24 Also on the program was a
work by the Englishwoman who had visited the Hofoper in the hope that
Mahler would put on her opera. Genuinely impressed by Ethel Smyths
work, Walter included the overture to her opera The Wreckers on his pro-
gram. Smyth, who was present at the concert, came out to enjoy an ovation at
the end of the piece. Emil Sauer joined Walter for a traversal of Beethovens
Emperor Concerto, and the concert concluded with Beethovens Leo-
nore Overture no. . Walter wrote to his parents of his sensational suc-
cess in London and of the offer hed received to conduct there again in No-
vember and December.25
Almost immediately after his return to Vienna, he gave the premiere of
his Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major on March . He obviously
thought highly of the work, for it became the only purely instrumental work
of his to appear in print.26 Arnold Ros presented it on a program that in-
cluded Schumanns String Quartet in F Major and, with help from assisting
artists, Mendelssohns Octet. Ros, to whom the work was dedicated,
played the violin part from manuscript.
To the modern listener, the sonata is extraordinary in several ways. First
and foremost,it shows that Walter was fully capable of writing serious music.
This is not the work of a dabbler. Almost nothing in any of the voices is writ-
ten merely for the sake of serving as an accompaniment to the melody, for
the motives and countermotives are always in play, always developing. The
effect is perhaps closest to what Brahms achieved, though Walters texture is
even denserone is at times reminded of an Isaac or a Bach working
through a particularly intricate stretch of counterpointand his emotional
outpourings sound almost utterly unrestrained. The rhythmically incisive,
wailing first theme and the expansive second theme weave continually in and
out of the fabric of the opening movement, as do many of the transitional and
subordinate motives. But the effect of this continual development is any-
thing but pedantic; a very personal voice runs through the movement, and
through the piece as a whole, expressing extremes of pain, fear, rapture, and
glorywith espressivo the most frequent marking. At one point in the open-
ing movement, the piano alone plays with a three-note descending chro-
matic phrase that, surprisingly for this early date, seems to anticipate a key
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passage in Mahlers Ninth.27 The second movement, which Walter recalled
fondly in his later years, begins with a quiet, eerie passage that gives way to a
section reminiscent of the famous Habanera from Carmen. Here, however,
the mood is fundamentally different from what Bizet conjures up, for while
there may be a touch of erotic seduction in the little rhythmic dance per-
formed by the piano and violin, the seducer is of the Mephistophelian vari-
ety, inviting the listener into a dark realm teeming with demons. The final
movement, arguably the most challenging interpretively, is a Moderato (per-
haps a compromise between the Mahlerian adagio and the standard
sprightly finale), and again it is the highly personal statement of a man who
had already suffered much and enjoyed much.
Specht, perhaps predictably, gave the piece a sterling review. It was a
work of sweet and mature inwardness; music of a man who listens within,
thoughtful, dreamily blissfulthough also, to be sure, a work that is some-
times startled by sudden visions, breathing heavily, fearful, until it is soothed
again to a state of tranquillity. While acknowledging a certain brittleness
in the piece, which might frighten off superficial listeners, Specht found it
inconceivable that musicians would be insensitive to what has been lived
through and felt in this torrent of sound.28
As a composer, Bruno Walter was now reaching his peak. His most am-
bitious works had their unveiling in , and the critics were beginning to
take him seriously as a creative artist. Richard Specht, who had already
evinced a serious interest in Walters music on more than one occasion, ran
an article in Die Musik entitled The Young Viennese Composers, calling
attention to those new composers who deserved encouragement and, more
important, who needed support from publishers. Assuming a place along-
side Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Schreker, Bittner, and others, Walter had the
honor of being the first composer under discussion, and one of Spechts
most valuable observations concerned Walters relationship to Mahler.29 Al-
though Walters years of working with Mahler were, Specht observed, a
great boon for the young conductor, they also carried with them a peril, for
Walters own personality was in danger of being dominated by Mahlers.
Walter had come to imitate not only Mahler the musician but also Mahler the
man, copying the older mans tricks of speech and physical gestures. Walter
must have realized that the stronger musicians personality threatened to
overpower his own, and, Specht conjectured, it was perhaps only when
Mahler left Vienna that Walter was free to break away from his mentors in-
fluence. Despite the inevitable pain he would have felt at losing his friend, he
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might also have breathed a sigh of relief: In his music, especially in his new
Sonata for Piano and Violin, one feels in certain passages as if the sounds
were coming from a man who has escaped from a terrible oppression and
who now, trembling afterward in anxiety, nevertheless sings his quiet song
with inspiration. . . . In this regard, Walter is the only one for whom
Mahlers departure has been profitable.30 Walter could now be recognized
for his own conducting, which carried on the traditions of Mahler, and could
develop more as a composer with his own voice. There is a corner in his
soul in which demons dwell, Specht wrote, adding that although the de-
monic side of his personality had not vanished completely, a new element of
tranquillity had entered Walters more recent music.
But Mahler still loomed large in his life, and Walters reputation as a
concert conductor reached new heights when, in late October, he directed
two performances of Mahlers Third Symphony with the Konzertverein Or-
chestra. To help the audience approach this massive work, Walter wrote a
short essay for the inaugural issue of Der Merker, a music journal edited by
his most vocal supporter, Richard Specht. Its central concern was the extent
to which Mahlers symphony follows a program. The pieces, of course, orig-
inally bore descriptive titles (such as Pan Awakens; Summer Marches In
and What the Flowers of the Field Tell Me); but Mahler did away with
them after the first performances, wanting the music to be heard and judged
as music, not as a story translated into symphonic sounds. Nevertheless,
Walter pointed out, the titles were not without value as a guide; they had to
be understood simply as starting points for the imagination. The idea was
not to worry over exactly what the flowers of the field told us but, rather, to
think of everything that graciously moves the soul with gentle loveliness,
with modest charm. The listener was to think not so much of the particular
god Pan awakening as of the Dionysian ecstasy at the beginning of spring,
the wild, compelling force of Nature, the triumphal procession of all
blossoming life.31 The symphony worked as absolute music, but a strong
programmatic current ran through it. As in his commentary on the Fourth
Symphony, Walter had it both ways.32
The two performances of Mahlers Third marked another milestone in
his conducting career. This was the first time that Mahlers Third had been
heard in Vienna without the composer at the helm, and some members of the
audiencethe critics especiallyobviously approached the concert with
skepticism. It is an enormous work whose first movement alone lasts longer
than some nineteenth-century symphonies in their entirety. Up to this point,
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the demanding piece had had the conducting magician Mahler to work
wonders with his materials.Could another conductor create the same magic?
Walter proved himself up to the challenge. He was Mahlers most animated
and animating agent, wrote the Neue Freie Presse after the first concert. The
symphony is indebted to him for an exemplary and masterly rendition, and
he is indebted to it for his greatest conducting triumph.33 Korngold re-
viewed the repeat performance and found the opening movement more ac-
cessible than when the piece had previously been performed under Mahler
himself.Without attributing his newfound appreciation of the opening move-
ment specifically to Walter (it was more likely due to a better acquaintance
with the score), he did credit Walter with interpreting the work of his friend
and master as if it were his own piece. His heart is always beating along with
each musical beat as he wields the baton, most especially on this occasion.
His talent as a conductor, more promising every day, seemed to have in-
creased formidably.34 Though Walter never recorded the Third or per-
formed it in the United States, it remained in his repertoire for many years (he
conducted it with the Concertgebouw Orchestra as late as ), and he was
widely regarded as one of its great interpreters.
At the end of the year, Walter traveled to London for his return engage-
ment with the Philharmonic Society, and his repertoire includedalong
with standard works by Beethoven, Strauss, and Brahmsthe overture to
Ethel Smyths The Wreckers, Goldmarks Violin Concerto, Liszts Mazeppa,
and Tchaikovskys Pathtique. On this occasion he had more leisure to ex-
plore the city and mix with its inhabitants, finding both very much to his
taste. He visited the theater, taking particular delight in performances of op-
eretta: the charm of the dancing, the mens comedy, the loveliness of the
women, and the elegant polish of the entire performance is unsurpassed, he
wrote to his parents. But his appreciation was not wholly uncritical. In seri-
ous works, by contrast, he added, the English artists seem weaker. All in
all, the friendliness he encountered among the English touched him deeply,
and he felt that London could someday be a kind of second home for
hima feeling hed never had in Vienna over the last nine years.35
But Vienna was his home for now, and on his return he continued to ad-
vance the cause of new music. Joining members of the Soldat-Rger Quar-
tet, he took part in the premiere of Bruno Morpurgos Trio in F Major for Pi-
ano, Violin, and Cello, on January , . Then, filling in for an indisposed
Oskar Nedhal, he presided over the first Viennese performance of Guido
Peterss Symphony in E Minor, played by the Tonknstler Orchestra on
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February . More important, he made more of his own compositions known
to the world, for Universal published his settings of six songs to poems by
Eichendorff early in the year.36 The publication coincided with a concert of
modern music given on February at the Society for Art and Culture, an or-
ganization whose musical events were overseen by Paul Stefan, future biog-
rapher of both Mahler and Walter. The other composers featured at the
recital were Anton Weberna musician rarely associated with Walterand
Karl Weigl, while the singers for the evening included Gertrude Frstel
(from the Hofoper),37 Martha Winternitz-Dorda, and the Hungarian bari-
tone Franz Steiner, to whom three of Walters new songsMusikanten-
gruss, Der junge Ehemann, and Der Soldatwere dedicated.
Though written about the same time as the Violin Sonata, the songs
show a far more intimate side of Walters musical personality. The three
songs dedicated to Steiner are written for middle voice range, while the re-
maining three (Die Lerche, Des Kindes Schlaf, and Elfe), dedicated
to Walters wife, are for a high voice.38 All six have been recorded in recent
times, the first three by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (who, early in his career,
sang under Walter, and whose artistry Walter much admired), the remainder
by MariAnne Hggander, who also recorded Musikantengruss.39
As one might expect, most of the songs are marked by sensuous lyri-
cism, though Walter was capable of adapting his style to suit his subject mat-
terwitness the rough, declamatory style of Der Soldat (The Soldier).
A more typically Walterian piece, however, is Musikantengruss (Musi-
cians Greeting), a gentle song that opens with an almost Debussian piano
introduction, then shifts into a folklike idiom, with a grace-noted, pseudo-
naive melody. Even in an outwardly simple song like this, however, Walter is
striving for the ecstatic; the word seligen (blessed) is treated to a rapturous
high F-sharp, held for more than two measures.40 It is also worth mention-
ing that Die Lerche (The Lark), dedicated to Elsa, begins with words
that might have struck a poignant chord in the mind of the former singer: a
lark laments that it cannot sing in its cage; it simply sways back and forth.

On his third trip across the Channel, Walter was destined for Covent Gar-
den. Although only a few recordings of Walters interpretations of the Pre-
lude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde have survived, the opera had
special importance for Walter for much of his professional life, and on sev-
eral occasions he performed it when making a debut at an opera house. So it
was at Covent Garden on February , , two days after Beecham had
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opened the season with the English premiere of Strausss new opera Elektra.
The Belgian tenor Jacques Urlus sang Tristan, while Zdenka Fassbender,
from Munich, assumed the role of Isolde. Joining Walter from the Vienna
Hofoper was Friedrich Weidemann as Kurwenal.
Yet Walters Covent Garden debut seems to have been less than a smash
hit. Apparently there was only a single rehearsal for Tristan, so the perfor-
mance no doubt suffered from underpreparation.41 The Times reviewer was
somewhat disappointed with Fassbenders pedestrian Isolde, and even
Walter earned only qualified praise.42 In March, however, he conducted an-
other performance of Tristan, this time with Anna Bahr-Mildenburg as
Isolde, and his contribution to the production now received a glowing re-
port: Herr Bruno Walter conducted with real insight and skill, and the
beauty of the orchestral playing was among the most remarkable features of
the performance.43
But Tristan was not the only opera Walter conducted at Covent Gar-
den. Ethel Smyth finally had the pleasure of hearing her opera The Wreckers
performed by Walter on March . The score has plainly derivative stretches
(Aviss Carmen-like first aria and several Wagnerian and Straussian passages
as the work proceeds), but much of the music reveals an original voice, and
Walter remained a loyal champion of Smyths music for decades; in fact,
through Walter she became the first woman to conduct the Berlin Philhar-
monic. When asked for his opinion of Smyths music in , he wrote an en-
lightened reply to a sensitive question:
I consider Ethel Smyth a composer of quite special significance,
who is certain of a permanent place in musical history. Real musical
productivity is so rare that we are entitled to ask whether the im-
pression of originality created by these compositions is not attrib-
utable to their femininity. Our ears are trained immediately to de-
tect national differences in music, but are too inexperienced to
detect sex characteristics. If we had a hundred female composers
we might be able to establish a distinction between male and female
music. I am, however, convinced that Dr. Ethel Smyths thematic
charm proceeds in an essential degree from her womanliness,
though her work is at the same time English through and through.
Yet in her case the sex question is comparatively unimportant in the
presence of a talent so strong, thematic invention so original, and a
temperament so deep and warm.44

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The subtle balance that Walter strikes between artistic characteristics as a re-
sult of gender or ethnicity and of individual genius reveals an imagination
that, from our vantage point, seems remarkably prescient.
Upon Walters return to Vienna, preparations for the new two-act opera
by Julius Bittner, Der Musikantwhich took place in mid-Apriloccupied
much of the conductors attention. After that, with barely enough time to
catch his breath, Walter took part in the first concert sponsored by the jour-
nal Der Merker, on April . Among the works performed was Walters Vio-
lin Sonata, which Korngold had not reviewed at its premiere. He attended
the Merker concert, heard the Violin Sonata performed by Walter and Ros,
and, uncharacteristically, enjoyed both the performance and the piece, judg-
ing it superior to everything else hed heard by Walter.45 It must have
given Walter some satisfaction to receive, at last, a predominantly positive re-
view from a critic who, over the previous seven years, could scarcely find an
encouraging word to say about any of his compositions.
Perhaps inspired by his recent successes, Walter directed his thoughts
toward music for the stage. He entertained the possibility of collaborating
with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the author now best known for his librettos
to the operas of Richard Strauss. (In fact, Strauss and Hofmannsthal were
just then collaborating on their most successful opera, Der Rosenkavalier.)
Though Walter had met Hofmannsthal, his senior by two years, as early as
, there was a certain distance between them. Now he wrote directly to
the poet-playwright, suggesting themes for operatic treatment and hoping
that Hofmannsthal might provide a libretto.46
Although nothing in the operatic vein seems to have followed this over-
ture, by June Walter had become involved in a new adaptation of King
Oedipus that Hofmannsthal was working on with the already famous direc-
tor Max Reinhardt, whom Walter had met in Berlin around , when the
two men were dating two sisters.47 After a hugely successfulif controver-
sialperformance in Munich on September , the production of Oedipus
traveled to a number of large European cities, including Berlin, Cologne,
and Vienna. Although the reviewers mention the music (a mysterious mu-
sic bursting out of the palace, fanfares blast from behind the stage, fol-
lowed by strange musical noises48), they omit the composers name, which
was probably not listed on the program. It seems an odd omission, though
certainly no odder than the omission of Hofmannsthal as translator, which
puzzled the reviewer of the Allgemeine Zeitung. Its likely, in any case, that
Walters music was used.
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 While the few references to the music are tantalizing, the pieces were
probably insubstantial works. Walter himself made only the most modest
claims for them. If carried out by a conductor with dramatic talent, Walter
wrote to Hofmannsthal, the music could be very effective. . . . I think it
proper to recommend, above all, discretion in the execution of the music,
since the lesser evil would be if one were too little aware of it.49 And in an in-
terview given by Walter, together with Alfred Roller and Hofmannsthal, on
the topic of Max Reinhardt, one gets the distinct impression that Rein-
hardts treatment of background music rubbed Walter the wrong way. For
example, Walter listened to a description of Reinhardts treatment of Hum-
perdincks incidental music to The Merchant of Venice, a production that
opened with the ringing noises of Venice, followed by more clearly articu-
lated sounds of gondoliers and masqueraders and then, at a particular spot
in the text, by an unexpected, rough march motive. It is certainly very fine
and artful directing, Walter commented, although to me, he added, per-
haps precisely because I am a musician, not even this way of using music is
very appealing.Yet he admired Reinhardts incredible talent for transport-
ing himself into the authors workshop and his being able to reproduce the
mood of an author in keeping with the period in which a work was written. It
was, he said, very much what he himself strove for when giving a perfor-
mance of a piece of music.50 All politeness aside, though, there was already a
palpable friction between Walter and Reinhardt at this early date, a friction
that would surface on subsequent occasions and reassert itself even after
Reinhardts deathfor although Walter gave a memorial concert for Rein-
hardt in , Reinhardts son later declared that the family would much
have preferred Toscanini to Walter, with whom [Reinhardt] had been at
odds more than once.51
For the performances of Oedipus, Reinhardt caused a critical stir by em-
ploying a huge chorus and by staging the play in enormous auditoriums to
create a grand effect. Something of a musical counterpart took place later
that year in Munich, an event of unprecedented scale in the history of the
symphony. On September , , Mahler was back from New York for the
summer to give the premiere of his Eighth Symphony, the Symphony of a
Thousand, so namedthough not with Mahlers blessingby the pro-
moter of the concert, Emil Gutmann, because of the vast forces, both instru-
mental and vocal, required to perform the work. Even by Mahlerian stan-
dards, this was big. The piece had been in preparation for some months, and
Walter had helped with the selection and coaching of soloists.52 According
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to the author Siegfried Lipiner, a friend of both Mahler and Walter, at least
some of the rehearsals for the soloists took place at Walters home on
Theobaldgasse, with Walter listening critically as Mahler sat at the piano di-
recting the rehearsals, often checking with his younger colleague on matters
of tempo (Is the tempo right like this, my dear Walter? Or would you find it
better if it were taken more slowly?).53 Leading musicians and cultural fig-
ures came from afar to be present at the premiere in Munich, among them
Willem Mengelberg, Oskar Fried, Gerhart Hauptmann, Lilli Lehmann,
Max Reinhardt, Guido Adler, Hermann Bahr and his wife, Anna von
Mildenburg (now Bahr-Mildenburg), Leopold Stokowski, as well as Walter,
who felt that the sublime, overwhelming performance marked a culminat-
ing point in Mahlers life.54
The Eighth Symphony was not the only significant event in Mahlers
life in . Mahler turned fifty that year. To celebrate the composer in gen-
eral, and his fiftieth birthday in particular (few could have guessed it was his
last), Paul Stefan put together a collection of tributes to Mahler. Among the
many prominent contributors was, of course, Walter, who, having been
asked to write an essay on the premiere of the Eighth Symphony, instead
submitted a long, open letter to his friend and mentor.55 Though he admit-
ted that he might lack a certain distance from the subject at handnormally
expected in a critical evaluationhe flatly refused even to attempt a dispas-
sionate discussion of his friends works, declaring rather his impassioned,
ardent love for them.56 But why did Walter love them? Is it because the
works, in their way, seek solutions to insoluble problems? Because they sing
these problems? Because the solution to these problems is perhaps to sing
themat least in this earthly existence? Do your trumpets blow down the
walls and ramparts surrounding the eternal secrets? Or do I love your works
because they are beautiful music?57 An implicit Yes is the answer to all
these rhetorical questions. For Walter, all pure music signifies, in its way, a
solution to metaphysical problems, and Mahlers music seems to speak
with particular intensity of the secrets of our existence. These were, in fact,
matters that Mahler himself had discussed with Walter, and clearly the two
had similar views on musics ability to answer lifes most pressing questions.
In a letter to Walter of Mahler wrote: Strange! When I hear music
even while I am conductingI hear quite specific answers to all my ques-
tionsand am completely clear and certain. Or rather, I feel quite distinctly
that they are not questions at all.58 Along with the metaphysical reasons for
his great love of Mahlers music, Walter added another, revealing reason: he
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found it unfashionable. There was no pure horizontality in the polyph-
ony, nor were there any purely harmonic, a-melodic lapses into mysterious
relations between tones.59 Even the huge formal structures seemed ad-
mirably retrograde to Walter in their sensitivity to proportional beauty. In
Walters view, the innovations were not so much radical departures from the
symphonic tradition as extensions of the traditional boundaries to their very
limits: the development section might grow to twice its usual size, or the
coda might take on a life of its own, but the basic structure remained intact.
Walters open letter ends with his recounting a dream hed had about
Mahler some years before. The dream reveals, almost more clearly than any-
thing else Walter ever wrote about Mahler, how he viewed his ability as an
artist as compared with Mahlers: I went walking and saw you high above
me, climbing up a high mountain on a steep path; after a while, blinded by
the light, I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again, after searching
for some time,I found you in an entirely different area on the mountain,mak-
ing your way up a still-higher path. Again I closed my eyes,and again opened
them, didnt find you, then caught sight of you again striving to attain a
wholly different side. This occurred time and time again. I really dreamed
this dream and believe that anyone who understands you will recognize its
symbolism and say it was a truthful dream.60 It is somewhat sad to think of
Walter, in the deepest recesses of his subconscious mind, always viewing
Mahler as on a plane higher than his own, able to see paths for exploration
that Walter couldnt discover by himself. And this might well have been a
critical year for Walter as a composer. He was wrestling with another sym-
phony in , a work that he evidently had trouble finishing.61 It was never
performed, and not long after writing his letter to Mahler, he seems to have
ceased composing altogether.
In the opera house Walter kept active as always, but while his work at the
Hofoper was important to him, he found it frustrating that his activities as a
conductor were in large measure confined to works for the stage. His par-
ents, upset to learn that Oskar Fried and Franz Schalk had been named as
conductors for the Berlin and Vienna premieres of Mahlers Eighth, appar-
ently blamed Mahler for the choice. Walter must have been equally dis-
tressed, but he came to his friends defense: Both [Fried and Schalk] are
conductors of organizations that give performances of that kindIm just a
theater conductor. Of course, when one knows my talent and then considers
that of all my colleagues (Mahler excepted), one is astounded at the rapid
progress of their careers and the slow pace of mine.62
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 Walter may have been frustrated with what he perceived as the slow
pace of his career, but no one could accuse him of slacking off as an artist.
The fall season was particularly busy for Walter and his longstanding
colleague Arnold Ros. The first of their immensely popular traversals of the
Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano took place in mid-October. The two
musicians also played in the second concert sponsored by Der Merker, given
on December . On this occasion they were joined by Ross regular cellist
Friedrich Buxbaum for the premiere of a new piano trio by a thirteen-year-
old genius whose career would be linked with Walters on several occasions.
How, one wonders, did Walter feel about playing the music of Erich
Wolfgang Korngold, the son of the critic who had savaged Walters composi-
tions for years? Perhaps surprisingly, Walter seems to have held no grudges;
he championed Erichs compositions from the beginning of the young com-
posers career to the end. Nevertheless, when he first examined the score, he
must have been somewhat taken aback to see music written with such aston-
ishing facility and originality by a mere boy. The history of music affords
perhaps only two comparable examples of such prodigious talent: Mozart
and Mendelssohn. An anecdote related by the Viennese critic Julian Stern-
berg in reveals the unusual circumstances surrounding Walters earliest
appreciation of the boys talents, around . Having recently moved into
the house on Theobaldgasse, Walter found himself the downstairs neighbor
of Julius Korngold, which must have made for some awkward encounters on
the staircase. Korngolds young boy, born in , was already allowing his
imagination free reign at the piano, and his improvisations proved distract-
ing to the conductor, who was involuntarily forced to listen because the
boy was a genius.63
Richard Specht, who understandably filled in for Julius Korngold as the
reviewer for the Neue Freie Presse when covering the Piano Trio, praised the
young composers rich invention, his compelling structures, and his indi-
vidual harmonic world.64 The familiar earmarks of Korngolds musical lan-
guage were already in place, immediately setting him apart from his contem-
poraries. Walters compositions, by contrast, though full of emotional depth
and joy and angst, never seem to spring spontaneously from an ever facile
mind as Korngolds do. Not that an impression of spontaneity is a prerequi-
site for great music: neither Brahms nor Mahler nor even Beethoven creates
a feeling of easy creativity. Nevertheless, for a composer not in their league,
the appearance of a wunderkind like Erich Wolfgang Korngold must have
been disconcerting. Walter, like his contemporaries, recognized Korngolds
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genius. He probably felt not only admiration but also a certain sympathy for
the boy, whose father, as Walter knew all too well, was nothing if not critical.
Even decades later, Julius could mention casually to Walter that, although
Erich had been one of the most talented composers of his generation, he was
of course no Mahler.65
By the end of , after much fruitless negotiation with the Hofoper,
Weingartner decided to step down from the directorship. His successor,
Hans Gregor, wascontrary to customnot a conductor at all, but a stage
director from the Komische Oper in Berlin whod had some experience as
an actor. His appointment as Weingartners successor baffled and offended
manyWalter among them, since he felt he could have filled the position
and was wounded that the court chamberlain, Count Montenuovo, had pre-
ferred Gregor to him. Hofmannsthal described the appointment as frivo-
lous, an opinion in which Walter, who viewed Gregor as a laughable buf-
foon, wholeheartedly concurred. But frustrated as he was at the Hofoper,
Walter found some comfort in his new contract there, which allowed him
much-needed time to compose, to spend with his daughters, to walk, to
read.66 Nevertheless, he was surely on the lookout, as he was during most of
his tenure in Vienna, for better employment elsewhere, and a poetic death in
Munich would soon turn his thoughts toward leaving the city with which
hed carried on a lovehate relationship for nearly a decade.

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Premiere Performances
Vienna and Munich,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

I stand here waiting for my friend,

Waiting for the last farewell.
After Mong-Kao-Jen, from Das Lied von der Erde

The year played a crucial role in Walters life in many ways.

His close friend Mahler would leave him forever, and he would be
left bearing the great composers mantle. It was a burden he bore
gladly, though it might ultimately have proved an impediment to
his composing. A more certain impediment was his assumption of
the duties of director of the Vienna Singakademie, a position held
by Brahms himself nearly half a century before. One of the singers
in Walters chorus, Mary Komorn-Rebhan, detailed his methods
of conveying ideas to singers and of extracting from them the inter-
pretations he desired. Her account, entitled Was wir von Bruno
Walter lernten (What We Learned from Bruno Walter), is the
first book-length work on Walter, an invaluable sourcethough
written quite obviously by a passionate enthusiast.1 Nevertheless,
as a firsthand document, the book throws light on several facets of
Walters approach to choral music.Working largely with amateurs,
he managed to breathe new life into the performers: something
compelling emanates from him, Komorn-Rebhan wrote, that

raises each member above his abilities; he takes fear away from every indi-
vidual and gives him courage and self-confidence, suggesting to him, as it
were, that he can perfectly well do everything required of him. The result is
that one actually can do it.2
Other nontheatrical events drew Walter away from the Hofoper in .
In February he headed south for his first engagement in Rome, where he
conducted the Orchestra of the Society of Santa Cecilia at the Augusteum
in a concert of Berliozs Symphonie fantastique, Richard Strausss Don
Quixote, and Goldmarks Sakuntala Overture. The composer and critic
Alberto Gasco wrote a lengthy, complimentary review of the concert for La
Tribuna, and the management engaged Walter for two further concerts in
the coming season.3
Although Walter did not include his own compositions in his Roman
programs, they were steadily reaching a wider audience. Gertrude Frstel,
still one of the regular sopranos at the Vienna Hofoper, traveled to Munich
to give a recital on February in which she offered two songs by Walter,
characterized as charming by Rudolf Louis and insignificant by the
anonymous critic of the Allgemeine Zeitung.4 Two days later, also in Mu-
nich, a chamber music recital of the Mnchener Tonknstler-Verein in-
cluded Walters Piano Trio on its program. Louis, reviewing the trio, was
patently less impressed with it than hed been with the songs, tactfully ob-
serving that Walter, though a thoroughbred musician, perhaps lacked
creative talent.5 Later that month, on February , Walter had occasion to
conduct his Symphony in D Minor again, this time in Strasbourg (then part
of Germany), where Pfitzner, who had been instrumental in arranging the
concert, was the regular conductor.6 Pfitzners assistant, whom Walter met,
was the young Wilhelm Furtwngler, whose path and Walters would cross
on many subsequent occasions. Performing the symphony again was an im-
portant event for Walter. Despite Korngolds negative remarks about it, the
symphony had been enthusiastically received by many, and it was certainly
Walters most ambitious composition to date. The chance to expose it to a
wider public, perhaps with a better orchestra, must have filled him with new
hopes for his career as a composer, though the critical reception was not en-
couraging.7 Gustav Altmann, who had bludgeoned Walters Piano Quintet
in , reported on the concert for Die Musik, where Specht had earlier lav-
ished praise on the symphony. Altmann once more seized the opportunity to
put the would-be composer in his place, writing that the symphony was

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emphatically rejected in Strasbourg.8 This was apparently the last time
the symphony was performed.
A work still presented regularly, however, surely occupied Walters at-
tention in March, for he was preparing a performance of Handels Messiah
in German, with plenty of cutswhich the Singakademie performed on
April . It was the first concert they were to give under Walter as their new di-
rector, and he had a great deal to teach them. Above all, he wanted to con-
vince them that the common association of oratorio with boredom was a fic-
tion, that boring performances were the problem, not boring music. Walter
knew that, to avoid dullness, it was critical to bring out the meaning of the
words, and he expected his singers to create ever varying nuances to reflect
the ever changing text. His manner, polite but firm, was not devoid of the oc-
casional barb (Youre singing Behold the Lamb of God as if it were on a
signpost that read: This way to the Lamb of God! Such a dearth of expres-
sion will not do!9). Walter was also aware that a literal reading of the notes
on the page would result in a deadly performance, and, as if in anticipation of
baroque performance practice later in the century, deliberately overdotted
certain passages, giving them a needed extra spring.10 While Walter went
through almost every phrase in detail, finding the right way to extract the
proper affect from his singers, he seems to have had an especially adventur-
ous (if anachronistic) approach to the Hallelujah chorus. It began with a
fairly measured allegro moderato, not too loud, and gradually worked into a
clamorous frenzy, with the tempo having nearly doubled by the end. Ko-
morn-Rebhan was ecstatic: the floor under my feet seemed to fall away, and
the glistening gilded ceiling seemed to open, and it was as if we were singing
Hallelujah! to the Creator himself.11
Along with this eighteenth-century masterpiece, newly minted works
were being offered to Viennese music-lovers. Among the current offerings,
two operatic premieres stood out in the spring of . One was Richard
Strausss new work, Der Rosenkavalier, which Schalk conducted; the other,
Debussys Pellas et Mlisande, which Walter introduced to Vienna. Mahler
had considered giving a performance of Pellas at the Hofoper during his
tenure there, and the more progressive listeners felt that the work, which had
had its premiere in Paris in , should be performed at the great Austrian
institution.12 In December Debussy himself had come to Vienna to
conduct a concert of his music, leaving a strong impression on the citys mu-
sical community. The time was favorable for bringing the French masters

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opera to the Hofoper, though the work was radically different from the pre-
vailing Germanic and Italian fare at the house.
Walters preparations for Pellas, however, were carried out under ex-
tremely trying conditionsanxiety, care, and grief were his daily bread
as reports of Mahlers decaying health began to arrive with alarming fre-
quency.13 Bedridden in Paris, Mahler languished. His fever went up; it went
down. He lost his appetite; he regained it. Overall, the symptoms were un-
encouraging. I took a leave of absence and went to Paris with Mahlers sis-
ter, Justine Ros, Walter recalled. I found Mahler in a hopeless condition
in a sanatorium in Neuilly. I spoke to him of his works, but he replied
with bitterness, and I thought it best just to entertain him, which I partly suc-
ceeded in doing.14 Though seriously ill, Mahler managed to return to Vi-
enna. Walter visited him every free minute and was present to witness, on
May , his friends final moments on his deathbed, to see his horrible
struggle with death and his deliverance.15 When asked for details of
Mahlers last days, however, Walter couldnt bring himself to discuss the
matter.Let me just be silent about this horribly tragic occurrence,he wrote
to Pfitzner, adding, somewhat mysteriously, Perhaps Ill tell you someday
how tragic.16
The day after Mahlers death, Walter, along with Arnold Ros, Karl
Moll, and Wilhelm Legler, watched the lid close upon Mahlers coffin, then
followed it to the chapel in Grinzing. The funeral was scheduled for Mon-
day, May , at :, to allow members of the Hofoper to pay their last re-
spects after their rehearsal for Pellas.17 To Alma, whose own health suf-
fered after the funeral, Walter wrote a heartening letter of condolence: The
hardest part of the burden that fate has laid on your shoulders is still before
you: to continue to livefor the child, the works, and everything that you
possess through the long years of spiritual commerce with [Mahler]. He
would also have fully approved of your nurturing your own talent. Art, to be
sure, is a surrogate; thats how he viewed it as well. Our lives, so cold and dis-
sonant, allow us in only a limited way to pour our ardent feelings into the
world as love and to extend ourselves fully into the human sphere. It must be
through art that we satisfy the greater part of our need for love. As for Wal-
ters own sense of loss and his commitment to Mahlers music, there could
be no doubt: I have become uprooted and alone because of his death, but I
wont grieve over that to you. Ill only say what you probably know: that I
shall remain his . . . and that my ardent love for him, which has warmed my

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very soul every day since I first met him,will be active on the path that Nature
has chosen for me: as protector and prophet of his work.18 Less than a
month after Mahlers death, Walter had apparently been selected to give the
premiere performance of Das Lied von der Erde.19
With Mahlers prolonged illness, the premiere of Pellas et Mlisande
(in German) had been postponed several times. It took place, at last, on May
. A widely covered event, it marked Hans Gregors directorial debut at the
Vienna Hofoper, and he earned the critics respect for tackling a difficult
work that his predecessor Weingartner had selected. Maeterlincks tene-
brous story found its ideal counterpart in Debussys dark score, but for
the Viennese the music was far too strange, too gloomy and static. Karl
Schreder, of the Deutsches Volksblatt, lauded the performance rather than
the work (much ado about nothing), remarking that Walter had spent
great effort on the production of this new musical work, for which he will
certainly receive thanks from Viennas musical modernists20 a needed re-
minder that Walter, even at this phase of his career, was still associated with
avant-garde trends.

The European musical community, still in shock over the death of Mahler,
soon lost another of its leading conductorsFelix Mottl, whose romantic
dying days are the stuff of legend. A renowned interpreter of Mozart and
Wagner, Mottl began conducting at Bayreuth already in Wagners lifetime
and eventually became a Bayreuth institution. (Walter himself, during his
student days, heard Mottl there.) In he became Generalmusikdirektor
in the capital of Bavaria. While conducting his favorite opera, Tristan, in
Munichs Hoftheater on June , Mottl sensed his imminent collapse
and discreetly passed his baton to an assistant conductor. Two more con-
ductors were called in to finish the opera. Mottl, meantime, was taken to the
hospital. The Isolde of the production, Zdenka Fassbender (also the Isolde
at Walters Covent Garden debut), was romantically involved with Mottl,
who had recently settled an ugly divorce suit and announced his engage-
ment to Fassbender.21 During his final days, in his hospital room, he mar-
ried her.22 He died on July , leaving one of Germanys most prestigious
positions vacant. In almost Wagnerian manner, the demise of one of the
demigods of the podium would allow for the rise of a young hero. But, as in
Wagnerian music drama, such transitions take time.
A tenor of non-Wagnerian stampunquestionably the most popular
singer of his day, revered wherever he performedcollaborated with Walter
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in . Even today, when most of the great singers of the earlier twentieth
century have sunk into obscurity, his name is still immediately recognizable.
Enrico Caruso had visited the Vienna Hofoper several times over the previ-
ous few years, each time causing a sensation. He returned in September for a
number of guest engagements (for which ticket prices were raised), includ-
ing an Italian-language Rigoletto under Walter on September . Caruso
played the Duke, and, as before, his performance stunned the audience and
the critics. Although Caruso was, as always, the focus of critical attention,
Walter earned praise for the brio hed brought to the performance.23 Wal-
ter wrote that he had conducted Caruso on several occasions, though he
seems to have done so only once more, on September , in a performance of
Carmen.24 I loved Carusos voice, Walter recalled, his vocal talent, the
sense of beauty expressed in his tone coloring, his portamento and his ru-
bato, his noble musicianship, and his naturalness. I may say that there was a
perfect understanding between us.25
The opera house was also the venue for another well-publicized event
in Walters career, one that inspired public speculation about his future in
Vienna. Julius Bittners new opera, Der Bergsee, had its premiere at the Hof-
oper on November under Walter.26 In reviewing this post-Wagnerian
work, Elsa Bienenfeld noted: Walter is said to be leaving us for Munich.
That would be a hard, unbearable, and, just now, irreplaceable loss for the
Vienna Hofoper. He is currently the only important and interesting conduc-
tor at our institution in whose hands a performance is absolutely secure. He
himself would be doing the right thing if he left. An artist of such talent and
such experience must be conscious of his duty and power to fulfill great
tasks.27 The possibility of his departure for Munich was more than just a
rumor. In September Walter had spoken to the manager of the Munich
Opera, Albert von Speidel, about the position left vacant by Mottls death.
He wanted full directorial power and planned to ask for a salary of ,
marks (he was currently receiving ,). But Munich didnt want another
director; a first conductor would serve just as well, and for less money.
The proposal, as it stood, did not appeal to Walter.28 To Richard Strauss,
who had kindly offered to discuss the position in Munich with Walter, he
wrote that the title he wanted was Generalmusikdirektora high honor
for a relatively young conductor.29
Well before sealing an agreement with the authorities in Munich, Walter
left a memorable impression on that city. One of the most important events
in his life took place there in November , a celebration of Mahler con-
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sisting of two concerts. On November Walter accompanied the alto
Madame Charles Cahier at the piano in a recital of Mahler songs, some of
them receiving their first performance in Munich.30 The following evening
he presented a mammoth program, beginning with the world premiere of
Das Lied von der Erde, billed as a Symphony for Alto and Tenor Solo with
Full Orchestra and featuring Cahier and the tenor William Millerboth
Americans, oddly enough. After this lengthy prelude came Mahlers enor-
mous Second Symphony, performed by an amplified Konzertverein Or-
chestra ( musicians) and the Oratorio Society of Augsburg,
strong. Ossip Gabrilowitsch, a splendid pianist and talented conductor, was
then working in Munich. Walter and he had met as early as , at the mu-
sic festival where Mahlers Sixth was premiered. Understanding the Her-
culean task that Walter faced, Gabrilowitsch offered his colleague as many
extra rehearsals from his own time as he needed. From that time forward
they were to remain good friends, and the bond was to extend beyond
Gabrilowitschs lifetime, for his wife, Clara Clemens (a professional singer,
also Mark Twains daughter), remained close to Walter long after her hus-
bands death in .31
Das Lied and Mahlers Second in one eveningnearly three hours of
Mahler. It must have been an overwhelming and, by the end, a taxing experi-
ence for the audience. For the musicologist Eugen Schmitz (later the direc-
tor of Peters Edition), the conducting of the Second Symphony prompted
an encomium on Walter:
Walter is without a doubt an artist of the very highest caliber. One
indeed notices the Mahler school in his manner of conducting an
orchestra: there is the same precision, the same exact firmness in
his movements that the late maestro of the Vienna Hofoper had.
The multitudes in the orchestra and the chorus were visibly under
the spell of his artistic will, to the smallest detail, and followed his
every movement with unquestioning certainty. And the interpreta-
tion that this will dictated was carefully thought out: clear and con-
vincing, genuinely warm, with equal care given to the outward
architecture and the inward soul. The most powerful effects of
the evening were therefore surely due in large measure to the con-
ductor.32
As if to demonstrate the pitfalls and the unreliability of historical docu-
ments, Rudolf Louis offered a far more qualified assessment of the evening.
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For Louis, Das Lied, though better than many other compositions by
Mahler, was still the work of a man whose very high-striving artistic desire
outstripped his actual creative ability. Walter, for his part, conducted the
orchestra securely and energetically in Das Lied, but in the Second Sym-
phony, Louis had reservations: One got the impression from Bruno Walter
of a very talented conductor, skillful and spirited, who also accompanies
with particular excellence. Steadiness and composure in establishing and
maintaining the tempo were sometimes lacking. Also notable was a certain
tendency to drag, particularly in the first movement of the Second Sym-
phony. But that cant seriously detract from the overall good impression one
had of Walter. . . . There is something, however, that one should not think of
if one wishes to be just to Herr Walter: the incomparable, unforgettable way
in which Gustav Mahler himself interpreted this work.33 Otto Klemperer
at the time, at least, an admirer of Walters conductingcame from Stras-
bourg to hear the new work in Munich. He was apparently less moved than
he expected to be and wrote to Alma Mahler late in November: If only we
could have heard the work once under Mahler.34 No doubt Walter would
have welcomed that opportunity as well. For him, Mahler was the greatest
conductor, as well as the greatest musician, hed ever known. He recalled
how the ailing Mahler had handed him the score of Das Lied to study.It was
the first time that he did not play a new work to me. He was probably afraid
of the excitement it might cause him. I studied the work and lived through
days of a most violent mental upheaval. I was profoundly moved by that
uniquely passionate, bitter, resigned, and blessing sound of farewell and de-
parture, that last confession of one upon whom rested the finger of death.35
Walter viewed the performance itself as a turning point; he felt as though he
were taking the masters place, and posterity, for the most part, has borne
him out.36
Walter returned to Vienna to lead another memorial concert for Mahler
at the beginning of December, and, as in Munich, the evening culminated in
the Second Symphony (performed by the Vienna Konzertverein Orchestra
and the Singakademie), though it opened with Beethovens Coriolan
Overture and Mahlers Kindertotenlieder, sung by Friedrich Weidemann. A
few days later Walter returned to Munich to conduct his first opera in that
city, giving the local premiere of Bittners Der Bergsee at the Hoftheater in
December. His return for a single performance of the opera provoked some
curiosity among the critics about his eventual role in the musical life of
Munich. Alfred von Mensi, of the Allgemeine Zeitung, thought the most
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interesting thing about Der Bergsee was that it had been conducted by Bruno
Walter, who was half and half regarded as Mottls successor. The ovations
raised at the conclusion of the work, recalling him again and again to the
stage, were almost meant more for him than for the composer.37 Several
other rumors that Walter might take over the position left vacant by Mottl
were circulating in Munich and Vienna. But Walters artistic obligations in
Vienna, along with a legally binding contract there, would detain him in
Austria for more than another year.

In his last year at the Hofoper Walter enjoyed a continually increasing fame
both in and out of Vienna. His schedule, never light, became even busier as
he added more orchestral and choral concerts to the demands at the opera
house. With Mahler dead, Walter became recognized as the composers
greatest living interpreter, and in he performed Mahlers greatest sym-
phony, the Ninth, for the first time anywhere. In the same year he gave the
Viennese premieres of Das Lied and the Eighth Symphony. Meanwhile,
his activities in Munich increased significantly, as he slowly broke from the
stranglehold that Vienna had on him.
Much of January was devoted to rehearsals for a work very dear to Wal-
ters heart, Beethovens Missa solemnis, with the Singakademie. Before get-
ting down to business with his singers, he felt the need to prepare them for a
choral work entirely different from Handels oratorio. In Messiah, a reli-
giosity that is general, comprehensive, and (as it were) established through
tradition is being expressed, whereas with Beethoven we are dealing with an
independent souls purely personal view of religion, with a profoundly indi-
vidual belief in God.38 This view of Beethovens Missa solemnis would be
thoroughly worked out in one of Walters most important essays, published
about a decade later. His approach to the Missa solemnis proved controver-
sial, precisely because he was determined to break with the tradition that
sought for classical repose and beautyat the expense of expressionin ec-
clesiastical music. As with Messiah, Walter was bent on making the perfor-
mance exciting, not the kind that audiences slept through. The one broad-
cast recording of this work under Walter is anything but dull.39
The precise methods Walter used to attain his desired effects make fas-
cinating reading. Unlike those conductors who use the stick as their chief
means of communicating their ideas, he discussed fine points of style in
great detail; cutoffs and rests were as important as crescendi and diminu-
endi, and nuance was crucial. In the opening three statements of the word
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Kyrie, Walter wanted not only an increase in volume, as Beethoven had al-
ready marked in the score, but also an increase in emotional intensity. As for
the tone in general, Walter suggested the following: imagine quite vividly
that youre calling out to God three times from the greatest depths, that in
Beethovens Kyrie a soul lies in the dust and pleads for mercy. Then you will
immediately have the expression that belongs here. But the address to
Christ had to be quite different: You come to the Lord fully in reverence
and contrition, but with Christ, his intermediary, you have a much closer,
more confidential relationship. To him, the Son of Man, you turn with a far
more pressing entreaty, with far more passionate fervor.40 The members of
the Singakademie evidently appreciated Walters constant attempts to put
into words musical ideas that usually defied verbal description. His explana-
tions were invariably accompanied by his own singing of the passages in
question, which for the partisan Komorn-Rebhan was at least as illuminat-
ing as his carefully chosen words.
The concert took place as January drew to a close, and the program had
its desired effect. Korngold swooned over the performance: The excellent
conductor plunged into the ecstatic and penitential moods of the work with
all the musical fire that glows within him. It seems quite right for him to in-
terpret this quarrelsome prayer, this passionate conflict with heaven, by
means of sharp dynamic and rhythmic contrasts, sforzando outbursts, mysti-
cal pianissimi; with an impetuous rushing-forth and a sudden freezing of the
movement; with an interpretation of the text searing with emotion! And
while the performance was not without the occasional exaggeration, it
gave the impression of something genuine, felt through and through. . . .
Not mass musicPrometheus music.41
While his rehearsals with the Singakademie must have been time con-
suming, Walter surely spent a great deal of time at the Hofoper as well during
this period, since a new opera by Eugen dAlbert, Die verschenkte Frau, was
scheduled for its premiere on February . As a boy, Walter had been deeply
impressed with dAlberts piano playing (In his intimate contact with his
instrument, Walter recalled, he appeared to me like a new centaur, half pi-
ano and half man), and since then dAlbert, still active as a concert pianist,
had won considerable renown as a composer.42 His opera Tiefland ()
was immensely popular early in the century, and it must have pleased Walter
to offer the first performance of a work by a musician hed admired in his
youth and whose fame stretched far and wide. Die verschenkte Frau, how-
ever, was a comic opera apparently verging on the operetta style of Lehr
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hardly Walters favorite genre. It seems not to have left much of an impres-
sion on Walter, who says nothing about it in his memoirs.
February brought another significant event in Walters life, this in the
sphere of chamber music. The celebrated Spanish cellist Pablo Casals had
recently given recitals in Vienna to great acclaim, and midway through Feb-
ruary he was joined by Walter and Marie Soldat-Rger for a performance of
Brahmss Trio in B Minor. The performance seems to have been one in
which the musicians gave their all but enjoyed only a partial success owing to
lack of rehearsal.43 Curiously, Walter and Casals rarely worked together in
later years. Whether this was because of artistic differences or simply logisti-
cal problems is hard to say, though Walter on a few occasions praised Casals
both publicly and privately. The cellist, for his part, deeply admired Walters
musicianship and during the Nazi era refused to play in a Germany from
which men like Einstein, Thomas Mann, Bruno Walter . . . had to expatri-
ate themselves.44

Mahlers ghost continued to hover over Vienna. In one week Walter devoted
himself to Mahlers cause three times. On March he accompanied
Madame Cahier for another evening of songs by his late friend, and shortly
afterward he conducted the first two Viennese performances of Mahlers
Eighth, with the combined forces of the Singakademie, the Philharmonic
Chorus, the Mens Chorus of the Railway Office (the work required every
able voice in Vienna), and the Konzertverein Orchestra. A forty-eight-page
thematic analysis by Richard Specht was published specifically for the local
premiere. The Great Hall of the Musikverein was filled to the bursting point,
with the performers themselves occupying half of it.45 Though they suffered
somewhat from nerves on the first night, the second night was a tri-
umphant success, both for the piece and the performers, with the applause
lasting twenty minutes, according to Korngold.46 Elsa Bienenfeld, having
enjoyed one of the most moving experiences in her life when she heard
Mahler conduct the work in Munich, judged Walters performance nearly as
impressive as his mentors; in fact, the timbre was more beautiful and
rounded in Viennas Musikvereinssaal than in the Munich Tonhalle. The
extraordinary precision with which Walter brought out the rhythm and dy-
namics, she observed, is the legacy he received from the conductor
Mahler.47
Despite the gratification he felt when conducting this great tribute to
Mahler, Walter was uneasy about his future. The position in Munich looked
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doubtful because of his contract at the Hofoper, binding until .48 His sit-
uation had changed since his initial arrival in Vienna; now,after being reviled
for years, he was our Walter, as Mahler had once predicted, and obviously
there were those who wanted to keep him our Walter. He wrote to Strauss
again to say that he would be allowed to conduct at the Mozart and Wagner
festivals in Munich that summer but added that hed already advised Baron
Speidel not to count on him for a long-term position.49 Though hed won a
leave of absence from the Hofoper from May to the beginning of October to
spend in Munich, a number of obligations would bring him back to Vienna
during those months. With heavy responsibilities in Munich and Vienna,
Walter could expect an exhausting year.
But Vienna and Munich were not the only cities requiring his presence.
At the end of March he returned to Rome for two concerts at the Augus-
teum. While he again favored Germanic fare, he also added a recent piece by
the young Alfredo Casella, an orchestral suite consisting of an ouverture,
sarabanda,and bourre.One of Mahlers earliest proponents in Italy,Casella
had studied with DIndy, Faur, and others, and would rank among the fore-
most Italian composers of his generation. Alberto Gasco, the critic for La
Tribuna (who had also studied with DIndy), praised the bourre in partic-
ular for the brilliant, varying timbres of the orchestral instrumentation and
again complimented Walter on his conducting.50 Walter was no doubt aware
of Gascos laudatory words, and perhaps as a show of goodwill he per-
formed two of the Italian critics tone poems in Munich at a concert of the
Musikalische Akademie in to less encouraging comments from the
German press.51 It was on this visit to Italy that an incident occurred involv-
ing an audience request for a repeat performance of Siegfrieds Rhine Jour-
ney. The horn player gave a signal to the conductor that he was not eager to
play his demanding part again, and Walter pressed on with the program,
only to be interrupted by a renewed outburst, he recalled. The hornist fi-
nally decided to save the situation and informed me by a sign that I might re-
peat. Quiet reigned again, and when I started the Rhine Journey, a man in the
gallery rewarded me for my docilit by a rather melodious shout of Bravo,
Bruno!52
After his return to Vienna, followed by a much-needed vacation, Walter
contemplated with utter dread the further travels that lay before him. Prefer-
ring to stay in one place, he complained to his parents about the constant to-
and-fro of his life.53 But he wouldnt be staying in one place any time soon.
In fact, his schedule for the next two months involved a dizzying amount of
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travel as he shuttled between Vienna and Munich, conducting works by
Mozart (including Bastien et Bastienne), Wagner (the Ring operas and Tris-
tan), Puccini, Bittner, and Mahler. The traveling time between the two cities
now runs to about five hours; in Walters day, it was closer to eight. Being in
transit so much of the time, Walter began to draw on the language of loco-
motion to explain what he wanted from his singers in the Singakademie.
One doesnt say Eisenbahn [railway] but Eisenbahn, he commented dur-
ing a rehearsal for another performance of the Missa solemnis. In the same
way, you shouldnt say Gloria, but Gloria.54
A young Englishman, traveling in Germany with his mother in the sum-
mer of , had the good fortune to hear Walters performances of Figaro,
Cos, and Don Giovanni in Munich. He would become one of the leading
conductors of his generation, and his admiration for Walter would never wa-
ver. I didnt suppose I should ever hear Mozart performances of such all-
round perfection, Sir Adrian Boult recalled six decades after the event,
and certainly I never have again.55
For the Mozart operas, mostly performed in the Residenztheater, an in-
timate rococo theater from Mozarts time, Walter himself accompanied the
recitatives on the spinet; Alfred von Mensi remarked on Walters discreet
continuo playing, which contrasted sharply with Richard Strausss elabo-
rate improvisations. He also admired Walters ability to rein in his singers
propensity for exaggeration. Walters earlier tendency to imitate Mahler in
his gestures, so often remarked on in reviews from Vienna, was evidently
waning, for Mensi observed that Walter didnt favor very abrupt and strict
movements in the manner of Mottl and Mahler; on the contrary, he gladly
lays down the baton in order, as it were, to depict the musical images three
dimensionally, with both hands.56
In presenting the Ring operas, Walter appears to have provoked some
debatethough not for his conducting. The Prinzregentheater, modeled af-
ter the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, had a sunken orchestra pit with a movable
lid, to cover the orchestra in Wagnerian works. Walter chose not to employ
the lid, and Mensi seems to have taken this artistic choice almost as a delib-
erate affront. Despite the powerful voices of the leading singers, he argued,
their words would have been more clearly audible if the ingeniously de-
signed lid had been employed.57 But Alexander Dillmann, the chief music
critic of the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten, had a far more positive reaction
to Walters performances of Wagner. Here was a conductor with impulse,
power, and style. His three-dimensionalshaping of the lines,his crescendi
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and sforzandi, his sensitivity to the requirements of the sunken orchestra
all were singled out for praise. His management of the music, in short, re-
vealed a master.58
But the major work was still to come. Walter returned to Vienna to give
a performance of Figaro and, more important, to prepare for the world pre-
miere of Mahlers Ninth Symphony. It was to be given at the Vienna Music
Festival Week, which ran from June to July and included two other
NinthsBeethovens and Bruckners, conducted respectively by Wein-
gartner and Nikisch. There were few rehearsals, no doubt owing to Walters
hectic schedule and the demands placed on the orchestra by the other major
works to be given. This was arguably the most important symphonic pre-
miere of Walters life (though Das Lied, if viewed as a symphony, shares an
equal claim to that distinction), and he surely knew how important the occa-
sion would be, how it would forever link his name with one of the great
Ninths of the symphonic repertoire. Contemporary reactions to the work,
however, were mixed. A young string player, Joseph Braunstein, attended
the performance and recalled the concert some eighty years after the event.
What stood out for him was a feeling of deep disappointment, because af-
ter the jubilant Eighth Symphony there now came these violent expres-
sionsso it was shattering.59 Some of the professional reviewers were also
undecided about the merits of Mahlers great symphony, though Max
Kalbeck immediately judged it the trump card of the festival, and Elsa Bie-
nenfeld called the first movement Mahlers most beautiful and mature mu-
sic.60 Its unusual sequence of movementswith the slow pieces at the
outer ends and the faster ones in the middlesurprised some listeners,
though not necessarily in a negative way. On the whole the infinitely beauti-
ful first movement won over most of the critics, while the enormous lndler-
like second movement and the demonic Rondo-Burleske proved harder to
assess after a single hearing. Korngold found them far inferior to the first,
while Specht commented on the indelible impression made by the raw and
powerful scherzo: at the end of this Michelangelesque brawl, he re-
marked, one thinks one sees Goliaths bones lying about on the battlefield.
He also admired the shrill irony, the infernal humor, and the merciless
contrapuntal satire in the Rondo-Burleske.61 Korngold observed the simi-
larity in mood between Mahlers Adagio and that at the end of Bruckners
unfinished Ninth (he didnt mention its kinship with the last movement of
Mahlers Third), though he carped that Mahler had placed too much em-
phasis on the short melismathe turnthat forms a key theme in the
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piece. Walter was universally praised for his complete devotion to the score
and to the spirit of Mahler, and by all accounts both he and the work received
a roar of applause.
For all his success in Vienna, Walter must have sensed that his profes-
sional future awaited him in Bavaria. In August and September he gave sev-
enteen more opera performances in Munich, offering pretty much the same
Mozartian and Wagnerian fare as earlier, with the exception of a single per-
formance of Strausss Der Rosenkavalier. On September , however, he
gave his first concert with the court orchestra at the Konzertsaal. The con-
cert consisted of Schumanns First Symphony, Mozarts Violin Concerto in
D Major (K. ), and Beethovens Seventh Symphony. The audience broke
into spontaneous applause after the Scherzo of the Seventh, and Walter, in a
collegial gesture, asked the orchestra members to rise from their seats, ac-
knowledging his debt to his players.62
He returned to Vienna to present another Mahler premiere on Novem-
ber . This time the work was Das Lied, and it was the first and only occasion
on which Walter used two male singers for the work. The American tenor
William Miller and Walters colleague from the Hofoper, Friedrich Weide-
mann, were the soloists. Walter never quite forgot the event. As late as ,
when Wolfgang Stresemann asked him about using two male voices for Das
Lied, Walter gave an unequivocal response. Yes, hed once used a baritone,
the great artist Friedrich Weidemann, because Mahlers instructions al-
lowed for two male voices. But it was a serious error in judgment. Never
again, I said to myself then, and from that time onward Ive always chosen an
alto (Cahier, Thorborg, Onegin, Ferrier, and so on).63 Also on the program
were several pieces by Ethel Smyth: the Prelude to Act II of The Wreckers
and two choral works, Sleepless Dreams and Hey Nonny No, sung by
the Vienna Singakademie. It is a sign of the rich and changing musical atmo-
sphere in Vienna that shortly before these works were introduced to the city,
a radically new work by Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire, was also given its pre-
miere; Korngold in fact discussed the new pieces by Mahler, Smyth, and
Schoenberg in the same review.64
The year had been difficult for Walter emotionally and professionally.
The position in Munich looked increasingly desirable, but Walters contract
in Vienna seemed an insuperable barrier. The venerable Prince Luitpold of
Bavaria tried to intervene, indirectly asking the Austrian emperor if Walter
could come to Munich. At the beginning of July Walter had written to his
parents of the dream job awaiting him in Munich. He would be immediately
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designated Generalmusikdirektor with a lifelong contract that, after some
six years, he could dissolve if he chose, but that could not be dissolved with-
out his consent. His salary would be , marks; he would have all of July
free, plus eight days off during the festivals in August, three weeks off after
the festivals, and another four weeks off during the winter. The offer was as
enticing artistically as it was professionally. Walter would have the option of
directing the operas that he produced; he would engage singers and orches-
tra members, accept new works, designate who would conduct what, and
determine repertoire. No other musician could boast such an offer. The gen-
erous vacation eliminated his worries about his health (or so he thought),
which all too often had suffered during his stressful years in Vienna.65
But Vienna didnt want to let Walter go without securing an acceptable
substitute. Baron Speidel, who had pressed to have Walter hired in Munich,
died in the summer. In time he was replaced, however, by Clemens von
Franckenstein. After much pleading, Walter finally won an interview with
the Lord Steward in Vienna, who spoke for the emperor. You got an excep-
tionally favorable contract from us only last year. What more can you want?
the Lord Steward reportedly asked. Walter bluntly answered that the Mu-
nich post was far superior to that in Vienna both in function and in distinc-
tion. In Munich, he explained, he would be a director, whereas in Vienna,
he would always be overshadowed by the director. Walter got his way,
though he had to agree to sign a secret contract that would bind him to the
Vienna Hofoper again after the six years that he would be committed to Mu-
nich.66 It was a compromise that he readily accepted.

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Generalmusikdirektor
Munich,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Alas now, pray you,

Work not so hard . . .
Shakespeare, The Tempest

But please have some patience, an overworked Walter wrote to

Richard Strauss after scarcely two months in his new position; if
you could see the way I liveor, more accurately, dont live
youd be the first to stop me.1 Though it was only the beginning
of March, Walter was feeling frayed at the edges. He had become
the music director of a leading musical center, and his fame
stretched further almost monthly. Later in life he never had any
doubts about the importance of his years in Munich: they quite
simply represented the most important epoch in his career.2 Al-
most every day the local newspapers reported on his activities,
and his departure from the city in would inspire front-page
articles and countless eulogies. But this was also a period of con-
stant exertion at the podium, continual travel, and romance both
kindled and frustrated. Despite Walters great productivity as a
re-creative artist, it was a time when his own attempts at composi-
tion had ceased. It was a period when he became one of the lead-
ing celebrities of the city, but also a period that saw the rise of

Adolf Hitler, whose move from Vienna to Munich nearly coincided with
Walters.
After Mottls death in , the Munich-born Franz Fischerwho had
known and worked with Wagner in Bayreuth and, along with Hermann
Levi, had conducted the first performances of Parsifalfilled in as Royal
Bavarian Generalmusikdirektor, relinquishing his title to Walter on January
, . Walters duties in the capital of Bavaria were, first and foremost, re-
lated to operatic activity. Munich had three theaters in which serious opera
was performed, two of which had a rich history. The ornate Residenztheater
(or Cuvillis-Theater, after its architect, Franois de Cuvillis), built in the
mid-eighteenth century and accommodating an audience of a few hundred,
had been the venue where, in , Webers Abu Hassan was first performed.
Later in the nineteenth century,Wagner rehearsed Tristan there.3 The space
was ideal for the more intimate operas of Mozart, who himself had con-
ducted in the Residenztheater, and for the plays that were regularly per-
formed there. The largest theater, holding nearly two thousand people, was
the Hof- und Nationaltheater (known only as the Nationaltheater after ).
Built in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, it too had an illustrious
history, which included the world premieres of Wagners Tristan und Isolde,
Die Meistersinger, Das Rheingold, and Die Walkre. These two older houses
stood in easy walking distance of each other and were also near the principal
orchestra hall, the Odeon. The third house, however, was situated far from
the city center, on the other side of the Isar River. Its relative isolation lent it
some of the feeling of Bayreuth, which was no doubt the designers intended
effect, for the middle-sized Prinzregententheater, which opened in , was
closely patterned after the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, both internally and ex-
ternally, and Wagnerian works were regularly performed there during the
summer festivals. Each theater had its artistic assets and liabilities, and Wal-
ter had to adjust his conducting and directing accordinglyno easy task.
But his conducting duties did not end with opera, even if opera called
on his services several times a week.The Musikalische Akademie,consisting
of members of the opera orchestra, gave subscription concerts of symphonic
music every year, as it continues to do to this day. Its principal venue was the
Odeon hall, at the core of a building that was to suffer severe battering in
World War II. The auditorium wasnt completely wiped out, however, and
its walls and columns now form the courtyard of the Ministry of the Inter-
ioran eerie spectacle for anyone familiar with the buildings history.
Though it presented a stark visual contrast to the sybaritic Musikvereinssaal
G

in Vienna, the comparatively chaste Odeon hall appealed strongly to Walter,
who admired its design and acoustics.4
A venerable institution, the Musikalische Akademie had celebrated its
centennial the year before Walter settled in Munich. From till , Wal-
ter conducted nearly all the academy concerts (about eight a season), includ-
ing performances of works that stood outside the subscription series, espe-
cially Bachs Matthus-Passion. This was the first time in his life that he had
a symphony orchestra regularly at his disposal. Though the core of the
repertoire played by the Musikalische Akademie was standard Austro-Ger-
man symphonic fare, Walter frequently introduced novelties, most of
which were rarely heard again. In a perversely ironic twist, a number of the
composers whose new music he made a distinct effort to bring to the public
such as Carl Ehrenberg,Paul Graener, Paul von Klenau,Hans Pfitzner,and
Max Trapplater found patronage and encouragement among the Nazis.
But most of Walters work revolved around the perennial favorites of the
opera house, and the year had special significance on that score. Two of
the giants of nineteenth-century opera, Wagner and Verdi, had been born in
, and to mark the centennial of their births, theaters performed their
works with even greater frequency than usual. Not surprisingly, the first
opera the new music director conducted, on January , was Tristan und
Isolde, presented in the very theater in which the work was first given. As at
his Covent Garden debut, Walters Tristan was Jacques Urlus, imported
from Leipzig for this occasion, and his Isolde was Zdenka Fassbendernow
Mottl-Fassbender. A new alto, Luise Willer, formerly of the Hoftheater cho-
rus, played Brangne; after hearing her in an audition, Walter decided that
she was too good for the chorus and gave her a place among the soloists.5
Winning popular and critical approval, Willer became the leading alto of his
Munich troupe and was, like the soprano Maria Ivogn, one of Walters
many discoveries. In his review Alexander Dillmann noted that the new
conductor had chosen the opera with which Felix Mottl had ended his ca-
reer and suggested that the new music director might have done so to assert
his intention of carrying on his predecessors work.6 It must have been an es-
pecially poignant performance for Mottl-Fassbender, who gained Mottls
hand in marriage even as she lost him for life on that earlier occasion, though
she had performed Isolde since that tragic event. Walter triumphed. A roar
of applause burst out at the conclusion of the opera, but, curiously, the audi-
ences attempts to call Walter to the stage proved futile.7 Perhaps he felt,
given the recent history of the opera at the Hoftheater and the high serious-
G

ness accorded the work by its composer,that returning for a bow would be in
poor taste; the Musical Courier, in any case, applauded his actions: The
public showed its friendly disposition toward the new director by very
hearty applause and calls for him at the end of the opera, to which he very
modestly and properly did not respond.8
Walter had little chance to enjoy the warm response that his Tristan had
inspired. Three days later he was in Vienna for rehearsals with the Sing-
akademie, which gave a performance of Beethovens Missa solemnis on Jan-
uary , with Adolf Busch as solo violinist. Another eight hours on the train,
and Walter was back in Munich, ready to give performances of Der
Rosenkavalier and Il trovatore in the Hoftheater. Der Rosenkavalier, which
Walter had already conducted in Munich the previous summer, would be-
come one of the works he performed most often during his tenure at Mu-
nich, ranking in frequency with Tristan, the Ring, and the great Mozart op-
eras. It was inevitably well received. The performance of Il trovatore,
however, was a special event, falling on the sixtieth anniversary of the pre-
miere of the work, and it was Walters first contribution to the Verdi centen-
nial celebrations. On assuming his place at the conductors desk, he was
greeted with applause for several minutes. His nimble hand, Max Mahler
reported, followed the lines of the score with the utmost elasticity, reined in
the ensembles, and, through a spirited use of rubato, filled every phrase with
glowing life. It was a sublime pleasure to follow the movements of this musi-
cal, fiery soul, which communicates itself to the entire organization.9
Again Walter scarcely had time to savor his victory, since he was headed
for Russia to conduct what appears to have been his first concert in Moscow.
Leading the Imperial Russian Music Society, he offered a program of
Beethovens Eighth, the Liebestod from Tristan, and Strausss Till Eulen-
spiegel.10 In his memoirs Walter also mentions operatic works that he later
conducted at the Imperial Opera and the Simin OperaPique Dame, Don
Giovannithough it is difficult to trace his activity in Russia with much ac-
curacy. In any case the visits to Russia left a vivid impression on Walter. After
one performance of Don Giovanni, he was treated to a celebration with
carousing that was possible only in pre-war Russia. Around : ..
his host, Simin, assured Walter that he had been made very happy and
grateful by the performance and asked if he might grant a wish to prove the
sincerity of his sentiments. A lover of Russian literature, Walter confessed a
curiosity about the troika, a vehicle of past days; he had always wanted to
see one of those sleighs drawn by three horses driven abreastand asked his
G

host if such things still existed. Half an hour later, he recounted, three
troikas were at the door. Simin, my wife, and myself got into the first one, and
the other guests crowded into the two vehicles following ours. A moment
later, the horses, bells tinkling, rushed over the hard-frozen snow, through
the icy air and the deeply snow-covered forest. After an hours drive, we got
to Strelna, a place frequently used to give the finishing touch to a gaily spent
night in Moscow. A chorus of Russian gypsies, summoned by Simin, soon
appeared in our private room. They delighted us with their magnificent
voices and their singing of beautiful Russian folksongs.11 On a different oc-
casion Walter made the acquaintance of Serge Koussevitzky, another Jewish
conductor who, like Walter, would later establish a new life in America.
Walter returned to Munich in late January to face the most demanding
project in a month that had already severely taxed his energies. On January
he conducted the Munich premiere of Strausss new opera, Ariadne auf
Naxoshis first failure in Munich, though most of the fault lay with Strauss
and Hofmannsthal rather than with Walter. Even at its premiere in Stuttgart
the opera did not fare well. To understand its initial failure, we have to bear
in mind the circumstances of its early performances. The original Ariadne
auf Naxos was radically different from what we are now familiar with. Hof-
mannsthal had the idea of opening the evening with his adaptation of
Molires Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, graced with incidental music by
Strauss, under Max Reinhardts inventive direction. The combination of
play and operathough attractive in theoryproved vexing to the audi-
ence in practice, since those who came for the opera resented having to wait
so long for the singers to make their entrance.12 The venue was also prob-
lematic. Walter had tried to convince Strauss and Hofmannsthal that the
work should be performed in the Hoftheater rather than the Residenzthe-
ater, the house they particularly desired. The raw acoustics of the Resi-
denztheater and its limited space for the orchestral musicians, he said, made
it a poor site for Ariadne.13 But despite his reservations, by December the
case seems to have been settled in favor of the small rococo theater, ad-
mirably suited for a work of this kind, Hofmannsthal wrote to Strauss.
Walter, he continued, seems to realize that a letter he appears to have
written to you is pretty absurd (this strange man seems to be constantly in a
fever, pro or contra, and never able to weigh anything calmly).14 If Hof-
mannsthal had known Walters schedule, he might have found the conduc-
tors feverish temperament a little less peculiar.
Strauss was on a concert tour in Russia when Ariadne had its first per-
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formance in Munich,with the American Maude Fay as Ariadne,Otto Wolf as
Bacchus, and Hermine Bosetti as Zerbinetta. The composer, a native son of
Munich, had a close relationship with the city, which held him in high
esteem, and Alexander Dillmann of the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten
showed due sensitivity in covering the opera; instead of writing a standard
review, he poured out a seven-column open letter to Strauss in an attempt to
explain why the audience had hissed its displeasure after the first act. Quite
frankly, he stated, the Molire play had bored themnot only because the
performance of the play lacked sparkle but because Molires comedy is sim-
ply unbearable today. Nevertheless, Dillmann was sorry that Strauss had
not been present: You would have enjoyed the performance of the opera
and the love with which Bruno Walter immersed himself in your work.15
For succeeding performances, Walter introduced cuts (most of them already
adopted in Dresden) and moved Ariadne to the Hoftheater, much to
Strausss displeasure; to pacify the composer, however, he pointed out that
attendance had since steadily risen. A move back to the more intimate but
less capacious Residenztheater would spell financial disaster.16 Despite the
operas inauspicious beginnings, Walter continued to conduct Ariadne
throughout his Munich years, and after its revision, it became a favorite of
both Walter and the Munich public.
During the following month Walter continued his manic schedule,
shuttling between Vienna and Munich. He gave his first concert as regular
conductor of the Musikalische Akademie on February (Beethovens
Fourth, Wagners Faust Overture, and Berliozs Symphonie fantastique),
and later that month he conducted his last concert as director of the Vienna
Singakademie, the Verdi Requiema work that would remain in his reper-
toire into his final years.17 But he was back in Munich at the end of February
for another concert with the Musikalische Akademie. The solidly Germanic
program consisted of Wolfs symphonic poem Penthesilea, Brahmss Sec-
ond Symphony, and Webers overture to Euryanthe. Walters hectic sched-
ule apparently took its toll on this performance, in which the reading of
Wolfs tone poem was praised for its splendidly worked-out details but
criticized for not offering more than details, while Brahmss symphony,
driven by nervous haste, lacked depth.18
Meanwhile, another awkward situation had developed. Though at one
time the Musikalische Akademie had performed Bachs Matthus-Passion
regularly during the Easter season, it hadnt done so for five years. Walter de-
cided to restore the great oratorio to the academys concert schedule and set
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a performance for Palm Sunday. Unfortunately, the Concert Society for
Choral Music, under the leadership of Eberhard Schwickerath, a choral
conductor devoted to the corpus of great choral music, especially the works
of Bach, had already scheduled a performance of the Matthus-Passion for
Good Friday. The Concert Society was palpably irritated at the competition
from Walter, placing a notice in the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten to the ef-
fect that the society had made known its intention to present the oratorio in
the fall of and now the Musikalische Akademie would be giving an ear-
lier performance of the work.19 To judge from contemporary reports, two
more different approaches to Bachs masterpiece would be hard to imagine.
Critics who attended both performances judged Schwickeraths reading
more faithful to Bachs intentions, while Walters seemed operatic, at times
even sentimentalboth qualities the legacy, no doubt, of his long associa-
tion with the opera house. Yet while they sympathized with Schwickerath,
whose earnest reading of the score left a deep impression, the critics also
conceded that Walter had a far stronger individuality, was technically far
more skilled than Schwickerath, and had brought out a wealth of sub-
tleties.20 Among Walters soloists were two women imported from outside
Munich, Gertrude Frstel and Madame Cahier, both of whom had worked
with Walter before. Felix Senius, from Berlin, was his Evangelist, and Paul
Bender, one of Munichs leading basses, his Jesus. (Senius died later that
year after contracting food poisoning at a banquet held in his honor.21) Even
with cuts, which later caused Walter an acute sense of artistic guilt, the per-
formance lasted about two hours and forty-five minutes. While awkward-
ness surrounded this first performance of the Matthus-Passion, for the next
seven years Walters annual performances of Bachs oratorio would be
eagerly anticipated in Munich.22
The first complete Ring cycle that Walter gave as Generalmusikdirektor
also took place in March. He had conducted the Ring in Munich on a few oc-
casions during the previous year as a guest conductor, but now he was being
judged as the successor to Mottl and Fischer and as the representative of the
Wagner tradition in Munich. The careful preparation, the serious work, the
organic fusion of music and dramaall made a deep impression on Alexan-
der Dillmann, who tendered a lengthy panegyric on Walters performance:
First and foremost, we should thank Bruno Walter, Munichs Gen-
eralmusikdirektor, for this gratifying achievement. He has thrown
himself into his new field of work with holy zeal, I might almost
say with a Mahlerian fanaticism for art. It was again confirmed that
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 Walter, under the given conditions, was the right manat least as
principal conductorto take over the leadership of the Munich
Opera, orphaned since Mottls death. . . . Walter is a detailed, pre-
cise worker of rare conscientiousness, of hard industriousness and
extraordinary technical ability. There are few conductors with such
a sharply stamped rhythmic delicacy, scarcely any that combine
such an outward calm and deliberation with such a motoric tem-
perament.23
Nevertheless, because Munich had a strong Wagner traditionit was, after
all, where many of the music dramas had received their first airingsthe crit-
ics and citizens had fixed expectations about how their Wagner should be
performed, and even Walter couldnt come through this rite of passage with-
out provoking some quibbles.On the one hand, there were the countless lit-
tle details of the true Wagner style that had been passed down over the years
in Munich and with which Walter was not yet familiar.On the other,there was
the problem of his becoming too engrossed in the details, not allowing him-
self simply to be swept away by the music and led fully by the heart. All in all,
however, Walter turned in an imposing performance: The whole musical
structure sparkled brilliantly with a purity and clarity scarcely known before.
A steady diet consisting mainly of Wagner, Mozart, and Strauss domi-
nated Walters life in the opera houses. Two events that stand out were the
first performance at the Hoftheater of Pfitzners Der arme Heinrich on April
, (it had played earlier at the Prinzregenten theater), and a new pro-
duction of Wagners Rienzi on May . Rienzi, of course, comes so early in the
Wagnerian canon that for some it scarcely qualifies as Wagner; few today
have heard more than the overture. Though it was warmly received, Walter
seems to have conducted Rienzi only on this one occasion in Munichand
then, one assumes, mainly out of a sense of duty during the Wagner centen-
nial yearbut Pfitzners Wagnerian spin-off, Der arme Heinrich, the work
that first attracted Walter to Pfitzner, would enjoy numerous performances
under Walters baton in Munich.
Taking stock of his situation near the end of April, Walter on the whole
felt content with his life, however exhausting. I feel as satisfied with my po-
sition in Munich, he wrote to his parents, as one can feel at all in the the-
ater, which is a very odd and difficult and contradictory institution. I get
along excellently with Baron Franckenstein and we have almost become
friends. He lets me have my way and supports me to the best of his abilities.
The orchestra is heartily devoted to me, and this good relationship is likely
G

to last for some time. They are indebted to me for the great success of their
concerts, and since they receive the proceeds from the concerts, they owe me
a good relationship on account of their own financial interest. But in this
case, I almost believe that the orchestras attachment to me would prove last-
ing even without this important motivating factor. The members of his
opera troupe were, with few exceptions, devoted to him, and the public had
demonstrably shown its supporta storm of applause recently greeted him
when he assumed his position at the podium to conduct the second act of
Sieg fried. His home life also brought him considerable comfort: Above all,
however,I feel good about the delightful home that we have established here.
Of course it isnt fully paid for yet, but since Ive inherited my fathers insou-
ciance, it doesnt bother me that much. I have a house of my own, a small gar-
den in which the children can play, a large terrace along this garden and the
many surrounding gardens, all in a charming area of Munich that quite re-
sembles a park, utterly serene.24
Walter, however, had to deny himself the serenity of his delightful new
home for a short while to return to his native city, where on June he
opened a series of seven concerts for the German Music Festival in Berlin. A
monster orchestra, composed of instrumentalists from fifty-four German
orchestras, greeted the conductors invited to the festival.25 The effect must
have been overwhelming, if a touch vulgar. According to contemporary re-
ports, Walters performance of Wagners Kaisermarsch employed forty first
violins, thirty-two second violins, twenty-seven violas, twenty-three cellos,
twenty double basses, and a comparably lush panoply of wind, brass, and
percussion instruments. It created an impression of unprecedented
pomp, but despite the massive organism that Walter had to govern, one re-
viewer felt that hed turned in a sensitive and subtle performance of
Beethovens Seventh, the centerpiece of his concert.26
As his contract stipulated, Walter had most of July to himself. He cer-
tainly deserved a rest, and the coming months would afford no time for him
to gather his strength. August and September were bursting with Ring cy-
cles, Tristans, Don Giovannis, Figaros, Zauberfltes, and the odd Ariadne.
At the end of October, in honor of the Verdi centennial, Walter presented a
highly successful new production of Falstaffa novelty for Munich
which, unlike Rienzi, became one of his regular operas for several months.27
And he managed to work a world premiere into his tight schedule. On
November he gave the first performance of Sulamith, by the Danish com-
poser Paul von Klenau, a short opera in six scenes (usually supplemented by
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 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Kiesslings neuer kleiner Plan von Berlin, details showing the exact
location where Walter was born, near Alexanderplatz, at the intersection of
Bschingsplatz and Mehnerstrasse, Corner no. (Berlin, ).
Courtesy of New York Public Library.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Emma, Joseph, Johanna, Leo, and Bruno Schlesinger (Berlin, ).

Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Bruno Schlesinger and his father, Joseph, whose pockets were always crammed with
testimonials of his sons success (Berlin, ca. ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter at the age of twenty, about the time he met Mahler in Hamburg
(ca. ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter, following advice from Mahler and his sisters, grew a beard to make himself
look older (Berlin, ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Gustav Mahler and his future brother-in-law, Arnold Ros, concertmaster of the
Vienna Philharmonic and Walters frequent chamber music partner (ca. ).
Courtesy of New York Public Library, Bruno Walter Papers.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walters first collection of original printed music, his Sechs Lieder, op. , in print
by the early part of .
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Notice for the premiere of Walters String Quartet on

November , , performed by the illustrious
Ros Quartet.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Walter often worked with the Soldat-Rger Quartet, an all-

female ensemble; on February , , he took the keyboard
part in Brahmss great Piano Quintet in F minor.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walters First Symphony had its premiere on February ,

, in the Grosser Musikvereinssaal, where the Second
and Third symphonies of Brahms had their first
performances, and where Walter would introduce Mahlers
Ninth Symphony.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Perhaps Walters most important performance, the world premiere of Mahlers Das
Lied von der Erde, given in Munich on November , , during a memorial
celebration of the composers works. On the same program as Das Lied was Mahlers
Resurrection Symphony.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Bruno Walter as Bavarian Generalmusikdirektor (Munich, ca. ).

Courtesy of Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and his wife, Elsa, with their two daughters, Lotte (left) and Gretel
(Munich, ca. ).
Courtesy of Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Delia Reinhardt as Carlotta, the heroine of Franz Schrekers opera

Die Gezeichneten (Munich, ).
Courtesy of Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munich.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter in the covered pit of Munichs Prinzregententheater, patterned after the

Festspielhaus at Bayreuth (Munich, ca. ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Walter, Hans Pfitzner, and Ludwig Kirschner (set designer), during preparations
for the world premiere of Pfitzners Palestrina (Munich, ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter at a piano rehearsal for Palestrina. From left to right, standing: Karl Erb,
Fritz Feinhals, Emmy Krger, Fritz Brodersen, and Maria Ivogn (Munich, ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter in his study, surrounded by the likenesses of Beethoven, Mahler, and Brahms
(Berlin, ca. ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and Paul Whiteman, who conducted the world premiere performance of
Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue (Hollywood, ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
another short work, like Cavalleria rusticana), based on that most sensual
book of the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon.
Later in November Walter presented the most ambitious program of his
first year as director of the Musikalische Akademie. It included two rarely
heard works: W. F. Bachs Sinfonia for two violins, viola, bass, and two flutes
(with harpsichord continuo, played by Hans Rohr)given for the first
time, according to the noticesand Mahlers Third Symphony, with Luise
Willer as alto soloist.Walter,of course,had enjoyed one of his great triumphs
in Vienna when he had conducted Mahlers Third in and no doubt
hoped for a similar victory in Munich. But while the reviewers praised Wal-
ters excellent performance of the work, they criticized what they viewed
as compositional weaknesses in Mahlers hour-and-a-half-long, six-move-
ment symphony, which struck them as unconvincing, a work in which the
composer strove for goals beyond his reach.28
Nevertheless, Walters fame was spreading rapidly, and leading orches-
tras sought his services. After giving an ebullient charity performance of
Supps Die schne Galathe, Walter again traveled to his native city for his
first engagement as guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic on Decem-
ber . For this important concert he chose an ambitious program: Schu-
manns First Symphonyby now almost obligatory for his debut with an
orchestraand Beethovens Ninth, with a chorus of about voices.29
The significance of Walters return to Berlin was not lost on Leopold
Schmidt, the chief music reviewer for the Berliner Tageblatt, whose cover-
age of Walters activities in Berlin spanned many years. He reminded his
readers that Walter had studied at the Stern Conservatory and had returned
briefly (at the turn of the century) as an opera conductor. We were vexed
with the management in those days for not having allowed a greater field of
activity for this man, whose great talent was obvious, and for having let him
move to Vienna after a short while. It was easy to note how seriously the
young musician took his job and to see that he had no desire at all to fall into
the role of a routinier.30 As music director of Bavaria, Walter had now
joined the ranks of the finest conductors in Germany, Schmidt observed,
and his appearance in Berlin was an event followed with interest. Small
wonder that, after this impressive debut, Walter would return to conduct the
Berlin Philharmonic almost every year until .

However frenzied and overburdened Walters first year in Munich might

have been,the year would begin a period of stress and confusion such as
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he had never before experienced. World War I ushered in not only the usual
calamities of war but, in its wakedevastating for Germanyprovided the
spark that would ignite a number of radical political movements affecting the
entire course of Walters life, though neither he nor anyone else could have
foreseen the long-term consequences of those political upheavals.
While the year began with familiar works in the opera house, Walters
concert calendar in January included something new for him, a major work
that would remain in his repertoire till the end of his career: Bruckners
Fourth Symphony. Although Walter was regarded in the s and s as
one of the foremost exponents of Bruckners symphoniesor at least of the
four that he then conductedhis status as a Brucknerian was far from estab-
lished in , when he seems to have conducted Bruckner for the first time.
On the program with Bruckners Romantic Symphony were Pfitzners
ballade Herr Olaf and his occasional music to Kleists Ktchen von Heil-
bronn. Reviewing the concert, Rudolf Louis admired Walters handling of
the works by Pfitzner but felt that Bruckners compositional method was
somewhat alien to the conductor, and that the first and last movements were
wanting in fluidity and liveliness.31 Walter himself later confessed that he
came to understand Bruckner only after hed lived for half a century. The
emotional substance of his music, he wrote, had stirred me by its soulful
force and depth and delighted me by its occasional Austrian charm, but I
had not been able to feel at home on his soil. But after a bout with double
pneumonia, which forced him to rest and reflect for some weeks, he was vis-
ited by a sudden revelation. The increased maturity and deeper tranquillity
gained during my illness may have had something to do with it. . . . I recog-
nized in the melodic substance, in the towering climaxes, and in the emo-
tional world of his symphonies the great soul of their creator, pious and
childlike. This stirring recognition, in turn, made me comprehend effort-
lessly the substance and form of his music.32 Despite his claims not to have
understood Bruckner before this revelation, and despite Louiss criticism of
the outer movements, Walter seems to have turned in an impressive perfor-
mance: the details were worked out with extraordinary subtlety, Louis
noted, and the beautiful orchestral sound left nothing to be desired.33
While taking pains to include novelties on his concert programs
among them, Debussys Printemps suite and Wilhelm Maukes Einsamkeit,
both offered in February Walter also pressed to have new operas pro-
duced. For some years, he had been interested in the music of an innovative
young musician, another of Robert Fuchss seemingly endless supply of tal-
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ented students, Franz Schreker. His bold, lush harmonies, his composi-
tional facility, his virtuoso orchestration, and his controversial libretti made
him the object of praise, envy, and scorn, in about equal measure. His music,
which initially created a sensation, fell into eclipse during the Third Reich
but has enjoyed a steadily growing renaissance since the s, thanks to the
ever increasing exploration of the degenerate music condemned by the
Nazis. He was a professor at the Academy of Music in Vienna as well as the
conductor of its Philharmonic Chorus, an ensemble he founded. Like Wag-
ner, he wrote his own texts, often laced with erotic and entertainingly sub-
versive strains. Already in Vienna, during Weingartners tenure as director,
Walter had tried to have Schrekers first opera, Der ferne Klang, produced at
the Hofoper, though the change in leadership at the opera house frustrated
his plan. (The opera eventually received its premiere in Frankfurt in .)
Walter heartily recommended Schreker to others in a position to help the
radical composer, Richard Strauss being among those to whom he made a
direct appeal.34
On February , , Walter gave the Munich premiere of Der ferne
Klang at the Hoftheater, with Karl Erb and Luise Perard-Petzl as the protag-
onists Fritz and Grete. The pianovocal score, arranged by Alban Berg,
bore a dedication from Schreker to Bruno Walter, in gratitude.35 Schreker
claimed to have worked on the libretto already in his early twenties, and in
some ways the plot reveals the workings of a young mind.36 (The young
artist Fritz abandons Grete, the woman who loves him, to pursue the dis-
tant sound of a nebulous artistic ideal. Fifteen years pass during the course
of the opera, Grete falls into a life of ill repute, and Fritz, in the end, learns too
late that the distant sound he had sought for so many years was within his
reach the whole time.) The opera ranks among the most daring and modern
works that Walter ever brought to the stage, and he gave it his wholehearted
devotion. The large number of rehearsals he demanded were already the
stuff of local legend before opening night, and the performance showed that
the work had been worth the effort.Weve heard about the fantastic number
of rehearsals for weeks, Max Mahler wrote. Bruno Walter, working tire-
lessly with utter devotion and love, has awakened this tremendously compli-
cated score into resounding life. Under his superlatively beautiful direction,
the court orchestra played with sparkling sonic splendor.37 The work
itself generated considerable debate. The critics acknowledged Schrekers
prodigious musical talent and his revolutionary compositional style, and
Max Mahler cautioned those who found the music too strange not to con-
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demn it out of hand: the new, Mahler pointed out, is bound to be difficult to
absorb at first. Some critics, however, were not willing to give Schreker the
benefit of the doubt. Everything about the adventurous work seemed too
radical for Alfred von Mensi, and the interest the public took in Schrekers
work was an indication to him of an alarming move toward a Schrekeror
shall we say a schrecklich [terrible]era.38
Although Walter had already acquired a reputation for having conserv-
ative taste, the fact remains that he often chose works that were new and in-
novative. Despite loud and demonstrative objections raised by some critics,
Walter continued to schedule fresh and even more radical works by Schreker
at the Munich Hoftheater for several years to come. He confessed to not al-
ways understanding the music he performed, yet (at least in the case of
Schreker and some other composers) he seems to have followed his own ad-
vice to critics by attributing his lack of understanding to the limitations of his
own perception.39
While Schrekers opera drew a mixed response from the press and the
public, another premiere that Walter conducted in elicited far more en-
couraging words and considerably more attention from the critics, even
though the piece in question was not new. The work was Wagners final mas-
terpiece, Parsifal, first performed in and written specifically for
Bayreuth; the composer was utterly opposed to having it performed outside
his custom-built theater, and especially to having it transported to an urban
opera house where the solemnity of the music and the story would be com-
promised by commercial surroundings. After Wagners death, the work was
protected by copyright, at least in Europe, until . Nevertheless, the Met-
ropolitan Opera House in New York (the very home of Wall Street), unaf-
fected by the copyright restrictions on the opera, became the first to ignore
Wagners wish, staging Parsifal as early as , which prompted many a
venomous article from the European press.40 But surely a fair amount of
envy was mixed with the venom. Parsifal was, after all, one of Wagners
crowning achievements, and limiting performances to Bayreuth meant that
many music-lovers, even ardent Wagnerians, would have few chances to ex-
perience the work.41
When the performance restrictions on Parsifal were lifted in , pro-
ductions abounded. Several had already occurred in Germany before the
Munich production, which took place on Wagners birthday, but because of
the long association of Munich with Wagners works, and because of the
Prinzregententheaters close structural kinship with the Festspielhaus, the
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performance that Walter conducted on May had special significance. Max
Mahler, declaring the aptness of the Prinzregententheater for Parsifal, com-
mented that among all Wagners works, the music of Parsifal most requires
the invisible sunken orchestra.42 The difficult stage work necessary for the
production forced some other plays and operas in the theater to be resched-
uled. Anton Fuchs, who had worked with Wagner at Bayreuth and had
played Klingsor there in the early productions, was in charge of the stage di-
rection (he also worked with Walter on several other operas). Much to
Mensis relief, Walter chose to make use of the covered lid in the Prinzre-
gententheater, which we missed very much at last years Festspielen, the
critic added.43 The great Karl Erb assumed the role of Parsifal, while
Kundry was played by Zdenka Mottl-Fassbender.The first performance was
deemed a huge success, with Walter receiving credit for the devotion and
care he had brought to preparing the work. Under his single-minded con-
ducting, the orchestra proved its old reputation. The Prelude, Transforma-
tion Music, Good Friday Spellthese prominent parts of the score seemed
filled with an atmosphere of utter nobility. And the contrasting moods (the
restless haste of the Prelude to the Klingsor scene, for example) were also
brought out with precision.44
Walters success in Munich no doubt aroused the jealousy of some of his
colleagues, one of whom, Otto Hess (who specialized in Wagner), was given
a chance to grapple with Parsifal late in June, turning in a laudable perfor-
mance. According to Walter, Hess profoundly resented Walters presence in
Munich; if so, its easy to understand why. When Walter became General-
musikdirektor, Hess fell into the shadows, though he still had many oppor-
tunities to conduct major works that Walter rarely (or never) touched. He
was a difficult and unfortunate man, Walter wrote. At the slightest differ-
ence of opinion in a harmless conversation, two fiery spots would appear on
his cheeks, and his heavy breathing would make it advisable to stop the talk.
I did my best to give him a sphere of activity that ought to have satisfied any
conductor. But so inordinate was his ambition that he would have consid-
ered my suicide but the first instalment payment on the immense debt fate
owed to his justified demands.45 To what extent this is an honest assess-
ment of Hess, rather than a caricature, is hard to know. Walter might have
sensed a resentment that stemmed from more than habitual biliousness on
the part of Hess, for there were certainly critics who stressed Hesss truly
German conducting in a way that suggested the possibility of racial ten-
sion at the opera house. As a native son of Munich, moreover, Hess had old
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allies in the city. Nevertheless, the press was capable of treating him with in-
difference, as when, in the early days of June, the two conductors collabo-
rated in an evening honoring Richard Strauss on his fiftieth birthday. Walter
opened with a performance of Tod und Verklrung, and Hess followed with
Salome. Though Hess bore the greater part of the conducting duties, only
Walters conducting was mentioned in the Allgemeine Zeitung.46
With the sheer mass of work that burdened Walter during the first part
of , it is hard to imagine that he had much time for anything other than
preparing and giving performances in Munich and elsewhere. But, as
throughout his career, he took time out to help the careers of especially tal-
ented musicians whom hed encountered. So it was that in June he wrote to
Ernst von Possartreputed to have a decisive voice in the proceedings of
the Munich Konzertvereinrecommending the young Wilhelm Furtwn-
gler, who was to conduct one of the upcoming concerts given by that orches-
tra. If I can convince you to hear this concert, Ill be able to forgo any further
recommendation of the young artist. I have the highest opinion of his talent
and ability, his deep and true musicality, and his effectiveness before an audi-
ence. As you probably already know, he comes from Munich, the son of the
well-known scholar (the late university professor).47 Furtwngler secured a
position in Mannheim the following yearwith help from Walter, which the
younger conductor never forgotand went on to become the most cele-
brated conductor in Germany.48 When Walters impending departure from
Munich became public knowledge in , Furtwnglers mother, Adelheid,
wrote the Generalmusikdirektor a letter expressing her regret that her name
hadnt been included on a petition circulated in the city, adding: You know
how my son reveres you with his entire soul and is delighted that you have
shown him your friendship. Every time hes here, he looks forward to seeing
you and hearing you.49 The subsequent deterioration of the promising re-
lationship between Walter and Furtwngler would constitute one of the
most painful chapters in Walters life.

The end of Walters second season in Munich coincided with an unex-

pected and devastating event. On June , , the Mnchner Neueste
Nachrichten carried an ominous headline: The Archduke, Successor to the
Throne, and his Consort Killed. World War I broke out suddenly and
lasted far longer than anyone could have predicted.For musicians in general,
it would take a drastic, sometimes disastrous, toll on their livelihood. The-
aters closed, orchestras disbanded. For Walter, who worked in theaters sup-
G

ported by the court and the state, the war would result in fewer perfor-
mances of works requiring large forces, and programs would strongly favor
the German repertoire. A considerable number of charity concerts, Father-
land Concerts (with huge choral ensembles), and Peoples Concerts
found Walter at the helm, conducting German favorites and patriotic songs.
By October, in fact, Walter was arguing that popular concerts, directed by
major conductors and given either in beer halls (providing a pleasant, infor-
mal atmosphere) or in standard auditoriums, were an excellent way to boost
morale and to aid needy musicians and unemployed music teachers. Walter,
Strauss, and other conductors gave such concerts in Munich, waiving their
fees, and the audience response was encouraging. Thomas Mann later re-
called the joy and verve of Walters conducting on these occasions.50
The orchestra divided up among its members eighty percent of the net pro-
ceeds, Walter wrote; twenty percent was allotted to the musicians relief
fund.51 It was a good method of keeping musicians employed and of doing
ones social duty. (The idea of Walters leading rousing renditions of Die
Wacht am Rhein and Deutschland ber Alles, and his confidence in a
glorious victory for Germany, may cause some discomfort to the modern
reader, but the songs had not yet acquired the taint of National Socialism,
and Walter was merely being a loyal patriot. Very much in favor of the Ger-
man cause, he even flirted with the idea of joining the armed forces as a vol-
unteer in .52) In addition to these concerts, Walter was in charge of mu-
sic for various celebrations of German culture focusing on such luminaries
as Schiller, Beethoven, and Wagner.
In the opera house, light and comic works predominated. Walter revived
Peter Corneliuss comic work Der Barbier von Bagdad and a short pastoral
attributed to Gluck,Les Amours champtres (Maienknigin), both to great ac-
claim, and he conducted the usual works by Mozart and Strauss, adding per-
formances of Verdis Ballo and Rossinis Barbiere di Siviglia (the other Bar-
ber opera) to vary the almost exclusively Germanic fare being offered. His
first performance of Die Meistersinger in Munich occurred on Christmas
Day, . It received a detailed review from Alexander Dillmann, who
heaped praise on Walters decided feeling for sonic beauty, his acute dissec-
tion of the scores subtle and complex architecture, his intoxication with ana-
lytical niceties, and his overall care in the handling of the orchestra. Walter
pulled instruments that are otherwise scarcely heard out of their hiding
placeshere a graceful woodwind figure, there the contemplative voice of a
bass tuba,whose Wahn-motive,making its way through the figuration,would
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usually be absorbed into the general pattern of sound.53 Nevertheless, some
aspects of the performance provoked criticism; the loud passages could have
profited from brighter brass playing, andat least for the time being
certain qualities were missing in this Meistersinger: inner, tranquil strength,
composure, simplicity, and unaffected music-making, so different from the
brilliant dissection and the conjuring, ecstatic display of energy with which
Walter has attempted to reach this work, which is German, straightforward,
and indeed very great. The patriotic emphasis on the operas German
essence, though hardly remarkable in time of war, might have been cause for
concern, since there lurked a potential implication that the Jewish-born
Walter, though a native Berliner, couldnt fully understand the German men-
tality. If this sounds oversensitive, it is worth bearing in mind that a few years
later, that exact charge would be leveled directly at Walter.
Despite the occasional criticisms, however, Walter was becoming recog-
nized as one of the great European conductors. News of another conductor,
one whose career would eventually eclipse that of all his contemporaries,
reached Walter around the end of . Arturo Toscanini, on whom Mahler
had bestowed qualified praise to Walter in (He conducts [Tristan] in
a manner entirely different from ours . . . but magnificently in his way), was
now a major force at the Metropolitan Opera House.54 One of his perfor-
mances was heard by the Russian-born Ossip Gabrilowitsch, who, with his
wife Clara, had left Europe at the outbreak of World War I. Gabrilowitsch
soon found employment in the United States, where he remained until his
death, and he maintained a correspondence with Walter for many years.
Shortly after arriving in New York, Gabrilowitsch attended a performance of
Tristan at the Met under Arturo Toscanini and was disappointed with what
he heard. He reported to Walter that the Italian conductors strong suit was
drama and that he lacked poetry and lyricism. Technically he was great, but
not to be compared with Mahler or Walter himself. Essentially an orchestral
conductor, he didnt have as spontaneous and compelling an effect on the
singers as Walter had.55 But later in life both Gabrilowitsch and Walter
would become allies of Toscanini, admiring his formidable gifts and his
courage in the face of totalitarianism. Over a decade passed before Walter
met his rival, yet their friendship endured, despite the occasional disagree-
ment, until Toscaninis death in .
Throughout the early months of the war, Walters activities with the
Musikalische Akademie seem to have continued unabated. Among the
choral works he performed were Mozarts Requiem in Novembera sober
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work for troubled times that made a deep enough impression on the audi-
ence to warrant a repeat performanceand, in December, Haydns Die
Schpfung, which offered a much-needed vision of creation (and, by exten-
sion, regeneration) to a country at war. Walter also managed to find works
that were new to the Munich audience. Some were, in fact, neglected older
pieces, like Mozarts ballet suite Les Petits Riens and his concert aria Popoli
di Tessaglia (sung by Maria Ivogn), both billed as novelties. But he also
offered at least one new work, Karl Bleyles Legende for orchestra, giving its
world premiere on December , . The piece was politely reviewed but
less enthusiastically received than another work on the same program, natu-
rally from the standard repertoire: Schumanns Piano Concerto in A Minor,
with Artur Schnabel as soloist.56

Work,work,work,Walter wrote to his parents in April ,summing up his

life in Munich. The behavior of the press is as vile as ever; in fact, during the
war its stooping to new lows, but the public is full of love and enthusiasm.57
Whatever Walter found offensive in the press was plainly matched by a goodly
amount of praise in many of the leading papers, though his enemies would
soon enough begin to voice their objections,vociferously and nastily,to his in-
terpretive manner. At the beginning of , however, the press seemed quite
satisfied with Walters accomplishments. It was a year that saw few surprises
in Walters repertoire at the opera house and on the concert stage, though his
schedule remained as hectic as ever. Something new for Munich occurred on
March , when Walter accompanied Arnold Ros,with whom he still played
the occasional recital during his visits to Vienna,in a program of Beethoven vi-
olin sonatas. This concert presented the music director for the first time as a
piano soloist in Munich and naturally piqued the critics interest.58 Richard
Wrz of the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten focused almost exclusively on
Walter, expressing admiration for his ability to impress his strong artistic per-
sonality even on chamber music. Walters technical security at the keyboard,
his fine nuances, his gentle pianos and full but never brittle fortesall were
singled out for praise.For the next few years,Walter would appear many times
in chamber music recitals, much as he had done in Vienna, sometimes joined
by the visiting Ros. Along with the Beethoven violin sonatas (and several
piano trios), Walter served as pianist in works by Brahms, Mozart, Pfitzner,
Rachmaninoff, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky.
Though his attitude toward Richard Strauss could be lukewarm, Walter
promoted the composers music many times in his career, and on April ,
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, he gave what was his first Munich performance of Strausss Elektra.
His painstaking rehearsals resulted in a performance of uncommonly
rich shading, bathed in glowing colors, according to the Mnchner Neueste
Nachrichten, though Strauss himself, a mere four months later, complained
bitterly that his works werent being kept up in his native city and blamed
Walter and Franckenstein for the putative neglect.59 A composer whose
works Walter could never be accused of neglecting, however, was Mahler,
whose Lied von der Erde he conducted in Vienna on February and again
on April , with Luise Willer and Otto Wolf as his soloists and the Vienna
Philharmonic as his orchestra. (The piece hadnt been heard in that city
since Walter introduced it to the Viennese in .) In Munich standard or-
chestral repertoire dominated his programs with the Musikalische Akademie:
a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies, a performance of Mahlers Fourth
(with Ivogn as soprano soloist), Bruckners Seventh, Mozarts Jupiter,
and so on. At least one reviewer questioned the wisdom of performing
Beethovens Ninth during the war; odes to joyso the reasoning ranshould
wait for times of peace.60
With his usual desire to mix the new and the old, Walter injected some
novelties into his subscription series, the first two of which, to judge by their
titles, were unlikely to prompt charges of indecorous levity: Hans Pfitzners
Klage (Lament), for baritone, mens chorus, and orchestra; Paul von Kle-
naus Gesprch mit dem Tod (Dialogue with Death),for alto and orchestra;
Heinrich Norens Violin Concerto, with Alexander Petschnikoff as soloist;
and Paul Graeners Musik am Abend (Music in the Evening), included on
a program that also featured the first performance in Munich of Strausss
new Alpensinfonie. Walter entertained the idea of writing his own music
again, but his soul wasnt free enough during those troubled times to at-
tempt anything so bold, and in any case he was perhaps too exhausted
to compose.61
Worked nearly to the point of collapse, Walter would sometimes give the
impression in his correspondence that he was in danger of fizzling out. His
complaints of exhaustion became more frequent as the years passed, and his
schedule remained as punishing as ever. It would have been natural for him
to seek out something new to rekindle the hard, gemlike flame with which he
strove to burn. And, in fact, a new source of invigoration was shortly to enter
his life.

Delia
Munich,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

People will no longer know what is German and pure.

Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nrnberg

The theater offers ample opportunity for both artists and their ad-
mirers to fall in love.A leading heroine or hero in the spotlight eas-
ily becomes the object of desireand just as easily the conductor
who wields the baton, magically holding the ensemble together.
With his schedule crammed with rehearsals and performances,
Walter could not have had much free time to develop a romantic
attachment, yet, like many another overworked performer, he
managed to find the time. The year introduced a key player
into his life, the lyric soprano Delia Reinhardt. They were
brought together when two staples of German operaDie
Zauberflte and Der Freischtzwere given under Walter on
August and September , and Reinhardt, a guest from the
Breslau Stadttheater (where she had begun her professional ca-
reer in ),assumed the roles of Pamina and Agathe.She was be-
ing considered for a position with the Munich troupe and had
some manifest strengths on her side; her early publicity photos,
for example, display a wide spectrum of poses and facial expres-
sions. As Sieglinde she looks feminine, slender, and frail; as

Octavian and Ighino, boyish and aristocratic; as Elsa, pious and untouch-
able; as Carlotta, sensuous and robust, with large, manly hands. Though the
informal shots taken during her Munich years often show her as unattractive,
overweight,and oppressed,snapshots taken after the war reveal a melancholy
beauty in her features and a figure that had aged gracefully. With her con-
trolled, coolly plaintive voice, she would attract several important musicians
of the day, including the baritone Gustav Schtzendorf and the conductor
Georges Sbastian (both of whom were married to her for a time), as well as
Bruno Walter.
The handful of recordings Reinhardt made in the early electrical period
have often been reissuedtestimony to her long-standing popularity in Ger-
manic countries.Her recorded repertoire includes famous arias and set pieces
of Agathe,Cherubino,Eva,Elisabeth,Elsa,and Sieglinde.Much in her voice is
admirable: there is some of the steely strength of a Frida Leider, some of the
impassioned drama of a Lotte Lehmann. In a way, it was the perfect voice for
the standard German operatic repertoire. Unfortunately, for those who have
heard her more successful peers, Delia Reinhardt may prove something of a
disappointment, sounding like an undeveloped Leider or Lehmann, giving us
too little of what the other singers gave in such abundance.
Even some of Reinhardts own contemporaries initially felt that certain
qualities were wanting in her delivery. Alexander Dillmann reviewed her
guest performances and noted, after hearing her Pamina, an utter lack of
warmth in her voice; hers was a chaste, almost cool voice, one that she
used, however, with a great deal of taste and even more skill.1 He withheld
judgment on her until he had heard her portrayal of Agathe, which con-
vinced him that she did not belong with the Munich opera company. When
I heard her, he wrote, I thought I was attending an interesting singing les-
son rather than a performance of one of the liveliest works of German
opera. Though proper enough from a technical standpointeven immac-
ulately pureher singing lacked drama and personality.2 Yet despite Dill-
manns reservations, by the following year she had become an active mem-
ber of the Munich company, and her singing and stage presence would win
her many admirers. In January Thomas Mann praised her as a happy
acquisition for the Hoftheater.3
Its hard to say just when Walter fell in love with Delia Reinhardt, but at
some point after she joined the Munich troupe she seems to have become the
woman closest to Walters heart. Irma Geering, long a good friend of Rein-
hardts and the person with whom Reinhardt spent her final years, said that
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a year after Reinhardt joined the troupe in Munich, Walter wanted to marry
her.4 This, of course, is the recollection of an event that had taken place
about eight decades before, and the details might have become blurred over
time. But there is little question that Walter developed a deep affection for
Reinhardt during his years in Munich, and that the two were on intimate
terms, though she had become the wife of the baritone Gustav Schtzendorf
sometime before November , and Walter himself remained married un-
til his wifes death in .5 Other affairs between Walter and his singers (or
fans) have been rumored, and Walter certainly received large quantities of
mail from adoring female admirers, some of whom must have presented a
strong temptation. But if there was one great love in Walters later life, it was
Delia Reinhardt.
The complications of lovewith both tragic and comic consequences
were at the thematic core of a double bill that Walter gave at the Hoftheater
on March . Overshadowing almost everything else that Walter conducted
in , the two works, both being given for the first time, were one-act op-
eras by Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Violanta and Der Ring des Polykrates.
Though no longer a child, Korngold was presenting two compositions
showing such mastery of the orchestra, such knowledge of dramatic struc-
ture, and such depth of expression and harmonic sophistication that it was
hard to believe a teenager had written them. Walter never forgot the experi-
ence of listening to the young man singing through his two operas while
playing his own accompaniment at the piano. One could have compared
his interpretation of works of his on the piano, Walter wrote many years
later, to the eruption of a musical-dramatic Volcano, if the lyric episodes or
graceful moments had not also found their insinuating expression in his
playing.6
The first item of the evening, Violanta, offers a plot that smacks of Ja-
cobean tragedies of blood (and their Victorian derivatives). Set in fifteenth-
century Italy, it is rife with those ingredients so comforting to the box office:
lust, revenge, and violence. Korngolds suavely luxuriant score serves as a
perfect complement to the decadent plot, in which the heroine, Violanta,
sets out to arrange the murder of her sisters seducer but instead falls in love
with him. After the story of Violantas decline and fall, Korngold cleared the
air with a comedy set in eighteenth-century Saxony, Der Ring des Polykrates.
The action centers on a game that pries into the amorous past of the central
female character, Laura, and her servant, Lieschen, while a recurring theme
pits artistic originality against mere imitation. Fully in keeping with that
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theme, the score is marked by both imitation and originality; hints of
Rosenkavalier are easily discernible, but Korngolds own voice speaks far
more loudly than Strausss, and the Straussian passages should surely be
viewed as homage to an older master rather than pilferings.
The son of Julius Korngold clearly found a sympathetic spirit in the
Bavarian music director. In fact, Willi Gloeckner seems to have felt that Wal-
ter bestowed rather too much attention on the boy: One asks oneself how it
comes about that this sensation was prepared with such a brilliant produc-
tion, in which everything fit together in an almost unprecedented manner? I
have never seen Bruno Walter apply himself with such enthusiasm.7 Erich
Korngold, of course, was overjoyed by the conductors wholehearted com-
mitment. What can I say to an artist like you, he wrote to Walter afterwards,
one who is great, pure, understanding, and loving? You must have felt how
delighted I was to hear my music resound in such a wayI believe I may
safely say thisthat it will doubtless never be heard again.8 Yet for all Korn-
golds satisfaction with the performance and for all the fanfare surrounding
the two operas by the wunderkind, neither work held the publics attention
for very long. They enjoyed only a handful of performances in Munich im-
mediately following the premiere, and a few more the following season.
While Korngolds works were unquestionably the most exciting offer-
ings of the year, Walter presided over another operatic first in , a work by
his former chief at the Vienna Hofoper, Felix Weingartner. Dame Kobold,
based on the seventeeth-century comedy by Pedro Caldern, had its Mu-
nich premiere on November , , with Weingartner supervising the final
rehearsals and attending on opening night. One wonders how Walter, who
had recently expressed regret at not being able to compose, felt about per-
forming a large-scale work by a major rival conductor. And what did Wein-
gartner feel? Not disappointment in Walter, who offered a committed, sym-
pathetic, and beautiful performance of the opera, according to the reviewers.
Weingartner himself recalled the polished performances of this opera, car-
ried out with particular care by Bruno Walter in Munich.9
But while opera remained the dominant responsibility in his musical
life,Walter continued to perform in orchestra and chamber concerts,and oc-
casionally performers would include some of the music directors own com-
positions on their programs. On March , (as part of a chamber music
recital given by Walter, Alexander Petschnikoff, and Johannes Heger), Maria
Ivogn sang several songs by Pfitzner and Walter. For once, Walters works
seemed to be winning unqualified praise.One critic judged the songs noble
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and spirited, and the audience, which demanded an encore for the
Eichendorff song Elfe, evidently shared his enthusiasm.10
Bachs Matthus-Passion, which Walter usually performed at Easter
time, was absent from his concerts in , but he by no means neglected or-
atorios that year. In mid-March he revived Schumanns rarely heard Das
Paradies und die Peri, a charming work that merited a reprise in December,
and in November he presented Handels Samson. For both oratorios the
Musikalische Akademie provided the instrumental support, and Walters
subscription concerts with that orchestra continued in full force through
, mostly offering standard repertoire. One unusual item, presented on
November , , was the premiere of Clemens von Franckensteins Four
Songs for Baritone and Orchestra, opus , with Emil Schipper as the bari-
tone soloist.
As a pianist, Walter continued to lend his services to singers and cham-
ber musicians, including the renowned Wagnerian Anton van Rooy and the
violinist Alexander Petschnikoff. Such recitals no doubt added to Walters
many professional burdens, but it was the unrelenting work at the opera
house that took its toll on Walter in . At the end of May, Hugo Rhr had
to substitute for Walter, who had fallen ill and would need an extended vaca-
tion to recover. By late November, Walter was desperate to leave the theater,
which for eleven months of the year drained him to his last drop of
blood, as he wrote to Gabrilowitsch. He hoped for a position in America,
perhaps with the Boston Symphony Orchestra if Karl Muck left his post
there.11 Muck, of course, would leave his post soon enoughinvoluntarily,
however, and only to be interned on the dubious charge of espionage. Ger-
mans were not welcome in Boston (or any number of other American cities)
during the war.
Despite his time-devouring musical schedule, Walters engagement
with art was not limited to performing music. He remained an avid reader
and an eloquent writer. Authors often figured among his close friends. In Vi-
enna he had known Arthur Schnitzler, Siegfried Lipiner, and other profes-
sional writers; in Munich one of his neighbors was Thomas Mann, who be-
came a lifelong friend. The acquaintance probably began shortly after
Walter arrived in Munich, though the beginnings of their friendship are hard
to pinpoint. As Manns diaries show, the two men frequently spoke about lit-
erature, music,politics,and life. On one occasion, Mann was clearly touched
by Walters enthusiasm over the lengthy poem Gesang vom Kindchen,
which the author had just sent him; he recorded that Walter repeated his
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warm praise of the poem, which he has now read three times, once aloud to
his wife. His response to it is by far the most favorable I have had so far. On
another occasion, during a performance of Pfitzners Der arme Heinrich,
Walter threw glances at Mann from the podium to call [his] attention to
the monks chorus, much to Manns delight.12
While hobnobbing with one of Germanys leading authors, Walter him-
self continued to write essays on music and aesthetics. In Vienna he had al-
ready shown himself capable of wielding a pen with great skill,and he turned
to the written word once more in to express his thoughts on the state of
opera in Munich during the war years andthe real purpose behind the es-
sayto voice his anger over what he viewed as hostility from the press.13
Walters most substantial literary work to date, the essay bore the Wagnerian
title Art and Public Opinion and appeared in the Sddeutsche Monats-
hefte, a periodical edited by Paul Cossmann, a conservative nationalist, a
close friend of Pfitzners, and a Jew turned Catholic who would ultimately
die in the concentration camp at Terezn.
The heart of the essay is an extended invective against the critics.
Whether qualified to pass judgment or not, Walter argues, the critics write
what they will, and artists are helpless if they receive bad reviews. Indeed,
the artist, however strong, cannot remain fully uninfluenced by the re-
views. With various reference works ready to hand, the critic can become the
scourge of young artists striving for lofty goals, condemning a composers
supposed paucity of invention; if the public gives a new work an ovation, the
critic can contend that the loud applause was not for the composition but
for the performers.14 The examples Walter adduces might have been in-
spired by recent reviews of works by Schreker and Korngold, though he
could just as easily have been ruminating on reviews of Mahlers worksor,
even more to the point, reviews of his own compositions.
Whatever hostility some of the critics felt toward Walter would certainly
have been aggravated by Walters essay. His implication that many reviewers
are inept and should be weeded out, and his suggestion that a court of ap-
peals might be established to ensure critical justice, probably even made him
a few new enemies.15 Shortly after Walters piece appeared, Thomas Mann
published Music in Munich, a follow-up essay to Art and Public Opin-
ion, asserting the authors solidarity with Walter, though Manns decision
to write such an essay in the first place smacks of damage control.16 In any
event, neither essay seems to have had its desired effect. The year saw
the advent of an anonymous critic for the Allgemeine Zeitung who frankly
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styled himself Severus, a professional taste-maker whose unflagging at-
tacks on Walters rubato could not have made the conductor any happier
with the role of the press in recording public opinion.

If the two operas by Korngold stood out in Walters career in , the opera
that had its premiere in the Prinzregententheater on June , Hans
Pfitzners Palestrinawas in Walters view one of the highest artistic peaks
in his entire life. The publicity accorded this work was phenomenal, far out-
stripping that given to the first Munich performance of, say, Wagners Parsi-
fal or Korngolds double bill. For many, certainly for Walter, this was the
greatest German opera of the day, and its premiere in Munich drew forth
comparisons with the premieres of Tristan and Meistersinger. It led off a
Pfitzner Week, which also included performances of Der arme Heinrich
under Pfitzner and Die Rose vom Liebesgarten under Walter, as well as
chamber-music and song recitals. Delia Reinhardt, who sang Minnelied in
Die Rose, had a small part as one of the angels in Palestrina. The role of Pale-
strina was taken by Karl Erb, Borromeo by Fritz Feinhals, and Ighino by
Maria Ivogn. The performance, prepared with exemplary attention to de-
tail, was praised to the skies.
Before the premiere, Walter told Thomas Mann that the musical part
of Palestrina was matched only by the supreme composers of the past.17
Deeply impressed by the opera, Mann himself attended several perfor-
mances and wrote a warm appreciation of the work in his essay On
Virtue.18 In November Walter and his troupe took the production to Basel,
Bern, and Zurich as propaganda for German art and culture. Outside Ger-
many, however, it has never even come close to reaching the popularity of
Lohengrin, to say nothing of Tristan and Meistersinger. What, then, made
Walter and others feel so passionately attached to this work?
The theories about art that permeate Palestrina intersected with Wal-
ters own beliefs, which he held steadfastly throughout his life. Pfitzner had
worked on the opera for years, writing the libretto himself; the ideas he
wanted to express were too personal to entrust to another. The key theme is
that of the artists duty to art. The archetypal artist in the opera, the sixteenth-
century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, has the task of saving
the great tradition of polyphonic music at a time when it is threatened by two
forces, the first being the new style promoted by neoclassical enthusiasts like
Giovanni Bardi. These musicians, who condemned complex polyphony for
its lack of classical precedent and its text-garbling counterpoint, experi-
D

mented with monodymelody with a simple chordal accompanimentand
their experiments led to the birth of opera. The other force was the Catholic
Church, then in the throes of the Counter-Reformation. Some church offi-
cials felt that the intricate settings that obscured the all-important texts of
the Mass and sacred motets had no place in the house of God; praises sung
to the Lord, they argued, should take the form of simple chant.
Palestrina plainly stood for Pfitzner himself, who was trying to save the
great musical tradition from avant-garde composers like Schoenberg and
Stravinsky. (There was a decided irony, surely not lost on Pfitzner, that the
Italian monodists in effect invented the very art form that Pfitzner employed
to criticize the twentieth-century avant-garde.) While creating something
new, the artist must be keenly aware of the past, contributing to it rather than
abandoning it. It was all doctrine that Walter subscribed to with absolute
conviction. But another aspect of the opera must have haunted both Walter
and Pfitzner as the political events of the next three decades unfolded. For
the artist Palestrina is an individual working within an institution that seeks
to use art as a political tool. Recognizing the divine nature of his art, he
will not profane the muse. The institution here is the Catholic Church
portrayed in the opera as bureaucratic, hypocritical, and anti-Germanbut
it clearly represents any organization that treats individuals in general (and
artists in particular) as pawns, imprisoning them if they refuse to follow or-
ders. It was perhaps this aspect of the opera that made Walter write, in a
defense of his friend after the war, that the noble emotions reigning in
Pfitzners poem . . . are astronomically far from Nazi standards.19
Though Pfitzners opera was the premiere that loomed largest in Wal-
ters schedule for , it was not the only new work that he introduced to
Munich operagoers that year. On March he brought two novelties to the
Hoftheater by composers whose music he had championed before: Julius
Bittners new singspiel Das hllisch Gold (with Luise Willer and Gustav
Schtzendorf in the leading roles), followed by a new ballet by Paul Kle-
nau, Klein Idas Blumen. Later in the year, on November , Walter gave the
world premiere of Walter Courvoisiers Arthurian Lanzelot und Elaine, a
four-hour work apparently full of muted subtleties that demanded much
from the audience but also rewarded those who followed attentively. Emil
Schipper sang the role of Lanzelot, Delia Reinhardt that of Elaine. The
performance was hailed as superb, and even Severus, usually critical of
Walter, gave the conductor credit on this occasion for bringing the work to
life.20
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 Of the three choral works that Walter programmed in , two were
oratorios well known in GermanyBachs Matthus-Passion and Mendels-
sohns Elias (Elijah)and the other was the Mass in C Minor by Mozart, a
piece familiar now, but not when Walter performed it in Munich. Both the
Mass and the Exsultate, jubilate (given shortly afterward) were billed, as-
tonishingly from our vantage point, as first-time performances.21 After the
explosion of Mozart celebrations in and the huge success, both on stage
and on screen, of Peter Shaffers Amadeus, its easy to forget how much of the
composers music was virtually unknown earlier in the century.
Also in Walters commitment to new music led to more premieres
with the Musikalische Akademie. The Chinese Flute, a poetic anthology that
had supplied the texts for Das Lied von der Erde, inspired Walter Braunfels
to write three orchestral Chinese songs, and on March , , Delia
Reinhardt sang them for the first time in Munich, under Walters direction.
Both the settings and the performance drew critical acclaim. Yet a more im-
portant item on the program, as far as Walters personal career is concerned,
was the principal piece of the evening, Bruckners Ninth Symphony (doubt-
less Ferdinand Lwes version), prepared by the conductor, as the critics
noted, with religious care.22 Walter was probably introduced to the piece
in February , when Lwe himself gave its posthumous premiere in Vi-
enna. But Walters performance was almost certainly his first encounter,
as a conductor, with Bruckners last, fragmentary masterpiece, a work that
would gain both musical and spiritual importance for him during the course
of his life and would appear on his programs with increasing frequency in
his final years. The religious care with which he prepared his first perfor-
mance seems to have stayed with him to the end. In the s he helped the
Bruckner scholar Max Auer successfully petition to have the piece recog-
nized by the Catholic Church as a religious work, playable in church.23
Two of the novelties that Walter chose to perform with the Musikalische
Akademie at the end of the year showed the direction in which Walters taste
was moving and also, in hindsight, suggest unsettling connections between
musical and political reactionism. Carl Ehrenbergs Suite fr Orchester,
played from manuscript, had its world premiere on December . Ehrenberg,
then a conductor in Augsburg, was a friend of Thomas Mannsindeed, at
the turn of the century Mann harbored a particular fondness for Paul Ehren-
berg, Carls brotherand as a composer he earned a reputation for writing
thoroughly tonal music.24 The tone poems that constituted his orchestral
suite betrayed the influence of Richard Strauss, according to Richard Wrz,
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who judged him more a schooled composer than a born one and attrib-
uted the success of the piece largely to Walters sensitive conducting and the
orchestras very beautiful playing.25 A week later, on December , Walter
offered Max Trapps Sinfonia giocosa for the first time in Munich. Like
Ehrenbergs Suite fr Orchester, Trapps Sinfonia giocosa drew inspiration
from Richard Strauss, so much so that Paul Ehlers felt that the composer
hadnt found own his voice yet.26 Both works bore a distinctly conservative
stamp, and both composers joined the Nazi Party before , enjoying offi-
cial support and encouragement during the Third Reich.27
Throughout much of his career, Walters interactions with family mem-
bers were recorded only in the occasional letter, the memoirs of his friends,
and chance references in the newspapers. Yet in spite of the dearth of mater-
ial giving us glimpses into his nearest relations, its clear that the demands of
his job did not utterly blind him to the presence and needs of his family.
While away on business, he wrote to his daughter Lotte, checking on her ed-
ucation and her friendships. Walteror Kuzi, as his daughters called
himwas delighted that Lotte was making friends but, like a Victorian pa-
triarch, became anxious when he learned that his thirteen-year-old daughter
had developed an association with a young man called Pepi. Im happy that
you have a girlfriend; thats very good for you, he wrote in the summer of
. Im less pleased about your friendship with Pepi. Young boys at this
age in particular are at their worst, even if it doesnt in the least seem so, and
can have a bad influence on your surroundingseven without your know-
ing it. As politely and unobtrusively as possible, please avoid frequent en-
counters with him; at all costs, he warned, avoid being alone with him.28
On her birthday Walter sent Lotte greetings and a suggestion for reading,
apparently in response to some Dickens novels shed acquired. A Tale of Two
Cities, he thought, would be more fitting than Little Dorrit or Martin
Chuzzlewit; those two novels were unsuitable for such an eager learner,
and he advised her to turn them over to her mother.29 Walters tone to his
daughter, while gentle and affectionate, is also unmistakably protective, and
it must have been hard for Lotte to develop on her own. Though she married
twice, her father seems to have remained the central male figure in her life.
She and her second husband lived with Walter in Beverly Hills until his
death, and she died less than a decade afterward, not long after assembling a
collection of his letters and seeing them through the press.

Artistically, the year saw few surprises from Walter. Three orchestral
songs by Walter BraunfelsAn die Parzen, Auf ein Soldatengrab, Der
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Tod frs Vaterlandhad their very first performance on November un-
der Walter, sung by Emil Schipper. The concert also included Schoenbergs
Verklrte Nacht, a piece that Walter championed despite the resistance he al-
most invariably encountered wherever he performed it.30 To commemorate
the hundredth anniversary of the opening of the Nationaltheater, Walter
presented a new production of Joseph Weigls early nineteenth-century
singspiel Die Schweizerfamilie; and another singspiel, Pfitzners Christelf-
lein (a reworking of material formerly used as incidental music), enjoyed its
Munich premiere under Walter on December , , with the composer
present to receive a hearty ovation from the audience.31
Pfitzners former assistant, Wilhelm Furtwngler, maintained his ties
with Walter. Like Walter, he aspired to become a professional composer, and
throughout his life he returned to composition, writing in a late romantic
style that became increasingly dated as his technique improved. From time
to time he would turn to Walter for encouragement and inspiration. After the
summer of Furtwngler apparently expressed his regret at missing a
performance of Tristan under Walter, and Walter was sorry as well. What I
missed in your letter, he added in his letter to Furtwngler, was any infor-
mation about creative work youd actually done during the summer, and I
conclude from your silence that your work was interrupted by the end of the
vacation, which grieves me deeply. It would be most desirable for you to suc-
ceed in obtaining a position as a concert conductor, which would allow you
to be able to follow your true calling. The theater simply makes too many de-
mands on a composer. Walter was speaking from painful, personal experi-
ence, and he sympathized with the plight of his colleague, whom he then re-
garded as a kindred spirit. In discussing Furtwnglers projected program in
Vienna, Walter wished him a great success theresince, because of the
affinity of our natures (despite any differences), I always feel as if the things
that touch you were my own affair.32
That year, both conductorsalong with Siegfried Ochs, Arthur
Nikisch, Felix Weingartner, and Max von Schillingstook part in a debate
that revolved around a new system of notating orchestral scores. Schoen-
berg had devised a method to save space and to eliminate some of the confu-
sion that arose from reading a full score, advocating a system whereby an en-
tire orchestral score would be distilled into one or a few treble-and-bass-clef
arrangements (akin to piano reductions), with running commentary on the
changing instrumentation. When the leading conductors of Germany and
Austria were canvassed for their opinions of the proposed system, they
rejected it roundly. Nikisch complained that a conductor would have to
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reorient himself to the changing instrumentation in almost every measure:
The most complicated score by Richard Strauss is mere childs play by
comparison. Weingartner sneeringly added that Schoenbergs notation
was fully in keeping with his music. Walter, however, raised a musical ob-
jection that reflected some of his foremost concerns as an interpreter. He
granted that the new system would ease a vertical reading of the score, but
it would hinder a horizontal reading and thus prevent one from clearly fol-
lowing the voice leading. That in itself, in his view, invalidated the system.33
Keenly sensitive to the underlying harmony in counterpoint and to the
counterpoint inherent in harmony, Walter rebelled against a system that
threatened to bury individual melodic strands in a chordal fabric. His brief
but respectful grievance could not have strengthened his relationship with
the composer, who admired Walters conducting but would grumble against
his personality for decades to come.
The year was, perhaps more than most other years, a time of transi-
tion.The arts lost two of their most innovative creators,Claude Debussy and
Gustav Klimt. Radical transitions took place in the field of politics. World
War I came to an end, with Germany emerging as the loser. The time was
ripe for radical reformers to swoop in, and in November the Communists
seized control of Munich. Gunfire rang through the streets deep into the
night, as Thomas Mann recorded, and looters took advantage of the chaos
that temporarily reigned. In the afternoon I stayed dressed and only rested
on the chaise longue, Mann wrote on November , , since Walter, pale
and beside himself, had warned Katia [Manns wife] of the approach of a
mob that never, in fact, arrived. Katia and the children cleared out the
pantry and hid three-quarters of our provisions in various rooms of the
house.Now, after tea, I hear shooting again.34 Controlled by the new
regime, the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten printed the Communist Mani-
festo in its pages. Old positions were dissolved; the Hoftheater became the
Nationaltheater. In fact, according to Walter it was largely owing to his pro-
ests against the revolutionary contingent that the name wasnt changed to
Volkstheater or Landestheater. Walters aristocratic ally Clemens von Franc-
kenstein would for a time be ousted from his position as manager, and Walter
himself was on the verge of resigning, only being dissuaded by Francken-
stein, who urged him to stay.35 Though Walter did not get along with the
new regime, he retained his post as Bavarian music director.The new regime
was short-livedits prime mover,Kurt Eisner,was assassinated on February
, , and shortly afterward the socialist government began to crumble
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but no one in could have predicted the consequences of the November
revolution.
For months to come, the strain of living in a state of revolutionary over-
throw would take its toll on Walter, who remained as overworked as ever. In
April he wrote to his parents of the terrifying nights and the constant
fears he and his family endureddespite which, they continued to be more
or less well.36 He feared a financial collapse at the opera house, though the
worst-case scenario he was envisioning inspired some positive thoughts, or
at least some gallows humor: Maybe, he wrote to his parents in June, after
the collapse of the theater (it wont necessarily come, of course), Ill lead a life
that is, to be sure, more modest, but also more healthy.37
Though Walter seems to have written no music during his years in Mu-
nich, those who knew and worked with him continued to perform his works.
On January , , an ensemble composed of the pianist August Schmid-
Lindner, the violinist Jani Sznt, and the Belgian cellist Josef Disclez (Wal-
ters frequent recital partner and principal cellist in the opera orchestra) per-
formed the music directors Piano Trio. Premiered in in Vienna, it was
a piece that Walter obviously thought highly of, and it had even been given a
hearing once before in Munich, in . In both cases, the critics had for the
most part been unimpressed, and the same held true on this occasion. A
curious review appeared in the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten, written by
neither Paul Ehlers nor Richard Wrz,the critics who normally covered such
events, but by one H. Ru., who confessed that he couldnt attend the perfor-
mance himself but was merely reporting what his unnamed deputy passed
on to him. Its tempting (if not quite justifiable) to assume that the leading re-
viewers deliberately avoided the recital, not wanting to be in a position
where they might have to criticize the compositions of Munichs most influ-
ential musician. As it turned out, the review was hardly offensive, but its
reservations were such as to discourage further attempts at composition.
The piece, written some time ago, inclined toward romanticism (the critics
polite way of saying that the music already sounded out of date), and for all
its praiseworthy construction and its effective lively movements, it left no
deeply moving impression.38 Walter had heard it all before, from Julius
Korngold and others, usually expressed less delicately. Surely if the piece left
no memorable impression, it had failed, however admirable its construction.
Sznt and Schmid-Lindner made another attempt to place Walters music
before the public in February , when they performed the Violin Sonata,
but the critic Richard Wrz, echoing words that were all too familiar to
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Walter, wrote that the piece left scarcely any doubt that the re-creative talent
of this eminent artist is stronger than his creative talent.39 One can almost
hear that criticism still resounding in the opening paragraph of Walters au-
tobiography, which ends with a poignant lie: I have made only the music of
others sound forth, I have been but a re-creator.40
An event that drew far more attention than any of Walters compositions
had ever attracted was the Munich premiere of Schrekers new opera, Die
Gezeichneten, given on February , . Delia Reinhardt starred as Car-
lotta, Karl Erb as Alviano Salvago, Gustav Schtzendorf as Adorno, and
Emil Schipper as Tamare. Even more luxuriant in sound and more lubri-
cious in subject matter than Der ferne Klang, Die Gezeichneten elicited both
excitement and outrage from the press and, presumably, the public. Set in
Renaissance Italy, the story is plainly meant to shockthough not only to
shock. It is a substantial work of art. On an island near Genoa, the ugly Al-
viano has built a paradise devoted to beauty and pleasure, where young gen-
tlemen abscond with the fairest beauties of the city and indulge themselves
in wild orgies. Throughout the score the harmonies are almost vertiginously
lush. Carlotta, daughter of the Podest, desires to paint Alvianos soul, to
which he consents after some initial hesitation. Alviano soon falls in love
with Carlotta, but despite her affection for him, she eventually succumbs to
the lecherous advances of the rakish Tamare, whom Alviano murders in the
final scene. Schreker himself wrote the libretto, which wades dangerously
deep into the waters of erotic desire, both male and female, at a time when
such matters were usually treated more obliquely, even on the operatic stage.
Did Walter approve of the opera? He himself would have been the first
to admit that Schrekers work was in some ways alien to his own personality.
At some point between and the end of , Walter and Schreker had
become good enough friends to use the familiar form of address, Du, in their
correspondence. (Walter commonly used the more formal Sie with his col-
leagues.) There had been serious discussion about a Munich performance
of Die Gezeichneten already in . But the local press, Walter wrote to
Schreker, had attacked the Munich Opera for favoring Viennese composers
and was particularly wary of Schreker.41 By November Walter was ex-
plaining to Schreker why the manager of the Munich Opera had decided to
postpone the performance. He indignantly brushed aside Schrekers appar-
ent suggestion that foreign influences had turned him against the com-
poser. But the hostile reviewers (still very active) and the publics uneasy re-
sponse to Der ferne Klang were, Walter explained, unpleasant realities that
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couldnt be ignored. About his own feelings on Schrekers work, Walter was
quite candid: For me personally, your creative work, both poetic and musi-
cal, remains in a certain sense foreign. The purity of your artistic will, the
nearly fanatical traits that characterize your relation to your art, and finally
your undoubted artistic, if not purely musical, productivityall these things
always genuinely (or, better yet, powerfully) attract me. The letter ended
with an unusual rhetorical strategy: To describe my relation to your work
with words that will be fully understandable to you, Id like to say the follow-
ing, given from your point of view: Walter is conservative, indeed, even
somewhat reactionary, and I am a representative of the most extreme mod-
ernism. I, for my part, would of course not accept this characterization, but
Ive attempted to speak with your language and your thoughts to be as clear
as possible for you.42 Its evident that Walter had already grown accus-
tomed to being branded a conservative, even somewhat reactionary, musi-
cian, though just a few years before hed been chided by the conservative
press for writing ultramodern music. He seemed resigned to the fact that
some would view him as an unadventurous churner-out of the established
repertoire, even if he himself didnt share their verdict. Charges of conser-
vatism, however, should be weighed against the bold programming that Wal-
ter continually fought for in Munich. And Schrekers opera, however con-
troversial, regularly filled the house during the opening performances.43
The other major operatic performance that Walter offered in was
the Munich premiere of Strausss Die Frau ohne Schatten, given on Novem-
ber in the Nationaltheater, less than a month after its world premiere in Vi-
enna. It was also the first anniversary of the Communist revolution, as Paul
Ehlers commented in his review, noting that the Strauss premiere had
brought back many of the old regulars who had avoided the opera house
since the revolution.44 The cast included Otto Wolf as the Emperor, Delia
Reinhardt as the Empress, Zdenka Mottl-Fassbender as the Nurse, Emil
Schipper as Barak,and Margot Leander as Baraks wife. Next to Die Gezeich-
neten, Strausss opera seems almost chaste in its harmonies and story line.
Nevertheless, the new work was complex and sonically rich, employing the
full palette of Straussian tone colors. Though now widely regarded as one of
the greatest collaborative efforts of Strauss and Hofmannsthal, the opera
initially drew some curmudgeonly grumbling from the press. Even in Mu-
nich, which prided itself on being Strausss city, the reviews of this masterly
offering were mixed at best. The opera, running to about four hours, was too
long and its plot too convoluted to score an easy victory. With its strong
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symbolism and its Eastern setting, the opera inescapably invited compari-
son with Die Zauberflte, though Pidoll of the Allgemeine Zeitung, who de-
tested Strauss and Hofmannsthals latest creation, wrote that to compare the
two works was blasphemy.45 The performance, however, received high
praise, with Walters total devotion to the production and his firm control
over the gigantic apparatus winning special mention.46
Delia Reinhardt, the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten, was receiving
leading roles in more and more operas directed by Walter, and she sang in
Walters Matthus-Passion for the first time in , on which occasion she
was introduced to Thomas Mann in the greenroom.47 (Manns son Klaus,
future author of the novel Mephisto, was singing in the chorus.) And as Elsa
Korneck had once done, Delia Reinhardt sang Eva in Walters Meistersinger.
Walter and Reinhardt also joined forces on November in a lieder recital,
with Walter accompanying on piano. During this time, her then husband,
Gustav Schtzendorf, had been absent from Munich for some months. Hed
traveled to Milan to work on his vocal technique, and there he reportedly de-
veloped a case of typhoid fever. By November Reinhardt had traveled to
Milan to tend her ailing husband.48 It is hard not to speculate that the con-
stant close contact of Walter and Reinhardt, and the absence of Schtzen-
dorf, might have contributed to the intimacy that eventually grew between
them.
Along with his growing relationship to Delia Reinhardt, another devel-
opment in Munich must have touched Walter personally. More and more
frequently the newspapers reported on the Jewish question and on unrest
among certain malcontents. In April the Jewish League of Soldiers at the
Front placed a large open letter to the Bavarian government in the Mnchner
Neueste Nachrichten, protesting the unbelievable hatred of Jews that cer-
tain groups in the city had been fostering for months. To us it seems in-
evitable that a Jewish music director would eventually come under fire from
the fledgling Nazi Party, at the time still widely dismissed as a fringe group.
The previous year, articles had appeared denying rumors that Walter was to
leave Munich, but obviously word was spreading that he might find employ-
ment elsewhere, and perhaps he had indeed begun to look for another, more
welcoming environment in which to work.
Like most other Germans, Walter was utterly dissatisfied with life in
postwar Germany. The Treaty of Versailles demanded massive reparations
from Germany for its part in World War I, and Walter was as concerned about
its effect on his country as were the loudest demagogues of the Left and the
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Right. The German people had collectively become ill, he wrote to Ossip
Gabrilowitsch in March, and suicide attempts were on the increase. He wor-
ried about the future of his children in a country that, through the Treaty of
Versailles, is doomed for generations to the profoundest debasement and to
the greatest misery.49 Nevertheless,he pressed on with his life,deriving plea-
sure from his two daughters, both of whom were then studying music with
him. Lottchen, he continued in his letter to Gabrilowitsch, is a grown-up
young lady who is already taking singing lessons with her father; Gretchen is
unusually musical and plays the piano splendidlyright now shes playing
Chopins Scherzo in B Minor. Both study piano with their father.
During his last two years in Munich, Walters long-distance friendship
with Gabrilowitsch continued to grow stronger. Gabrilowitsch sent the Wal-
ters a veritable cornucopia of American foodstuffs, much appreciated dur-
ing the deprivations of postwar Germany.50 While that relationship pros-
pered, however, another was threatening to dissolve. Hans Pfitzner had
moved to Munich after the end of the war, having lost his position in Stras-
bourg when the city was turned over to France as part of Germanys repara-
tions for World War I. In Munich he hoped to land the position of Ober-
regisseur at the opera. When he did not get the jobthe decision was by no
means Waltershe seems to have held Walter responsible, perhaps having
been misinformed by his wife, Mimi.51 Walter complained that Pfitzner had
cut him off, and his mute hostility pierced Walter to the heart. Its impossi-
ble for me, he wrote to Pfitzner in June, to follow your method of keeping
silent in a matter like ours. You should at least know that Im deeply hurt and
affronted. . . .How shall I have satisfaction for this horrible injury? It weighs
heavily upon me and preys on my mind. Since youve been in Munich, Ive
had nothing but injustice from you. There hasnt been a single friendly word
coming from your mouth or a single friendly look from your eyes.52 By all
accounts, Pfitzner was no easy person to get along with. (After his death,
Walter commented that Pfitzner was not tolerantcouldnt beand thus
when a fundamental difference of opinion arose, reaching an agreement was
impossible. In other words, he was easier to love from afar than up close.53)
It was typical of Walter, though, that on this occasion, as on others, he in-
sisted on bringing these disagreeable matters into the open, maintaining hu-
man contact. The various psychological pressures bearing down on him
were taking their toll on his constitution. At the end of the letter, he apolo-
gized for his bad handwriting: his arm was ailing again, and his nerves were
frayed.
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 The punishing life of the opera house was also a regular source of stress
for Walter, yet he continued to look for new and ambitious projects for his
theaters. His most successful new productions were of Hugo Wolf s comic
opera Der Corregidor and Webers Oberon, the latter touched up by Mahler.
There were also two premieres in , Das Spielwerk, by the ever contro-
versial Franz Schreker, and Die Vgel (based on Aristophanes The Birds), by
Walter Braunfels. Schrekers opera, a revision of his Das Spielwerk und die
Prinzessin (first performed in ), had its world premiere in the Nation-
altheater on October ,.Like his other works,Das Spielwerk reveled in
the sensuous and the sensual, drawing praise and condemnation alike from
contemporaries. Die Vgel, in which the central characters appeared in strik-
ing bird costumes, had its premiere on November , also at the Nation-
altheater. A brilliant work, lacking the scandalous elements of Schrekers
plots and showing off the strengths of the singers in the Munich troupe, it
scored an unqualified success.
Beyond the walls of Munich in , tributes to Gustav Mahler, marking
the passage of sixty years since his birth, took the form of two extraordinary
concert seriesone in Amsterdam, under Willem Mengelbergs direction,
the other in Vienna, led by Oskar Friedas well as several smaller concerts,
one of which involved Walter. Though he conducted nothing so grand as the
cycles presented by Mengelberg and Fried, Walter did offer what was, for
him, an unusual token of esteem to his late master. On March and he con-
ducted Mahlers Seventh Symphony, apparently for the only time in his ca-
reer. The ensemble was composed of the Konzertverein and Tonknstler or-
chestras, organizations that would eventually merge to form the Vienna
Symphony. Both concerts, along with the open rehearsal on March , were
sold out, and in his enthusiastic review of the performances, R. Hoffmann
succinctly commented: Walter conducted; Ill say no more.54 Despite the
positive reaction to Walters performance, Mahlers Seventh was a sym-
phony that the conductor consciously avoided on later occasions, at least in
part because he wanted to present to the public only the strongest [works]
that Mahler wrote,and he clearly did not consider the Seventh such a work.55
Another massive pieceone that Walter had dreamed of performing al-
most since his arrival in Munichfinally received its first performance in
that city on April , : Schoenbergs Gurre-Lieder.56 The Musikalische
Akademie and the Lehrgesangverein joined forces to perform this vocal and
orchestral tour de force, which Walter and his contemporaries praised al-
most as passionately as they reviled the composers later music. The soloists
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were Karl Erb as Waldemar, Delia Reinhardt as Tove, Luise Willer as the
Voice of the Wood-Dove, Emil Grifft as the Peasant, and Alfred Jerger as
Klauss-Narr. It was a work that Walter would perform later in Vienna and
would gladly have conducted in New York, though the financial burden it
carried made this impracticable.57 As late as Walter was writing that
Schoenbergs powerful work deserved a permanent place in the concert
hall; nevertheless, he was aware of its logistical problemsthe huge forces
and many rehearsals needed.58 In a panegyric on the performance and the
piece itself, Paul Ehlers, remarking that the work made great demands on the
conductor, pointed out that Walter put his entire personality into the
work, infusing it with rich sonic and spiritual life.59 For all that, the notori-
ously ill-tempered composer apparently felt little gratitude toward Walter in
later years. At the time of a performance of Gurre-Lieder in February ,
led by Thor Johnson in Cincinnati, people were astounded to learn from
Wolfgang Stresemann,who attended the concert,that Walter had performed
the work in Vienna. Schoenberg hadnt reported on these performances,
Stresemann wrote to Walter, or rather he gave the impression that he him-
self had conducted them in Vienna.60
The unending demands of work kept Walters thoughts occupied, but
his home life gave him much to think about as well. An epidemic of in-
fluenza, which killed millions of Europeans, was racing through Germany in
and . One person affected by it was Gretel, Walters thirteen-year-
old daughter, who had developed into a fetching young lady with enough
talent to make her father gush over her accomplishments. Shes filled with
music to her very fingertips, he wrote to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, full of spirit,
wit, and sparkling life; shes the warmest, most golden heart under the sun, a
ray of happiness for anyone who comes in contact with her, and for uswell,
I dont need to spell it out.61 When she became feverish and showed no
signs of improvement after several days, Walter consulted a doctor in Mu-
nich, who diagnosed her bronchial glands as having been infected with tu-
berculosis. Walter panicked. He was prepared to arrange for a costly treat-
ment in Switzerland that would entail taking out a loan and paying it back
over five years, but fortunately her malady was not so severe as hed imag-
ined. His elder daughter, Lotte, tersely noted half a century later that the
mild infection of the bronchial glands was cured in German sanatoriums,
and one senses in her no-nonsense remark the tone of a daughter who still
felt a twinge of jealousy that her father had agonized so deeply over her
younger sister.62
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 His familial concerns, however, certainly didnt cause him to neglect the
th anniversary of Beethovens birth in . On October the Mnch-
ner Neueste Nachrichten printed a special Beethoven supplement in which
prominent musicians and music historians expressed their thoughts on that
colossus straddling the classical and romantic eras. Walter contributed a
long essay on the Missa solemnis, a work he would perform three times in
November. Though forgotten now, Walters essay was an ambitious piece of
Kunstprosa, replete with visions of nearly Blakean intensity. It reveals more
strikingly than any of Walters other essays the pictorial vividness of his
imagination. The central point is that Beethoven, while working within the
context of the Mass, was continually bursting out of the confines of ecclesi-
astical music, letting his humanity overtake his piety. Walter goes through
the Mass, movement by movement, almost phrase by phrase, freely drawing
on literature and painting to elucidate his conception of Beethovens Missa.
The presto in the Gloria, for example, conjures up a memorable fancy:
It is a roaring, overwhelming shout of Gloria from millions of re-
joicing voices; the arms are raised, the eyes enraptured: the jubila-
tion of all humanity. Beethoven calls out his Hosanna almost like
the unbelieving philosopher of Ivan Karamazov, from Dostoevskys
famous novel; after death, to atone for his disbelief, he had to wan-
der through a quadrillion-kilometer darkness until he reached the
gate of Paradise. But when he entered, after wandering for an eter-
nity, he called out after two seconds that, for these two seconds in
Paradise, one could wander through quadrillions of quadrillions of
kilometers, and he sang his Hosanna with such rapture that, as
Dostoevsky writes, the rather proper angels felt embarrassed
straightaway.
Thomas Mann was familiar with this extraordinary essay, which he appar-
ently heard Walter read as a lecture, though Mann wasnt wholly satisfied
with the actual performance of the Missa at the open rehearsal. The expec-
tations aroused by Walters talk, he wrote in his diary, were fulfilled at best
sporadically. In order to enjoy music I need to have heard it often, know it
thoroughly. And in any case, Manns thoughts werent focused solely on the
music. My chief impression, he continued, was of a remarkably hand-
some young man, Slavic in appearance and wearing a sort of Russian cos-
tume, with whom I established a kind of contact at a distance.63
Another work that Walter performed during the Beethoven celebra-
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tions was an opera that would come to have special significance for him,
Fidelio. It was also, curiously, a work that Walter did not perform in Munich
during his first few years there, leaving it to his colleagues, one of whom,
Otto Hess (Walters nemesis), died on November . As would often be the
case in his later career, Walters Fidelio was a thorough triumph.64
Adrian Boult, the Englishman who had been so impressed with Wal-
ters Mozart performances in , visited Munich again around . This
time he came to Walter with a letter of introduction from the editor of the
Daily Telegraph and was invited to attend a rehearsal of Figaro in the Resi-
denztheater. His description serves as a reminder that Walter, like his mentor
Mahler, was not content merely to conduct the music; he strove to direct the
action on stage as well: The rehearsal took this form: three hours were
called for the singers, joined by the orchestra for the last hour and a half. The
singers assembled at : and Bruno had a pianist to do the recitatives. He
stood at the footlights directing the proceedings and sometimes he would
run up to a singer and say No, you should be there, and pull him or her
along. Then he would suddenly turn round to a shadowy figure who was sit-
ting in the darkness of the rear stalls and ask: May I have your permission,
Herr Professor? That was the producer, who knew his job when Bruno
Walter was conducting.65 Walter had already entered the directors do-
main, and for the rest of his career he would make an impression on singers
by extending his activities into the sphere of stage direction. Sometimes he
was openly credited for the direction, as in Berlin, but more often not, as at
the Metropolitan Opera, where he nevertheless frequently interjected his
ideas about managing the action.
While his personal engagement with the musical and dramatic aspects
of the standard operatic repertoire remained undiminished, the era for con-
troversial operas in Walters Munich career seems to have drawn to an end
by . Few critics could find anything to attack in Walter the musician. He
continued to look for new works and to dust off old ones. A light opera by
Paul Graener, Schirin und Gertraude, premiered on February , was one of
the first new works performed by Walter in his next-to-last year as music di-
rector of Bavaria. An apparent success, the opera starred Delia Reinhardt,
Luise Willer, and Alfred Jerger. A fresh production of Glucks Iphigenia in
Aulis, based on Richard Wagners arrangement, enjoyed critical acclaim at
the Nationaltheater. With leading members of his local troupe, Walter made
a guest appearance in Berlin, performing Don Pasquale at the Metropol-
theater at the beginning of January , in a special concert to benefit the
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Union of the Berlin Press.66 In the spring he took several of his singers to
Barcelona for more operatic performances. The circle of his fame continued
to spread.
But despite these victories, all was not well. It is easy to forget how early
the Nazi Party developed its characteristic identity. Adolf Hitler had already
gained a reputation for incendiary oratory, and as a music-lover he had fol-
lowed with outrage the rise of Bruno Walter from his years as Mahlers assis-
tant in Vienna to his position as Royal Bavarian Generalmusikdirektor. It
clearly rankled. As late as Hitler was claiming that Walters increased
fame and success in had been the result of Jewish maneuvering in the
liberal press.67 In the organ of the Nazi Party, the Vlkischer Beobachter,
was already a regularly published newspaper in Munich. Strewn with
swastikas and packed with Jew-baiting articles, it included music reviews
among its columns on the arts. The citys Jewish music director was a target
waiting to be fired at, and the first shots came when the regular reviewer for
the newspaper, who went by the initials H. B. (later, Dr. H. B.), gave place to
the notorious Hermann Esser,one of Hitlers earliest supporters.Even in the
company of thugs, Esser seems to have been regarded as a boor and an em-
barrassment, and his anti-Semitism knew no bounds. He eagerly capitalized
on the economic discontent in the land. In April the Allies had presented
Germany the bill for reparations [for World War I], a whopping billion
gold marks billion dollarswhich the Germans howled they could not
possibly pay.68 Runaway inflation soon began its disastrous course in Ger-
many. It is surely no coincidence that Essers first attacks on Walter came at a
time when the populace was painfully overtaxed and badly in need of a
scapegoat.
In May, Esser wrote two essays that glanced at Walter, the first entitled
Scandal at the State Theater. Did the Bavarian Nationaltheater actually
nurture German art any more, he asked, or had it become a playground for
Jews? The hard-working people were taxed beyond reason to support a the-
ater that charged prohibitively high admission fees. The taxpayers money,
meanwhile, was simply being tossed out the window. Walter, referred to
scornfully as the Jew conductor Isidor Schlesinger, alias Walter, is attacked
for hiring a Jewess singer from Vienna and overpaying her for her al-
legedly inadequate services. We National Socialists, the article concluded,
at the beginning of this year publicly and collectively promised to take care
that the artistic life of Munichof which the Nationaltheater is a partre-
mains German in character.69 Essers second essay on the Nationaltheater,
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equally inflammatory, ended by mentioning that Walter was to conduct a
performance of Meistersinger in honor of the German air force. Naturally,
Esser wrote, Bruno (truly a beautiful name!) will conduct. Now I urge all
German countrymen not to become vexed but to contemplate in all compo-
sure a veritable oddity: In a commemoration for our heroic German aviators,
in the company of German aviatorsa Hebrew who conducts Richard
Wagners Meistersinger.
Perhaps theres still enough time to find someone German?70
Walter claimed to have distanced himself from such attacks. The Na-
tional Socialist Vlkischer Beobachter indulged, I was told, in orgies of in-
sults, but I refused to read the paper and steadfastly ignored hostile senti-
ments, whose political weight I was unable to foretell at the time, he wrote
in his autobiography.71 There is no reason to doubt Walter on this point; the
newspaper was clearly beneath contempt, its authors no-name barbarians.
But Walter knew of their hostility and must have heard and read about the
citys anti-Semitism with a sense of discomfort.
The far Right, however, could find no fault with the conductor Karl
Muck, the great Wagnerian with whom the very young Walter had worked
during his tenure at the Berlin Staatsoper in the season. Muck
had returned to Germany after bidding an unpleasant farewell to the United
States, which had treated him like a spy rather than an artist, and presented
himself to Walter in the hope that the music director might be able to make
use of his services. I had not seen him in almost twenty years, Walter re-
called, and was moved by the contrast between the energetic, firm, and
caustically sarcastic man in his forties whom I remembered and the serious
and obviously tired man of more than sixty now facing me.72 Muck had
been a guest before in Munich during Walters reign, and during the summer
of Walter allowed him to conduct many of the Wagner operas while Wal-
ter took the Mozart operas, Palestrina, and a few other favorites. With his
close connections to Bayreuth, Muck was already something of a legend in
his own time, and his conducting of the Wagnerian masterpieces drew
strong praise from the critics. How did Walter feel about this? A couple of
decades before, he had referred unflatteringly to Mucks mediocrity, yet
the recordings Muck made in and the later s show him to have been
an extremely sensitive and controlled interpreter, if far more conservative
than Walter in the use of rubato and dynamics.73 For the public record, at
least, Walter seems to have changed his opinion of his colleague and rival:
His clear interpretative style revealed simplicity, greatness, and strength.
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These Munich guest appearances led to extremely amicable personal rela-
tions between us.74
But Walters own guest appearances in other cities (which included
Barcelona and Rome, as well as Vienna, where he conducted Mahlers
Eighth and Bachs Matthus-Passion) led to less-than-amicable relations
with some denizens of Munich. Bruno Walter seems to me like our dear
Lord: I believe in him, but I never see him was a witticism said to have circu-
lated in Munich during Walters final years there.75 In a large number of
performances were being led by Walters new assistants, among them
Robert Heger and Karl Bhm. It was fairly clear that Walter was looking for
a new position, hoping to land a job that wouldnt squeeze out the last drop
of his lifeblood, and an opportunity to escape in fact materialized. On Janu-
ary , , the conducting giant Arthur Nikisch died, leaving vacant two
highly desirable conducting positionsone at the Berlin Philharmonic, the
other at the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. Walter, who had returned to
conduct the Berlin Philharmonic on several occasions since his debut with
the orchestra in ,was one of the chief contenders for that post.Already in
Max Marschalk, of the Vossische Zeitung in Berlin, had grouped Walter
with Richard Strauss and Nikisch as among the most important conductors
of the day; a little over two years later, when Walter substituted for Nikisch,
Marschalk lavished praise on the young conductor for his rare gifts, his mas-
tery and persuasiveness at the podium.76 But Walter was not the only con-
tender.
Felix Weingartner, whose career had overlapped with Walters in Vi-
enna, was a serious candidate. Another was the prodigiously talented Wil-
helm Furtwngler; a decade younger than Walter, he had already established
an impressive reputation in Germany. Notwithstanding Weingartners
weighty credentials, Walter thought the decision would be between himself
and Furtwngler. In March he wrote to Gabrilowitsch from Rome: Since
Nikischs death, Furtwngler has been staying in Berlin, moving heaven,
hell, and any number of other spheres to get the position; hes rapidly been
conducting everything that could inspire only applause and is now probably
awaiting the results of my concert like Isolde,anxiously waiting for Tristan in
Act IIthough with opposite feelings. Walter, by contrast, had not gone
out of his way to win the approval of the influential in Berlin. He tried, as he
told Gabrilowitsch, to let his actions determine his lifes path. But, he con-
fessed, he was planning to leave Munich in October, and it would be of de-
cisive importance for me to be Nikischs successor. 77
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 By the middle of March, the news had been made public that Walter
would leave his position as Bavarian Generalmusikdirektor. Despite his fre-
quent absences, which might have been a tip-off signaling a change of direc-
tion in Walters career, the news struck like a lightning bolt. For days the an-
nounced departure was front-page news. A huge, horrified music-loving
public banded together to sign a petition, which read as follows:
The undersigned feel compelled to express their sincere reverence
and their warmest thanks for the great artistic experiences that you
have offered to Munich in nearly ten years of activity. Understand-
ing classical and modern works, in the opera and in the concert
hall, with sympathetic love and reverence for the work of art, you
created impressions of lasting power with your interpretive art,
governed by your entire personality. With the expression of our
reverence and love for you, we add the wish that you might remain
true to our city, which would suffer a heavy loss in its artistic and
cultural life in the event of your departure.
citizens of Munich, representatives of all professions and
classes, have signed the address that stands before you and present
it midway through March, .78
A much-abbreviated listing of the signatories ran in both the Mnchner
Neueste Nachrichten and the Mnchener Zeitung. Tributes by Walter Cour-
voisier, Clemens von Franckenstein, Thomas Mann, Hans Pfitzner, Emil
Preetorius, and others appeared in the Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten on
March .
In marked contrast, the Vlkischer Beobachter, delighted to rid the city
of its Jewish music director, jeered at this outpouring of affection for
Walter: The Munich Generalmusikdirektor claims that he wishes to leave.
He is tired of his job, makes more money abroad, and has sincere friends
elsewhere. This last fact may have prompted his partisans and kindred com-
panions in Munich to direct a written homage to that most controversial fig-
ure, sending a heartfelt plea for him not to throw in the sponge. The Neueste
Nachrichten has published this cultural document: sadly, only in summary.
It would have been interesting to determine statistically what percentage of
those who took part,by signing the document,were Jews,Social Democrats,
much-busied university professors, councilors of commerce, and artists
with and without reputations.79 But many in Munich, the author argued,
were surely of the opposite feeling, and it would be interesting to assemble a
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list of their names. Bruno Walter, to be sure, had his circle of friends, and
he had his talents, but he never conquered Munichs musical world be-
cause he simply was, is, and always will be of a different sensibility. He has no
sense for the German way of life; he has always promoted artists from the
East; he opposed those artists living in Munich who had German style and
sensibility. The last point is a jingoistic swipe at the various singers in Wal-
ters troupelike Zdenka Mottl-Fassbender, Maria Ivogn, Hermine Bosetti,
and Emil Schipperwho came from the Austro-Hungarian region; it con-
veniently ignores German-born leading artists like Paul Bender, Berta
Morena, Delia Reinhardt, Gustav Schtzendorf, and Otto Wolf.
The positions in Berlin and Leipzig, which Walter had set his sights on,
both went to Furtwngler, and some contemporary reports sensed an anti-
Semitic slant in the rejection of Walter. Csar Saerchinger, in the Musical
Courier, noted that Walter was, with Furtwngler and Weingartner, one of
the three leading favorites, but the premises on which things are decided
in Germany are not wholly musical. Bruno Walters original name was
Schlesinger; and a Schlesinger on the highest musical throne of Germany is
almost unthinkable in these democratic days. These are the disabilities of
birth.80 Yet anti-Semitism may have had little to do with the decision. Wolf-
gang Stresemann heard directly from Louise Wolff, the famous artists man-
ager in charge of the Berlin Philharmonic concerts, that Furtwngler had
presented himself to be considered as Nikischs successor,and that although
she would have preferred Bruno Walter, Furtwngler was then simply the
more popular conductor.81 Wolff, who was herself Jewish, could hardly
have been accused of anti-Semitism, though the real or supposed prejudices
of her clientele might well have influenced her decision.
Why did Walter leave Munich? He himself strongly denied that anti-
Semitism had anything to do with his departure. It was generally assumed
that Nazi persecutions were driving me out of Munich, Walter wrote in
Theme and Variations. I repeat that to the day of my departure I was actu-
ally not made to suffer from political hostility, and that my leaving was partly
caused by a feeling that I had completed my task and partly by personal con-
siderations.82 Among the contemporary observers who blamed Nazi hos-
tility for his departure was Paul Bekker, who mentioned both Fritz Reiner
and Walter as musicians whod been forced to seek employment elsewhere
because of pressure imposed by the anti-Semitic movement.83 Walters
own daughter Lotte, in a radio interview given after her fathers death, also

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accused the Nazis of having been a contributing factor in Walters decision
to leave Munich.84 It seems unlikely that the gathering hostility played no
part in Walters departure. Two items among the huge number of letters sent
to Walter on the occasion of his leaving Munich mention the critic Paul
Ehlers as one of Walters influential enemies.85 Ehlers was, as his later writ-
ings show, a genuine anti-Semite, and he eventually came to hail Hitler as the
savior of German music.86 In all fairness to Ehlers, though, his reviews al-
most inevitably offered laudatory assessments of Walters performances dur-
ing the Munich years.
But another motive surely played a part in Walters choosing to relocate.
He touches on it in his autobiography: Those were for me days of great and
passionate involvement, bearing the seeds of tragic development. The
thought of leaving Munich, generated by artistic considerations, offered a
way out of a tormenting human situation.87 The tormenting human situa-
tion would seem to have been his involvement with Delia Reinhardt,
though its by no means certain that this is what he is alluding to. Already in
September negotiations were well under way for Reinhardt to sing at
the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.88 By November Gustav
Schtzendorf was singing at the Met, and his wife made her debut there in
January . Whether Walters move out of Munich would have alleviated
the tormenting human situation by allowing the two to meet in another
city is unclear. As Irma Geering recalled the event, Walter wanted to marry
Reinhardt, and for this reason he went to America, left his family and went
to America: officially to conduct for Gabrilowitsch, unofficially to wait for
Delia. This must have been around . And Delia Reinhardtshe didnt
come. She told me . . . that Bruno Walter was too intense and passionate for
her. She was in fact very delicateoutwardly strong, but inwardly very deli-
cate and fine.89 Some of the statements and implications of this account are
questionable. (Was Walter planning simply to abandon his family and run off
with Delia? Was she expected to leave her husband while they were both en-
gaged at the Metropolitan Opera?) But the central idea that Walter wanted to
establish a closer bond with Reinhardt seems likely, given his relationship
with her after his wifes death in . And the tragic development that
Walter mentions in his autobiography, published in , might well refer to
his separation from Reinhardtfirst during the s, when Reinhardt and
Walters relationship seems to have been mainly professional (they fre-
quently worked together at Covent Garden), then from to , most of

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which time Reinhardt remained in Germany. The two were reunited only in
the late s.

Though Walter spent much of outside Munich, he offered a novelty of

sorts on June , when he presented Handels Acis and Galatea done in eigh-
teenth-century dress, with Delia Reinhardt as Galatea. Then in August and
September, he returned for a veritable Walter marathon. Among the works
he performed in this limited period were Die Meistersinger, Cos, Die Ent-
fhrung, Tristan, Palestrina, Der Rosenkavalier, Iphigenia in Aulis, Die
Vgel, Die Zauberflte, the Ring, Ariadne, Der Corregidor, Beethovens
Ninth, as well as a triple bill of Handels Acis and Galatea, Pergolesis Serva
padrona, and Schenks Dorfbarbier; the Munich premiere of Pfitzners new
cantata, Von deutscher Seele (on August , repeated on October ); and, as
his farewell to Munich, Fidelio at the Nationaltheater, on October . The vet-
eran manager Thea Dispekerwho, in school, had once played a four-hand
version of a Haydn symphony with one of Walters daughters, while Walter
conductedrecalled his final operatic performance in Munich: I will never
forget his last opera, his farewell performance; it was Fidelio. . . . I was up in
the gallery, a schoolgirl, and I cried my eyes out. He was such an integral part
of the Munich opera, and the father of it all.90 Her feelings were echoed by
many in Munich; in a mawkish, elegiac poem by Maria von Hofmann
Cortens, which circulated on a postcard, a desolate Nationaltheater grieves
after Walters last concert there:
Oh, stay with us, master of heavenly music;
The National Theater, where thou long hast led,
With woeful glance bids thee a mute farewell.91
At the conclusion of that last Fidelio, members of the audience were unwill-
ing to budge from the theater, and Walter was eventually led in triumph
through the city at night.92 At an open rehearsal for his final concert with
the Musikalische Akademie, the orchestra and the entire audience rose on
his arrival to greet him with deafening applause; the ladies waved their
handkerchiefs, and people called out, Walter, stay here! Dont go! Stay
here!93
On October the racially unobjectionable Hans Knappertsbusch took
over as Walters successor. The Vlkischer Beobachter noted with approval
that the new directors plans for the concert hall and the opera house would
include no futuristic music and would consist almost exclusively of Ger-
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man works.94 Walter, of course, had also emphasized German music in his
programs, and shortly after the article in the Vlkischer Beobachter appeared,
Alfred Einstein wrote an essay on Walters activity in Munich in which he
pointed out that Walters programming had been the most German to be
found on any stage.95
Adrian Boult was also present during Walters farewell season. Boult
himself was to conduct in Munich that November, and hed found a loyal
friend in Walter, who attended the first of his concerts. Boult, in turn, could
scarcely find enough praise to bestow on Walter in later years. One memory
of Walters performances that Boult recalled involved the audiences reac-
tion to Walter in the Prinzregententheater: It is an absolute fact, he wrote
to Walter, that with all conductors but you there was always an appreciable
movement in the audience the first sound was heard. With you there
was dead silence before the lights were fully lowered, and so we had
silence for several seconds before we heard the music. . . . What a lot there is
still to be learnt about telepathy and the influence of concentration!96
Another visitor to Munich that season was Walter Damrosch, the
impresario-conductor of the Symphony Society of New York, which had af-
forded Mahler his first opportunity to conduct symphonic concerts in New
York. Damrosch had been alerted to Walters excellent qualities by Ossip
Gabrilowitsch earlier in , and Walters performance made a distinctly fa-
vorable impression.97 Eight years later Damrosch recalled the incident in
his memoirs:
The town was in great excitement over the approaching perfor-
mance of Handels Acis and Galatea in dramatic form. Their con-
ductor, Bruno Walter, said to me: We are very proud of this stage
performance, as it is the first since Handels time. He was amazed
and, as he told me, much chagrined when I informed him that I had
given it in New York nearly thirty years ago. He gave it a beautiful
performance. I had costumed my singers in classic Greek, but the
Munich stage director had given the work an additional and rather
piquant flavor by dressing the singers and dancers as in Handels
time, when all performers, in no matter what age their plays were
supposed to take place, wore the costumes and huge periwigs of
their own period.98
After this impressive introduction, it is little wonder that a few months later
Walter himself would be conducting Damroschs orchestra in New York.
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 Walter bade a formal farewell to the singers, instrumentalists, techni-
cians, dancers, and actors who worked either with him or alongside him in
Munichs principal theaters. It was a fine speech to end an era that in future
years he would always regard as his most important epoch; it came from
the heart and went to the heart:
You see me before you at a grave moment in my life, bidding you
farewell. For me, leaving the Munich opera means being cut off
from my lifes work. This is such a serious and weighty step for me
that I simply dont feel myself equal to the farewell party that you
good people have prepared for me here today. Yet to go my own way
quietly (as one might do), when the separation affects one so heav-
ily, and as if the separation had suited my entire way of lifethat
would hardly have been a satisfying conclusion to our ten years of
close collaboration. . . . And thus we stand here to bid each other
farewell eye to eye. But understand and excuse me if not even my
words can come close to expressing the feelings and depths of that
which moves me. The feeling of which I am most strongly con-
scious at this hour is gratitude. I have been allowed to revel in an
artistic existence. I was able, over time, to perform all the works that
I loved, those dearest to my heart, as they existed in my imagina-
tion, which never grew tired of molding the beloved objects. Thus I
was able to build a repertoire out of the greatest treasures of Ger-
man art. I could experience the fulfillment of this ideal. For this, my
lifes goal, you the artists of this house delivered your invaluable
powers with a never ceasing joy in creation.
Thus no one will doubt that I bear a debt of lasting and ardent
gratitude to those who helped me realize my artistic dreams. But
please dont misunderstand me, as though I meant that Id achieved
my ideals or that my dreams had been fulfilled. Ah, ladies and gen-
tlemen, achieving and fulfilling are not words found in the dictio-
nary of human existence. But to strive after achievement and fulfill-
ment; to rouse all your forces fervently for this purpose; in short, to
live intenselythat is the pattern by which happiness has been pro-
longed for the children of men.
. . . Fare you well and think back kindly upon me.99
In Walters typescript copy of this speech, the phrase the greatest treasures
of German art originally read the greatest treasures of art. The qualifier
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was an afterthought, a reminder, perhaps, that Walter was very much a Ger-
man, wholeheartedly devoted to what Wagner called holy German art. At
the time of Walters departure, Adolf Schiedt, editor of the Mnchener
Zeitung, wrote Walter a personal letter praising his contribution to German
culture in Munich and in regions beyond, where his musical accomplish-
ments would be inseparably bound with [his] German soul.100 The last
comment, on Walters German soul, was no doubt in part an allusion to
the final concert piece that Walter had performed in Munich, Pfitzners Von
deutscher Seele (On the German Soul), and there is a decided irony in Wal-
ters bidding farewell to Munichamid cries from the radical Right that he
was no German at all but a Hebrew, a Jew conductorwith a work that
grappled directly with the German soul.

New and Old Worlds

USA and Berlin,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Ha, proud ocean,

In a short time you will carry me again . . .
Wagner, Der fliegende Hollnder

On the ocean, we had three stormy days altogether, the worst

yesterday. I actually suffered from queasiness and dizziness the
whole time, and except for a few moments I never had the emo-
tional composure that would have allowed me to take pleasure in
the prodigious grandeur of the ocean in agitation and at rest, the
sun,the moon,tempest and calm.Thus Walter,on board the S. S.
Manchuria, wrote to his daughter Lotte, then studying voice in
Vienna, as he sailed to America for the first time. He had boarded
on January , and the journey was taking longer than expected.
Though the rough waters made him feel ill, he prided himself on
not having been technically seasick. He needed his strength for
the ordeals ahead and thought he would be in good bodily con-
dition to encounter New York.1
He had entertained fantasies about traveling to Boston already
at the turn of the century, when the Viennese public and press ini-
tially turned against him, and the thought of escaping to America
would become a leitmotif in his correspondence. On this, his first

trip to America, Walter had engagements in New York, Detroit, Minneapolis,
and Boston. The journey marked an important step for him, and he knew it,
though he had no idea that he was visiting his future home.
Despite the huge distance that separated America from Europe, Walter
was to find a number of links with the Old World when he landed in New
York. Singers with whom he had worked closely in Munichlike Paul Ben-
der, Gustav Schtzendorf, and of course Delia Reinhardtwere now
singing at the Metropolitan Opera House. Ossip Gabrilowitsch gave a piano
recital in February, and Rachmaninoff played his Second Piano Concerto
with the Symphony Orchestra under Damrosch at the beginning of March.
Some works that had become familiar, if not necessarily accepted, in Europe
were now being introduced to New York. On February Schoenbergs
atonal Pierrot Lunaire had its American premiere in that city, while Max von
Schillingss Mona Lisa had its first American airing at the Metropolitan
Opera House as March began. Between those two premieres, Walters New
York debut took place.
Little fanfare surrounded Walters arrival in the United States. Carnegie
Hall, a large auditorium for a large city and already a venue with an illustri-
ous pastTchaikovsky conducted at its opening, and Mahler performed
there on many occasionswas the site of Walters first concert in New York,
on February , . Opened in , decorated with simple designs, it re-
mains one of the most satisfying halls in the world for orchestral music: res-
onant and warm without being cavernous and turbid. The ensemble was
Walter Damroschs New York Symphony Orchestra, which still retained
some musicians who had played under Mahler in , and the program
consisted of Beethovens Leonore Overture no. , Mozarts Haffner
Symphony, and Brahmss First Symphonythe first two items, as the critics
pointed out, then rarely played.
The reviews were respectful but hardly ecstatic. Richard Aldrich of the
New York Times expressed admiration for Walters rhythmic subtlety, the
simplicity of his conducting technique, and his seriousness of purpose, de-
void of empty flamboyance. Of the Brahms, Aldrich noted that Walter
sought for the finest and subtlest exposition of the outline: delicate contrasts,
significant phrasing, pulsing rhythms, subtle modifications of tempo
modifications that were not thrown at the listeners head, but were such as to
be felt, rather than noticed.2 Both the Times and the Herald commented
that Walter had tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to perform the symphonies

N O W

without pauses for applause between movements. If Walter checked the
Daily News for a review of his debut (there was none), he would have found
a grim reminder of a nagging problem at home that showed no signs of
disappearing. On the back page were three sizable pictures of National
Socialists staging a huge demonstration in Munich, marching behind the
emblem they have made their ownan emblem that would become sicken-
ingly familiar.3
Not surprisingly, his presence as a guest from afar gave rise to specula-
tion in the press about his intentions. One reviewer pointedly asked, Why
is he here? Henry Finck, of the New York Evening Post, postulated that Wal-
ters guest appearance might be not merely a means of offering variety to the
audience but a possible sign of his being a permanent fixture in the city:
Will he or will Albert Coates conduct this orchestra if Walter Damrosch
succeeds in the ambition attributed to himwith what truth I know notof
being added to the Presidents Cabinet as Minister of the Fine Arts?4
The now defunct Aeolian Concert Hall on nd Streeta smaller,
more sumptuously adorned space, whose stage was graced with a rich array
of organ pipeswas the venue for Walters next program with the Sym-
phony Orchestra, on Sunday, February . He again offered serious music
(by contemporary standards) rather than crowd-pleasers: Mozarts Haff-
ner Serenade, Mendelssohns overture to A Midsummer Nights Dream,
Schumanns Spring Symphony (his old standby), and the Prelude to
Wagners Meistersinger. The seriousness of the program was often paral-
leled by reserve in the conductors stage presence, and W. J. Henderson of
the New York Herald observed that Walters mannerin the Mozart at
leastheld nothing of interest for that large number which has to see as
well as to hear, noting with some relief the conductors more animated de-
meanor in the romantic works. Nevertheless, he concluded, Mr. Walter is
not a conductor who relies on pictorial effects. He is a direct, magnetic and
authoritative leader of musicians, and he conveys his commands to them in
the shortest and simplest manner. 5
While the critics admired Walters high seriousness, their practical con-
cern over his discreet bearing at the podium was well founded. Although
Walter made several return visits to the Symphony Orchestra, he would be
rejected, two years after his debut, as a possible musical director of the orga-
nization. In reporting to the Symphony Societys board of directors, Harry
Harkness Flagler sadly noted the lack of drawing power of our principal
guest conductor, Bruno Walter, who while possessing the highest talent and
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musicianship did not loom large in the eye of a public seeking for sensational
or striking methods.6 So Walter, often criticized in his youth for his exces-
sive movements and his musical exaggerations, would become an undesir-
able commodity because of his controlled and dignified manner at the con-
ductors desk.
Though the public relations work surrounding Walters debut in the
United States was generally weak, at least some effort was made to publicize
his presence in the New World when Musical America interviewed him for a
substantial piece that ran shortly after his engagements in New York. A point
he stressed in the interview was the dire financial situation of orchestras in
postwar Germany. Even the Berlin Philharmonic, he pointed out, was in
trouble. The players do not receive a living wage, and it has seemed at times
as if the body would be disbanded. . . . There has been a rumor also of the
difficulties faced by the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, but I cannot ver-
ify this.7 The cynic might be tempted to detect a trace of smugness in these
commentsafter all, Walter had recently been rejected in favor of Furtwng-
ler as the conductor of both orchestrasbut such public utterances had
their desired effect: he eventually collected five hundred dollars for the fi-
nancially strapped Berlin Philharmonic, an instance of generosity that later
inclined him to speak very favorably about America.8
The interview also touched on the present state of composition in his
native country. For Walter, composition in Germany currently served as a
voice to bitterness and pain of the spirit. It is a far cry from the sunlit
Mozartean melody to the latest productions of German genius. There were,
of course, some exceptions, such as Richard Strauss, Pfitzner, and Braun-
fels. Yet the crass and raucous are also prominent. About the Schoenberg
of Fnf Orchester-Stcke Walter had particular misgivings. Here he set forth
ideas that he would develop at greater length in his pamphlet On the Moral
Forces of Music; the Schoenberg who promoted atonality may be right,
Walter allowed. But I believe that in the nature of music there are certain in-
nate laws. If these are violated, the essential nature of music is destroyed.
Yet he was quick to add that he had much admiration for Schoenbergs
earlier works.9 Those who have found Walters criticisms of atonal music
exceedingly ill timed in and so they wereshould remember that the
conductor had uttered similar criticisms well before they were associated
with the tastes of the Nazi Party.
After his New York concerts Walter took the train to Detroit, where
Gabrilowitsch had arranged for him to give concerts later in February.Walter
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found the orchestra simply fabulous, and the players seemed equally
pleased with their guest conductor.10 Immediately following his concerts in
Detroit, Walter headed for Minneapolis, where several guest conductors
demonstrated their abilities during the season. Walter and Henri
Verbrugghen were at this time apparently both being seriously considered
as permanent conductors for the orchestra,so Walter was engaged to lead six
concerts in Minnesotasome in Minneapolis, some in St. Paulduring the
month of March.11 His friend and colleague Maria Ivogn joined him for his
first concert. (Her old vocal instructor, Amalie Schlemmer-Ambros, was
now giving Lotte Walter singing lessons, much to her fathers pleasure.) The
opening concert was a first for both Walter and the orchestra, in that it was
broadcast live to a huge, nationwide audience. Imagine playing to an audi-
ence all across the continent, with thousands listening! Walter reportedly
said.12 As a performer who would become one of the most frequently broad-
cast musicians of his generation, he would eventually grow quite accus-
tomed to performing before the microphone. For the remaining concerts he
offered much the same fare as in New York and Detroit, supplemented by a
substantial number of other works, some of them unusual for Walter
Francks Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra; Haydns Sym-
phony no. (a Minneapolis premiere); Chopins Andante spianato and
Polonaise for Piano and Orchestra and Liszts Piano Concerto no. , both
with the Polish virtuoso Ignaz Friedman as soloist. In addition, Walter also
assumed the role of piano accompanist for recitals of lieder and cello sonatas.
At the Symphony Club he took the opportunity to reach potential
philanthropists, giving a lecture on the desperate state of musicians in Ger-
many. I didnt exactly speak the best English, he wrote to his daughter
Lotte, but it still made a deep impression and will, I think, bring money to
German musicians.13
Boston, a city that had appealed to Walters imagination already for two
decades, awaited him at the end of his first United States tour. On March
Walter gave his first concert in Symphony Hall, conducting the orchestra in
a program that included Beethovens Piano Concerto no. , with Artur
Schnabel at the keyboard. At least one major European musical figure
was present in the audience for Walters Boston debut. Pierre Monteux,
the French chef dorchestre who had already given the world premieres
of such modern masterpieces as Stravinskys Le Sacre du printemps
and Ravels Daphnis et Chlo, was the orchestras regular conductor;
that night, he was seated in the balcony, no doubt with a smile under
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his bushy walrus-like mustache, listening to the concert free from respon-
sibility for it.14
One critic who would later review Walter on countless occasions for the
New York Times was then already a veteran reviewer for the Boston Post; Olin
Downes offered some of the most astute comments on Walters method yet
to appear in print: Mr. Walters rhythm [is] very striking, very much a liv-
ing, breathing thing. Breathing is the word. When a musical phrase is truly
felt by the conductor, and when the orchestra feels it with him, the orchestra
breathes, and this natural, deep rhythmical respiration of the instruments is
one of the inalienable qualities of a good performance. Then the conductor
has ceased to merely beat time. Then his baton is a pulse-beat which affects
every part of the orchestral organism.15 A long, complimentary, gossipy
column appeared in the Transcript, speculating on whether the real purpose
behind Walters conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra had anything
to do with the impending expiration of Monteuxs contract. By common
consent, the article noted, Mr. Walter is a conductor of high ability and
large prestige. By recorded fact, he is also a conductor out of a job and not
indisposed, presumably, to new employment. On many a score these United
States are accounted conductors paradise. May there not . . . be anticipa-
tions at the back of Mr. Walters head as he goes a-guesting up and down
this broad land?16
Before heading back to Europe, Walter returned to New York to discuss
the following years program with Walter Damrosch. All in all, a successful
tour. One reviewer, according to Walter, wrote that the impression he had
made on the New York audience was comparable only with that made by
Toscanini when he first appeared in the city.17 But Walter still hadnt se-
cured any permanent position and would spend months continuing to
search for employment in Europe. Engagements were not hard to come by.
He received invitations from the Netherlands, Italy, Rumania, Hungary, and
Denmark, and had plenty of work with which to occupy himself in Germany
and Austria. The oppressive economy in Germany, however, made him feel
strongly that America was the place to go in search of regular work, as he
confided to Gabrilowitsch in August. Indeed, even working for the cause of
Germany, which Walter planned to do for the rest of his life, could be
achieved better abroad than in Germany itself.18 Walter asked his col-
league to keep an eye out for possible opportunities in the United States.
All the while, the house in Munich, at Mauerkirchstrasse , continued
to serve as his home base, though he planned to move to either Berlin or
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Vienna, the cities where he would be most often engaged professionally. Nei-
ther option appealed much to him: In Berlin, serious disturbances are sure
to come, and Elsa is decidedly antipathetic toward Vienna. But to live in
Munich, where we have this house, after all, makes no sense whatsoever,
since I never conduct here and would therefore never see Elsa or Gretel.19
By the winter the family may have moved to Vienna; Walter wrote as much in
his memoirs, though several of his letters throughout continue to give
Munich as his home address.20
As we now know, Walter was right to be concerned about future distur-
bances in Berlin; yet the city continued to draw him back for guest engage-
ments, and indeed one of his first concerts upon returning to Europe was
with the Berlin Philharmonic in late April. While the program was not par-
ticularly adventurous, it offered the rare combination of Walter and the great
Irish tenor John McCormack, who sang arias by Mozart and Beethoven.
Leopold Schmidts glowing comments on Walter show that a substantial
portion of the Berlin audience sympathized with him, both as a man who
had left Munich under less than ideal conditions and as a potential leader
of the Berlin Philharmonic who had recently been rejected in favor of Furt-
wngler: The hall was filled with an audience whose excitement very
quickly reached the boiling point. Mixed with the roaring applause for Wal-
ters performance were undertones of unmistakable meaning: joy over a man
who returns home in glory, support for a man unjustly wounded, desire to tie
him more closely to our musical life. (Does he have any desire at all to be tied
down?)21
Walters guest engagementsalways hard to pinpointbecome espe-
cially difficult to follow in the s. He visited Vienna in April and May
; no doubt he worked elsewhere, with nearly every moment devoted to
traveling, rehearsing, or conducting. After some restful weeks in Switzerland
during the summer, Walter returned to his punishing schedule, revisiting fa-
miliar cities and making new contacts, especially in Leipzig and Amsterdam.
His debut with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, an organization
that would later play a central role in his career, took place on August ,
. Supplanting the hall in which Mendelssohn had conducted, the new
Gewandhaus opened in , elaborately decorated in splendid nineteenth-
century neo-baroque style. (Like several other houses in which Walter
worked, it was destroyed during World War II.) The orchestra was one of
the most venerable in Europe, and Leipzig itself, while it couldnt compare
with nearby Berlin as a cultural center, could boast strong ties to both Bach,
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the most celebrated cantor of the Thomaskirche, and Mendelssohn, a for-
mer Gewandhaus director.
When Walter visited Leipzig for his first concert there, the hall was sold
out, though the core of his program held no surprises: Brahmss Second
Symphony, Schuberts Ballet Music for Rosamunde, and Webers Euryan-
the Overture (to which were appended a scene from Bruchs Achilleus and
four Brahms lieder sung by Margarete Krmer-Bergau). The Gewandhaus,
of course, was another of the orchestras for which Walter had recently been
considered as a potential regular conductor. He had his partisans in
Leipzig, and Furtwngler had his critics. But Max Steinitzer, reviewing
Walters performance for the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, seems to have
admired both conductors almost equally. While noting that the audiences
had grown accustomed (through Furtwngler) to performances that
couldnt be surpassed, he complimented Walter, who had had little re-
hearsal time, on his extraordinary achievement: His conducting is out-
wardly and inwardly the strongest contrast of everything that is ponderous,
hard, stiff, and violentfree and light, like the most natural expression of
life. If there wereif there could bea woman conductor of genius,
Steinitzer added, that conductor would undoubtedly conduct certain pas-
sages in a like manner. Apart from the condescending attitude toward as-
piring female conductors, the aside jolts because of its utter unexpected-
ness. Others, however, have commented on Walters gentleness, and
perhaps this was uppermost in the critics mind when he drew the conjec-
tural comparison. But about one qualityWalters slowing down for cer-
tain passages (a characteristic also prominent in Furtwnglers readings)
Steinitzer voiced reservations, arguing that the same effects could be
achieved without such extreme measures.22
Another orchestra that Walter would conduct many times was the Con-
certgebouw in Amsterdam, with which he made his debut on October ,
. Though not as elaborately decorated as the Gewandhaus of Walters
time, the Concertgebouw was and still is a majestic hall, its acoustics ranking
among the wonders of the musical world, and its construction had attrac-
tions beyond its superb sonics. Instead of prosaically walking to center stage
by way of a side wing, the conductor at the Concertgebouw of necessity
makes a dramatic entrance by emerging from double doors atop a long stair-
case that leads to the stage below. Walter relished every minute of the show.
I liked to look down for a little while from the raised, darkened box on the
right before swinging open the half-door in its front and setting foot on the
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top step of the platform, thereby exposing myself to the public gaze. There
followed the long descent down the steps between the orchestra and the part
of the audience seated along the side of the platform, until I finally reached
the conductors desk.23
It is fitting that Walter should have commenced his work with the Con-
certgebouw Orchestra with Mahlers First Symphony. Mahler himself had
conducted and admired the orchestra, and Willem Mengelberg, its regular
conductor, was one of the most ardent champions of Mahlers works. Wal-
ters program also included Pfitzners new Piano Concerto in E-flat Major,
with the pianist Walter Gieseking, who in March had premiered the work
under Fritz Busch. The newspapers found much to praise in the guest con-
ductorhis spontaneity, his lively rhythm, his attention to detail, his affinity
for Mahlers musicand the public response was equally enthusiastic.
Less well received was an item from the United States that Walter intro-
duced in his next Concertgebouw concert, Cecil Burleighs Concerto for Vi-
olin in E Minor, given its first Amsterdam performance on October . The
solo violinist, also an American, was Amy Neill, one of Leopold Auers
pupils, then making a concert tour of Europe. This may well have been the
first work (at least the first substantial work) by an American composer that
Walter ever conducted, and its fate, sad to say, was similar to that of many
other American compositions that Walter performed. Some reviewers might
have turned against the piece after reading the program notes, which per-
haps unwisely mentioned that Burleigh had received a thousand-dollar
prize for his composition in America. It was a kingly sum, and the piece
didnt convince the reviewers that it was worthy of such a regal reward. The
composer Sem Dresden, a critic for De Telegraaf, dismissed the concerto as
utterly unimportant, a mediocre work that could have been written
just as well in the Old World as in the New.24 More and more, Walters at-
tempts to include novelties would provoke such hostile critical responses,
either because the works were too conservative or because they were too
radical.
While programming freshly minted works, Walter continued to take an
interest in neglected older pieces, and it was inevitable that he would be-
come entangled in the controversy surrounding Mahlers unfinished last
symphony. As one of the musicians who had been closest to Mahler, Walter
felt responsible not only for performing his friends music but also, to an ex-
tent, for protecting his legacy. Alma Mahler was in charge of overseeing her
late husbands works, and she allowed the young composer Ernst Krenek
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who from to was the husband of Anna Mahler, Gustav and Almas
daughterto complete the two movements of Mahlers Tenth Symphony
that the composer had almost finished. (The movements were eventually
performed in October .) Alma had apparently asked Walter for his as-
sessment of Mahlers sketches, which shed shown him a decade before, but
Walter claimed not to have seen the two nearly complete movements. He re-
called true sketches that were hard to read, sometimes supplemented by
personal remarks. There could be no talk of a score, he wrote, and the fin-
ished movements, intentionally or unintentionally, had not been shown to
him.25 A distinct testiness runs through Walters letter to Alma. He made his
opposition to a public performance very clear: No composer was less in-
clined than Mahler to make known an unfinished work; you know that as
well as I. And I very much regret that you havent taken into account this
aversion, which was deeply rooted in his being and work, and that you are
placing before the public a torso lacking the final improvements and polish-
ings of Mahlers unique handmoreover, for the world premiere youre us-
ing a venue that is thoroughly unsatisfactory, on acoustical grounds, for a
symphonic work. The venue in question was the Vienna Staatsoper, de-
signed for operatic, not symphonic, works. Much later he confided that
Almas decision to allow the piece to be performed almost led to a rift be-
tween them.26 For the rest of his life Walter would remain adamant about
leaving Mahlers last work in peace. He never performed any parts of the
Tenth and as late as strongly opposed the performance of Deryck
Cookes now famous reconstruction of the entire symphony: The unfin-
ished work of a musical genius, he wrote to Alma, should not be touched,
not even by the most talented and devoted musician.27 Nevertheless, given
the greatness of the symphony, even in its unpolished state, we can only be
grateful that Walter did not have his way in this matter.
Having become a lodestone for great European artistsespecially
those in need of cashAmerica drew Walter back early in . Now a
known quantity, he received somewhat more attention on his second visit to
New York than on his first. The cover of the Symphony Society Bulletin bore
a dramatic shot of Walter, underneath which was an announcement of his re-
turn to Aeolian and Carnegie halls. Before giving his Manhattan concerts,
however, Walter conducted the Symphony Society at the Brooklyn Acad-
emy of Music on February . His program included the Beethoven Violin
Concerto, with the composer and violin virtuoso Georges Enesco as soloist.
A month later Walter and Enesco appeared together on a special program
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sponsored by the Beethoven Association; Walter accompanied Julia Culp in
Schumanns Liederkreis, and other featured artists were Enesco and the pi-
anist Elly Ney (then married to Willem van Hoogstraten, a new conductor
with the New York Philharmonic; she would later become the musical darling
of the Nazi regime). Walter came to know Enesco personally during this time
and learned that the Rumanian composer, amid the political struggles of ,
had lost a substantial number of his compositions, which had been sent to
Moscow. When Walter wrote to his contact in Moscow later that year, he ex-
plained Enescos plight in detail and offered to retrieve the music and return
it to the composer on his next trip to the city. If Mr. Enesco has had to live
without his manuscripts for seven years, he can live without them longer,
perhaps till I come to Moscow and can then bring them to him then and
there, Walter wrote (more coolly than the composer might have liked). But
Id very much like to be able to give him some concrete information; he longs
so much for news,feeling no doubt like a father whose son is lost in the war.28
On this visit Walter conducted eight programs with the Symphony So-
ciety in Manhattan, offering somewhat more variety than on his previous
American tour. It was a rich sampling of music, but at least one critic com-
mented that Walter lacked adequate time for rehearsal and therefore had no
opportunity to show what he could do.29 Among the less frequently played
items were Schoenbergs Verklrte Nachtwhich created a scandal when
Walter conducted it in Rome, though it sounded very tame indeed to New
Yorkersand Volkmar Andreaes Little Suite,condemned by Olin Downes,
now of the New York Times, as obvious and witless in its attempts at what is
fantastical or poetic or whimsical.30 And Walter also chose to perform
Mahler, a composer conspicuously absent from his American programs of
the previous year. Although he picked the readily accessible First Sym-
phony, many in New York were still not prepared for the composer whom
Walter would champion vigorously throughout his life. Was their hostility
simply a result of their being unacquainted with the music? The reviewer for
the Musical Courier dismissed that idea out of hand: When one stops to
think of the other works written about the same time that have become fa-
vorites, the argument fails to convince. . . . Lack of ideas seems to explain it,
and perhaps also excessive length, which will kill any work, however beauti-
ful.31 Such were the discouraging arguments that Walter often encoun-
tered, in Europe and even more so in America, when he performed the
works of his departed friend. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, when
Mahlers symphonies are among the most popular works in the orchestral
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repertoire, its easy to forget how far into the twentieth century the resistance
to Mahler reached.
A number of soloistssome now immortal, some long since forgotten
appeared with Walter in New York: Efrem Zimbalist played the Glazunov
Violin Concerto in A Minor; Dusolina Giannini sang a Mozart aria and the
Gypsy Songs of Dvork, with Walter accompanying at the keyboard; Heifetz
triumphed in the Goldmark Violin Concerto in A Minor (a rare collabora-
tion between the violinist and the conductor, perhaps the first); Gustave
Tinlot, the orchestras concertmaster, performed Rimsky-Korsakovs Fan-
tasy on Russian Themes; and Moriz Rosenthal reeled off Liszts E-flat
Piano Concerto with perfect ease as a mere bagatelle.32
During the time that Walter was conducting in New York, singers from
his old Munich troupe were still assuming leading roles at the Metropolitan
Opera, including Gustav Schtzendorf and Delia Reinhardt. How much
contact Walter had with Reinhardt is hard to know, but by May she was
singing under his direction in London, so presumably they were in touch
with each other. It must have been a somewhat difficult situation for both of
them, and one curious occurrence in the opera house makes one wonder
whether Walters presence in New York might not have added considerably
to the stress a performer always feels on stage. The occasion was an after-
noon performance of Meistersinger under Bodanzky, on February , with
Delia Reinhardt as Eva and Gustav Schtzendorf as Beckmesser. Reinhardt
had sung Eva many times, often under Walter. The part should not have
caused her any great trouble. Yet in this performance, as the papers duly re-
ported,she fainted on the Metropolitan stage midway in act three . . .just as
the curtains were about to close on the famous quintet. Her companions for
the moment gathered around her and she recovered in time to resume the
heroines slight remaining share in the final scene.33 Did Walter attend the
performance? (He was not conducting the Symphony Society that day.)
As on his first trip to the United States, Walter made excursions to De-
troit and Minneapolis (where he played piano accompaniment to Henri Ver-
brugghens violin in a charity concert to benefit starving German chil-
dren34). Taking leave of the United States early in April, Walter boarded
the Albert Ballin in New York to steam toward Europe. By late April he was
in his native city, conducting Mozarts Requiem with the Berlin Philhar-
monic, and his thoughts turned with ever greater frequency toward Berlin as
a possible home. The city itself was clearly giving plenty of thought to him as
well, as evidenced by a variety of reviews and articles that mention Walter as
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a potential candidate for musical openings in the city. His new concert man-
ager was Robert Sachs, who would ensure Walters frequent presence in
Berlin for the coming years.35 In June, as he considered sending his daugh-
ter to the Hochschule fr Musik in Berlin, Walter wrote to Franz Schreker,
then director of the school, to ask about the entrance requirements and the
curriculum. Gretels education, Walter admitted, had been unevenpartly
as a result of his peripatetic career. Further, she was talented at many things,
not just music. Shes uncommonly gifted, plays splendid piano, has a
charming voice, is theatrically very talented and full of wit and liveliness, he
wrote with evident pride. I myself am undecided whether I should send her
to drama school or for piano lessons, vocal instruction, lessons in theory, or
something else.36 Walter, Elsa, and Gretel would live in Berlin, starting in
October. His elder daughter, Lotte, was to continue her musical studies in
Hanover with Rudolf Krasselt, a conductor and former solo cellist of the
Berlin Philharmonic, whose association with the family reached back to the
preceding century (Krasselt had performed a recital with Elsa in ). By
the fall, Lotte had secured her first professional engagement as a soprano at
the Stadttheater in Hanover.37
Walters international career continued to grow in . Covent Gar-
den, which had received him warmly in , had gone without a German
opera season since the outbreak of World War I, and Walter had the honor of
being the first conductor to restore the German season to the venerable in-
stitution. Looking like a brilliant commercial tie-in, a new movie by Fritz
Lang, The Niebelungs, had its London premierewith live Wagnerian mu-
sic provided by the London Symphony Orchestrashortly before Walter
came to conduct the Ring cycle at Covent Garden. The restoration of Ger-
man opera was a much anticipated event, and the ablest players from the
several orchestras in London were called on for the occasion.38 On three
consecutive nights, beginning May , Walter conducted the first three parts
of the tetralogy, which elicited mixed reviews. But the real excitement was
sandwiched between Siegfried and Gtterdmmerung. It was a performance
of Tristan that featured, in the title roles, Jacques Urlusless than sterling
on this occasion, according to the reviewsand a seasoned soprano in her
Covent Garden debut: the splendid, incomparable Frida Leider. (She re-
called her partner on this occasion as Lauritz Melchior, who in fact did per-
form with her later that season.39) For those who know her singing, it will
be no surprise to learn that she stole the show that night and won a devoted
following among British Wagnerians. In the middle of May, Walter offered
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a second, more successful Ring cycle to London, with a stronger cast that
included such stellar artists as Lauritz Melchior, Frida Leider, Maria
Olszewska, Emil Schipper, Friedrich Schorr, and Gertrud Kappel.
Some of the German operas at Covent Garden that season were taken by
Karl Alwin, the husband of Elisabeth Schumann, who was also present.
Schumann had already performed in recital with Walter during his Munich
years and was now singing with him in an opera that would become a favorite
offering of Walters in London, Der Rosenkavalier; his first Covent Garden
performance of Strausss rococo opera was presented to a grateful English
public on May . The dream cast included Lotte Lehmann as the
Marschallin, Delia Reinhardt as Octavian, Schumann as Sophie, and
Richard Mayr (in his English debut) as Baron Ochs. One knew from the
very first bars of the orchestral music last night that we were in for a good
thing, and the great joy of last nights performance, surely one of the best of
any opera which has been seen and heard at Covent Garden within present
memory, lay in the way Herr Bruno Walter and his players handled the good
gifts of the composer. The range of tone was enormous, and yet the general
impression of the score, at any rate through two-thirds of the opera, was one
of extraordinary lightness.40 These performances, of rare quality, became
the stuff of legend. In a BBC tribute to Walter on his eightieth birthday, the
musicologist and radio personality Julian Herbage recalled the early pro-
ductions of Rosenkavalier and other German works given during Walters
first years at Covent Garden after World War I: Those performances
showed me the meaning of perfection in operatic singing, and convinced me
that Walter can extract more out of singers than any other living conductor
Id even be rash enough to say, than any other conductor that has ever
lived.41 Nevertheless, the stage machinery and technical coordination of
the production sometimes left much to be desired. Walter recalled a particu-
larly awkward moment in Rosenkavalier, when the waiters . . . touched the
wall candles at the left with their lighters, while those at the right flamed
upwhich inspired both laughter and an ovation.42
One of Walters closest friendships began on the occasion of that pro-
duction of Rosenkavalier, though its beginnings were far from auspicious.
Lotte Lehmann, who knew the roles of Sophie and Octavian, had never per-
formed as the Marschallin before accepting the engagement at Covent Gar-
den. I can imagine that he was not very pleased with me, she wrote; the
Marschallin is not a part that one can master at the first go. And Walter, with
his passion for throwing light on every detail of a part, must have missed in
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me the entire exhausting of all the possibilities of the part. I confessed that I
had never sung the Marschallin before and had only accepted for fear the
lovely Covent Garden engagement would come to nothingand I begged
him to help me. He did help, on this and many later occasions. How many
old operatic parts became new and living under his direction! Often a word
from him would make pale shadows flash into new life!43
Later that year, Walter took the Vienna Philharmonic on tour through
Germany.44 Though he was leading the life of a wanderer, in the fall Walter
and his family moved into a furnished apartment on Ltzowplatz in
Berlin.45 The Deutsches Opernhaus in Charlottenburg played host to him
several times in the second half of . In his guest appearances there, he
conducted Tristan, Die Walkre, Die Zauberflte, and Aida. For Paul Ste-
fan, writing about a decade later, the impressive performances of Tristan and
Aida seemed, in retrospect, to anticipate the conductors future career in
that house.46
Other work also kept Walter busy in Berlin. Midway through November
he lent his services for a charity production of Die Fledermaus at the
Metropol-Theater, with Fritzi Massary as Adele and Leo Slezak, his old
heldentenor from Vienna, as Alfred. Massary was a hugely popular star in
the world of German operetta, and Walter found himself utterly charmed by
her from the moment they met. I had expected to meet a diva type, spoiled
by popularity . . . , Walter wrote. Instead, I found a great artist who dis-
dained popular routine and centered all of her highly-tensed nature upon
the essentialities of her task.47 Walters own dazzling contribution to the
production drew words of wonder from Max Marschalk, who noted that the
conductor, known for his seriousness, was able to adapt his style to that of
Johann Strauss by increasing the light and happy touch he used with such
success in Mozart.48
At the same time, he was keeping up his chamber music activities. Near
the end of he provided piano accompaniment for the cellist Emanuel
Feuermann (then in his early twenties) and his violinist brother Siegmund in
recitals of music by Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and others in Berlins
Beethoven-Saal. A student of Walters old colleague Friedrich Buxbaum,
Emanuel Feuermann became one of the most renowned cellists of his day
and, as if to extend the studentteacher connection to the end of Walters
career, Feuermanns own pupil George Neikrug would become a regular cel-
list in the California-based Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Walters last
recording ensemble.
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 Though in his chamber and operatic work Walter limited himself to es-
tablished classics, several contemporary compositions appeared on the var-
ious orchestral programs that he offered with the Berlin Philharmonic in the
final quarter of , including Rezniceks Chamisso Variationen, Korn-
golds Viel Lrm um Nichts Suite, and, most important, Prokofievs First Vi-
olin Concerto, given its first Berlin performance on December , with Joseph
Szigeti as soloist. The Hungarian-born violinist, already a renowned artist,
would perform with Walter on a number of occasions and, through his two
recordings of the Beethoven Violin Concerto under Walter, became widely
associated with the conductor. Walters connection with Prokofiev, however,
is less well known, though Walter championed the Russian composers mu-
sic several times and even had the distinction of conducting Prokofievs
Third and Fifth piano concertos with the composer at the keyboard. (Not al-
ways appreciative of these efforts on his behalf, Prokofiev complained to a
friend in about Walters perceived swinishness when he decided not
to stage The Fiery Angel in Berlin because the composer had missed his
deadline for delivering the music.49) At the time of the Berlin premiere of
the Violin Concerto, Prokofiev had not yet established his credentials
worldwide, and the critics were fully prepared to pounce on the new com-
position. Leopold Schmidt condemned the piece for its putative lack of sub-
stancethe three movements seemed like technical studies to himand
attributed the audiences loud applause to the courageous violinist, who
performed his thankless task in truly marvelous fashion.50
While Prokofiev had yet to be recognized as one of the preeminent mu-
sical figures of the twentieth century, by the s Sir Edward Elgar had al-
ready secured his status as the greatest living English composer. In London,
on December , Walter conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a
performance of Elgars First Symphony, with the composer present in
Queens Hall for the event. This seems to have been the first time that the
two men met, though Walterperhaps forgetting which of the two sym-
phonies he had conductedremembered the encounter as having occurred
at a performance of Elgars Second. One might expect the Germanic density
and romantic brooding of Elgars music to have held a special appeal for
Walter, but he rarely programmed Elgars compositions, confessing with
painful honesty that he was not very strongly attracted by his works, even
though he admired Elgars mastery in the Enigma Variations, the Violin
Concerto, and at least one of the symphonies. I was more deeply affected by

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his Dream of Gerontius, he wrote, and no less so by his serious and sincere
personality, revealed to me at a luncheon to which he had invited me.51
Walters interpretation of Elgars sweeping symphony generated great
enthusiasm from the audience, who let themselves go when the end was
reached and called the composer from his place in the grand circle to receive
a vociferous greeting; yet at least the Times critic felt that Walter had missed
that indefinable English inflection in the music.52 Elgar himself, however,
may not have harbored such doubts about Walters interpretation; certainly
in later years he came to hold Walter in the highest esteem. In the politically
decisive month of March Elgar wrote to a friend: I am in a maze re-
garding events in Germanywhat are they doing? In this mornings paper it
is said that the greatest conductor Bruno Walter &,stranger still,Einstein are
ostracised: are we all mad?53

Walter is best known today for his recordings of the standard (and occasion-
ally nonstandard) repertoire. Curiously enough, exactly when his long
recording career began is hard to say; he dated it from or , and
while that early date seems unlikely, his own word must be given some
weight.54 Certainly by the early s he was in the studio, making record-
ings of shorter pieces mainly with the Berlin Philharmonic. The Polydor cat-
alogue of (the company later known as Deutsche Grammophon)
listed several items conducted by Walter: the preludes to the third and
fourth acts of Carmen, Beethovens Coriolan Overture, Wagners Faust
Overture, Berliozs Carnaval romain Overture, and Mendelssohns
Hebrides Overture. These were acoustic recordings, recorded through a
horn rather than an electronic microphone, and the sound is predictably
disappointing. In order to make certain parts audible, various alterations to
the instrumentation were often necessary. Little amplifying horns were
sometimes attached to the violins, and brass instruments played along with
the double basses. The result, especially in symphonic works, ranged from
almost acceptable to risible or excruciating. Walter, however, was hardly re-
luctant to endorse the technological miracle of recorded sound: Today I
have spent over an hour listening to your records, which greatly pleased
me, he wrote in a statement used to promote Polydor records in the mid-
s. What sonic beauty in the voices, what pure reproduction and instru-
mental subtleties, what clarity and fullness in the recording of the orchestras
performance.55 To the modern listener accustomed to crystal-clear digital
sound, the words are hard to take seriously. But Walter no doubt foresaw at
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this point in his career that his claim to lasting recognition depended on his
interpretations. Only recordings could preserve those interpretations, and
throughout his later career he followed every improvement in sonic repro-
duction with considerable interest and enthusiasm. Its possible that he was
genuinely delighted to have some recordhowever inadequateof his per-
formances to bequeath to posterity. At the very end of his life, however, he
described the earliest record-player as a mechanical device emitting ugly
imitative musical noises.56 And in , when looking back on his first
recording, he recalled a less than satisfactory arrangement in which the mu-
sicians were seated as in animal cages: I was very highly posted, and the
orchestra [was] around me; far below me, the tuba and the brass, and on my
sides the strings. And there was no double bass allowed to play without be-
ing supported by the bass tubaotherwise, the low tones could not be
recorded. And the outcome was not so very enjoyable.57
Exact dates for the acoustic recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic
are unavailable, though most were done in the years and .58 Walter
also recorded several pieces with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Lon-
don. The recordings, again using the acoustic horn, were made between De-
cember and February , and the works were generally more sub-
stantial than those recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic: Strausss Tod und
Verklrung; Berliozs Dance of the Sylphes from La Damnation de Faust;
Webers Freischtz Overture; the Nocturne from Mendelssohns A Midsum-
mer Nights Dream; Wagners Sieg fried Idyll, Siegfrieds Rhine Journey,
an abbreviated version of the Prelude to Act III of Die Meistersinger; and an
instrumental arrangement of the Liebestod from Tristan (curiously, given
its importance in Walters musical development, his only studio recording of
any part of the opera). Of these, the Tod und Verklrung, the Mendelssohn
Nocturne, and the Liebestod are sonically the least successful, depending
too often on murky timbres that defy satisfactory reproduction using the
acoustic process. The other works, however, are surprisingly clear and effec-
tive.
In addition to the s that Walter made with the Berlin Philharmonic
and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, several recordings by the Berlin
Staatskapelle Orchestra, probably made in , featured Walter at the con-
ductors desk. Three of these, all overtures from the classical era, were par-
ticularly successful: two belonged to operas by Mozart, Cos fan tutte and
Idomeneo, the other to an opera by Cherubini, Les Deux Journes, ou Le Por-
teur deau (Der Wassertrger). The Mozart overtures, taken at a very brisk
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clip (perhaps to fit each work on a single side), are rhythmically incisive yet
flexible, muscular yet graceful. The Cherubini overture, though less bril-
liant, is still an impressive performance, showing Walters sensitive shaping
to good advantage. Schumanns Manfred and Berliozs Benvenuto Cellini
overtures were also among the Staatskapelle recordings. But the most signif-
icant set was of Tchaikovskys Pathtique, historically important because
it was the first complete recording of the work,as well as the first recording of
an entire symphony by Walter. A recent Deutsche Grammophon transfer of
the hard-to-reproduce sides reveals far more subtlety in this problematic
recording than one might expect, given that the score creates even more dif-
ficulties than most for reproduction through the acoustic horn.59 The lower
strings are wispy at best, and Tchaikovskys wide range of dynamic mark-
ingsone passage is to be played ppppppcan scarcely be followed faith-
fully when everything must be played loud enough to leave an audible im-
pression on the master disk. There are moments of rhythmic waywardness,
especially in the first movement, and intonation problems (perhaps the re-
sult of awkward instrumental doublings) plague every movement. The
recording is not so very enjoyable, to use Walters words, but there are ex-
hilarating moments, such as the thirty-second-note runs in the Allegro
molto vivace, even if the effect of the movement as a whole is slightly comical,
conjuring up cartoon images of a flea-circus band. The last movement, per-
haps the most satisfying, offers some aptly plangent passages.

By the end of Walter would at last land a steady position in Berlin, but
the first half of the year kept him very much on the move. At the beginning of
the year, he spent several weeks in Amsterdam with the Concertgebouw,
conducting mainly standard Germanic repertoire, though he also pro-
grammed some rarer items like the Prokofiev Violin Concerto and De-
bussys Nocturnes,and offered some light Viennese music by Johann Strauss
Jr. and Joseph Lanner. He headed for London in February to give a concert
of Wagner and Berlioz with the Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra at
Covent Garden. Performing with him was the baritone Wilhelm Rode, who
sang popular Wagnerian excerpts.60 Rode had joined the Munich troupe
not long before Walter announced his intention to leave, and at that time he
wrote a touching letter to Walter in which he wondered who could possibly
regret Walters departure more than he himself did.61 Whether he was being
sincere or merely opportunistic, however, is open to question. He worked

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with Walter on several other occasions, but when he saw which way the po-
litical wind was blowing, he became one of the first to join the very party that
had waged a campaign to expel Walter from Munich in . By he
could publish (apparently without shame) a fawning tribute to Hitler: What-
ever the Fhrer wishes and demands, him I will follow, ever and always en-
thusiastic, with an obedient, faithful and grateful Yes!62
Walter returned to New York for concerts from late February to the end
of March. He continued to look for new works by American composers, es-
pecially works that fit into a classical mold, and in Daniel Gregory Mason
composer, teacher, and authorhe found a kindred spirit, another musician
hostile to jazz and dissonance yet searching for a way to keep serious music
in step with changing times and tastes. The composer came from a distin-
guished musical family whose forebears included the organist-composer
Lowell Mason (his grandfather) and the pianist-composer William Mason
(his father). It was Walters friend Ossip Gabrilowitsch who gave Masons
career its first important push forward by promoting his Elegy for Piano,
opus , both in America and in Europe, and no doubt Gabrilowitsch first
brought the composer to Walters attention.63 Mason would later become
one of Walters key advisers on American music, and the two musicians
maintained a lively correspondence until Masons death in , discussing
in detail matters both personal and musical. For the conservative Mason,
Walter was a sign of hope for the future. Walter, in turn, programmed Ma-
sons original but by no means modernist music on several occasions, the
first being on March , , when he performed Masons Symphony in C
Minor. Olin Downes gave the work a detailed review that was, despite the
odd quibble, quite positive: This is the work of a composer who turns his
back upon sensationalism of any kind and who has more than a theoretical
admiration for what is noble and heroic.64 Downes never wrote anything so
complimentary about Mahler.
One more Symphony Society concert, given on March , deserves
mention. Two items make the program stand out from the rest: Elgars First
(which as a composition received indifferent reviews, though the perfor-
mance was lauded) and a set of vocal numbers sung by the great tenor
Roland Hayes. It was almost certainly the first time Walter had worked with
an African-American musician.Hayes sang Endure, My Soul (Geduld),
from Bachs Matthus-Passion, and two spirituals accompanied by the or-
chestra, Go Down, Moses and Bye and Bye. The last two items are not

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music that one associates with Walter, and it was probably Damrosch who
suggested Hayes, famed for his spirituals, as soloist. (Hayes sang spirituals
again the following year, when Klemperer was guest conductor of the Sym-
phony Society.) But on this occasion, as on many others, Walter showed his
willingness to explore repertoire that was foreign to him.
Shortly after his return to Berlin, he received some vexing news. When
he left New York, he had been led to believe by George Engles, the orches-
tras manager, that the Symphony Society would invite him back the follow-
ing year. The last concert, Walter wrote to Gabrilowitsch, had been sold out.
Yet he later read in the newspapers that Otto Klemperer, then a rising new
star associated with a more modern, objective approach to scores, had
been engaged instead. Walter was wounded, not only because of the slight
but also because of the devious way in which the matter had been handled.
Why hadnt Damrosch been open about his intentions? Im negotiating
with the Vienna Opera and the Deutsches Opernhaus in Berlin, he closed
his letter to Gabrilowitsch, and am curious to know where I shall rest my
weary (very weary) head.65
But there was no rest for him yet. By the spring, the German season at
Covent Garden beckoned to Walter once more. At a dinner given early in
June, Herman Klein asked him whether the tenors singing at Covent Gar-
denthe Wagnerians included Fritz Soot, Laurenz Hofer, and Fritz
Krausswere an adequate sampling of what Germanic countries had to of-
fer. Walter blurted out to Klein (perhaps not realizing that his confidences
would be shared with Kleins reading public): By no means. How it has
come about is not for me to say; but the fact remains that there are at this mo-
ment at least three, and possibly half a dozen, splendid Helden ( heroic)
tenors in Germany and Austria, any one of whom is superior to those whom
London has lately been hearing.66
Still jobless more than two years after leaving his position in Munich,
Walter pressed on with his peregrinations,hoping to find a resting place,and
an island of repose finally came into view. Though in Munich he had found
the life of an opera director utterly enervating, a tempting offera challenge,
reallycame from Charlottenburg (a district of Berlin), whose privately run
Deutsches Opernhaus, which had enjoyed visits from Walter in , had re-
cently gone bankrupt. The theater was taken over by the city, which turned
to Walter to build a high-quality ensemble without making unreasonable de-
mands on the municipal coffers.67 If anyone could accomplish the task, Wal-

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ter could: already in Munich, Adolf Weissmann noted, hed proved his abil-
ity to discover and cultivate budding talent.68 This would give the city an-
other important opera house, one that would vie with the venerable Staats-
oper, and soon Otto Klemperer would be offering radical productions at the
refurbished Kroll Operaall of which made Berlin in the late s a par-
adise for lovers of German opera, even if some Berliners feared a Twilight of
Opera.
The plan was to have Walter as the principal musical force behind the
opera and Heinz Tietjen, himself a thoroughly competent conductor, as its
general manager. But Walter had nearly burned himself out in Munich and
wasnt about to embark on another life-draining enterprise without discussing
terms in detail. He negotiated shrewdly with Tietjen over his conditions. It
was eventually agreed that Walter would take over as Generalmusikdirektor on
August , , with his contract lasting till August , .
That summer, Walterno doubt acutely aware of the pressures await-
ing him in the fallfound time to relax and read. Thoroughly taken with
Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), the new novel by his friend Thomas
Mann, Walter deemed it the most beautiful and profound work Mann had
thus far written. The time hed spent with it was more like timelessness
its remarkable that this book not only reports about the metaphysical but
also, like music, brings us into the sphere of the metaphysical.69
Late in August one more important engagement called on his services.
Since the s Salzburg had been the venue for summer festivals centering
on the citys most famous native son,Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.In the
Salzburg Festival became an annual event, placing the works of Mozart at its
core but also including the medieval drama Jedermann (Everyman), as pro-
duced by Max Reinhardt. Eventually the scope of the festival broadened
to embrace composers other than Mozart and dramatic works other than
Jedermann. In a new Festspielhaus opened, and on August Bruno
Walter appeared for the first time at the festival, leading a performance of
Donizettis Don Pasquale. The opera followed performances of Don Gio-
vanni under Muck and Figaro under Schalk. Even in the company of these
Mozartian masterpieces, however, Walter made Donizettis opera stand out,
prompting Julius Korngold to remark that, thanks to the extraordinary per-
formance under Walter, it surpassed even Figaro in effectiveness.70 In addi-
tion to Don Pasquale, Walter gave a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic,
which included Mozarts Piano Concerto in E-flat Major (K. ), featuring

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Rudolf Serkin as soloist, and he accompanied Joseph Schwarz at the piano
for an evening of song. From his debut at Salzburg till his banishment from
Austria after the Anschluss, Walter was one of the most highly esteemed reg-
ular conductors at the festival.
Though gratifyingly feted in Salzburg, Amsterdam, New York, Vienna,
and elsewhere, Walter must have felt relieved that a regular position now
awaited him in his native city. The lack of a secure job and his nomadic life
had weighed heavily on him for over two years. He could finally lay his weary
head to restat least for the moment.

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A New Opera Company

Berlin,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Hence shall we see,

If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

Already in his early career Walter had proved his talent for landing
himself in artistically vibrant centers, and now he had done so
again. Berlin in the Weimar period was the beating heart of Ger-
man culture, especially for avant-garde artists. When Walter as-
sumed his position at the Stdtische Oper, Max Reinhardts Ger-
man Theater continued to thrive (even if Reinhardt himself was
rarely in town), and the original genius of Bertolt Brecht was be-
ginning to make itself known.At the same time,Mies van der Rohe,
the future leader of the Bauhaus,was drafting designs for buildings
that would be inextricably linked with modern architecture. And
the city certainly did not suffer from a dearth of great conductors in
the s; among the master interpreters who regularly worked
there were Wilhelm Furtwngler at the Berlin Philharmonic,Erich
Kleiber at the Staatsoper, Otto Klemperer at the Kroll, and Bruno
Walter at the Stdtische Oper. (Of course, Kleiber, Klemperer, and
Walter also gave regular concert series with the Philharmonic.) If
ever there was a golden age of conducting, this was it. A famous
photograph taken on the occasion of Arturo Toscaninis visit to

Berlin in shows the five conductors banded togethertruly an embar-
rassment of richesin apparent solidarity, though shifts in the political
landscape would soon expel four of the five men in that gathering to lands far
from their native countries.
The last phase of Walters operatic career in Germany began on Sep-
tember , , with a performance of Wagners Meistersinger. Lotte Leh-
mann, as in a Covent Garden performance earlier that year, assumed the role
of Eva, and the other principals included Emil Schipper, Fritz Krauss, Ed-
uard Kandl, and Alexander Kipnis. Awaited with great anticipation, the in-
augural performance by the company proved very much an event, even if it
was not satisfying in every particular. The old house had been refurbished to
make it more appealing to the eye, but some complained that the end result
smacked of cheapness and haste, and there was general agreement that the
acoustics had suffered in the process. The brass sounded raw as never be-
fore, Max Marschalk complained, and during the entire overturecon-
ducted somewhat uneasily and nervouslyone couldnt be happy with the
sound.1 Furthermore, the orchestra continually threatened to overwhelm
the singers. But, for all that, much in the performance itself pleased. Already
in the course of the first act, Marschalk wrote, it became increasingly clear
how much the performance owed to [Walters] will and his ability to vivify
and animate the details, to bring out the truth of the dramatic expression. In
fact, the veteran critic went as far as to claim that hed never experienced
such a lively and intelligent interpretation of the first act.
There could have been no argument about who would conduct the first
performance, since Walter was, in a way, the star of the show; but his long ex-
perience had taught him much about delegating responsibility and pacing
himself. The day after the performance of Meistersinger, a new opera was put
on, Die heilige Ente by Hans Gl. Perhaps surprisingly, Walter did not con-
duct; instead, his colleague Fritz Zweig gave the Berlin premiere. And in-
deed, Zweig would conduct many performances at the Stdtische Oper un-
til , when he left to join Klemperer at the Kroll. While Walters frequent
absence from the podium was undoubtedly healthy for his constitution, the
critics began to grumble early on that the operas were being led too often by
conductors of middling talent. So Walter was now in the position that
Mahler had been in at the turn of the century, and Walters assistants were
now being treated as he had been in those trying early days.
Although the second work performed at the new opera house was a lo-
cal premiere, most of the repertoire would be quite familiar to contemporary
A N O C

audiences: Der Freischtz,Tiefland,Carmen,Don Pasquale,Faust,Les Contes
dHoffmann, the favorites by Mozart, Verdi, and Wagner, and so onlargely
the works offered at the three Munich theaters. In some cases Walter would
act as producer. He programmed nothing so daring as, say, Wozzeck (which
had its premiere in December at the Staatsoper), and the reviewers gave him
nowhere near the attention hed enjoyed in Munich. Nevertheless, now and
again a new work or a strikingly novel approach to an old work would pique
the criticscuriosity. In November, for example,Walter presented a successful
new production of Glucks Iphigenia in Aulis, with sets by Emil Preetorius.
The title role was assumed by a familiar guest artist, Delia Reinhardt, now a
member of the Berlin Staatsoper. It is notable that Emil Schipper, another
principal in the production, had been a regular under Walter in Munich, for
again and again leading singers from his Munich troupe would appear on the
stage of the Stdtische Oper, some of them as members of the new company.
Walters work in the opera house kept him busy, but it represented only
part of his activity in Berlin, since he also had a series of concerts with the
Berlin Philharmonic. His first Philharmonic program of the season, given in
October, consisted of a coupling he admired and recommended to others:
Schuberts Unfinished Symphony followed by Das Lied von der Erde.2
One of the singers in his latest traversal of Das Lied was Madame Cahier,
who had sung at the premiere performance and whose professional relations
with Walter had lasted many years.
Another artist with whom Walter would enjoy a long working relation-
ship was the violinist Erica Morini, who performed as his soloist in Novem-
ber, playing the rarely heard Glazunov Violin Concerto in A Minor; the
program also included Tchaikovskys Pathtique (which Walter had re-
cently recorded). The choice of pieces might not seem especially bold, but it
is worth bearing in mind that Walters continual interest in the works of Rus-
sian composershe would later offer new productions of Tchaikovskys
Pique Dame and Eugene Onegin in the opera housecould be interpreted
as a subversive political statement in a country with a rapidly growing num-
ber of ardent nationalists.
Though settled in Berlin, Walter continued his exhausting travels; by
late November he was in England again, conducting the London Symphony
Orchestra in a concert that featured the Schumann Cello Concerto with Pablo
Casals as soloist. It was another of those precious collaborations between
two musicians who admired each other deeply but rarely worked together.
On this occasion the great Spanish cellists compulsive practicing as-
A N O C

tounded Walter, who, after the concert, impishly chastised him for not in-
stantly taking up his instrument and getting back to work.3
If collaborations between Walter and Casals were rare, those between
Walter and Bla Bartka giant figure in twentieth-century musicwere
rarer still; but on January , , the Hungarian pianist-composer joined
Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic for a performance of his early and stylis-
tically conservative Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, opus , seldom
heard in Berlin. Yet most of Walters orchestral repertoire, like his operatic
repertoire, consisted not of rarities but of works that the conductor, the or-
chestra, and the audience pretty much knew by heart. Making them sound
fresh was a constant challenge.How did one approach such pieces? For Wal-
ter, it was crucial to make a piece like the Eroica, however familiar and even
overplayed, sound new in performance. This was the central point of an es-
say he wrote for the Deutsche Tonknstler-Zeitung in : The work must
sound as though it were being played for the first time, and the conductor
must feel that he bears the responsibility for making the piece rise fully into
the spirit and temper of its creator. I use the day before an important perfor-
mance to prepare myself for it in this way. Keeping the obtrusive noise of the
everyday far from me, I wander about in open nature and try to awaken the
mood that seized me when I heard the work for the first time.4 His striving
for that first-time experience, a constant goal in his performances through-
out his career, left a lasting impression on Yehudi Menuhin, who as a boy
first worked with Walter in : He was always trying to look for that first
moment of rapture . . . when you listen or meet or find something that
youve never seen before and which reveals some magic, Menuhin recalled.
And he was trying to look for that magic each time he made music.5
That spring, Walter returned to Covent Garden, where his appearances
were becoming a much anticipated yearly event. In the early part of May
, however, England was in the throes of a general strike, just when Wal-
ter was scheduled to launch the German season. It was with considerable in-
terest that he observed the strike and the English way of coping with it. A
feeling of solidarity manifested itself in a general and spontaneous readiness
to be of help, while a vigorous sense of humor tended to mitigate annoying
inconveniences, he recorded in his memoirs. With but a few exceptions, a
spirit of moderation and self-discipline prevented outbursts of violence.6
How typical of Walter to admire moderation and self-discipline in a time
of civil unrest; sadly, he would soon see immoderate behavior and iron disci-
pline gaining the upper hand in his own country.
A N O C

 One important concert in London took place outside the operatic
arena, when at the end of May, Walter accompanied Lotte Lehmann at the
piano for an afternoon of Wagner and Richard Strauss. Lehmann sang not
only songs written for voice and piano but also operatic selections,including
the final scene from Salome, which was really sung and not screamed out,
so that one could enjoy the sound of it despite its unpleasantness, as the
Times critic remarked.7 It was a great success, and over the years Walter and
Lehmann would join forces on many occasions, their lieder recitals being an
eagerly anticipated annual event in Salzburg.
While preparing the various operas for their performances at Covent
Garden,Walter found time to exchange letters with Tietjen,discussing guest
conductors, casting, repertoire, and finance. Tietjens letters to Walter are
often long and detailed, and one has to feel some sympathy for a man who
was so committed to his work and whom Walter so clearly disliked. Al-
though Tietjen, who negotiated behind Walters back and later flourished
during the Third Reich, may today look like a crafty opportunist, he seems
to have respected his music director immensely. (After hearing the first two
acts of Walters Tristan in April at the Stdtische Oper, he wrote that hed
never in his life heard it performed as Walter had interpreted it, that there
was no one who could match what hed accomplished.8) One of the subjects
that Tietjen brought up concerned Puccinis last opera, Turandot, given its
world premiere in April . The Stdtische Oper was striving to be the
first Berlin company to stage Puccinis posthumous work, and Tietjen
had studied the score thoroughly. Its magnificent indeed, he wrote
Walter, even if it becomes somewhat kitschy at the end. But whos to sing
Turandot, with eighty-six high Cs?9 The Italian-born Mafalda Salvatini,
who established her career outside Italy, would eventually sing the high Cs
in Berlin, for Tietjen succeeded in securing Turandot for the new company.
But not all Tietjens attempts at programming novelties at the Stdti-
sche Oper would prove so successful. Franz Schreker, whose operas Walter
had championed in Munich, remained a powerful musical force in Berlin.
His latest work,Irrelohe,was even more startling and subversive than his ear-
lier operas (depraved aristocrats have raped the local women, and incendi-
ary commoners raze the castle of Irrelohe in retribution); it seemed as good
an example of a modern German work as you could get. Apparently
Tietjen wanted to fend off criticisms that the Stdtische Oper was program-
ming works that were too conservative and neglecting contemporary operas,
for he very much wanted Walters permission to acquire Irrelohe for the
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company. Its unclear whether a rift had actually developed between Walter
and Schreker; in any case, despite Tietjens urgings, Irrelohe was not per-
formed at the Stdtische Oper during Walters tenure there.
If having a regular position in Berlin was a comfort for Walter, he con-
tinued to lead the life of a wanderer for much of the year. Milans great opera
house, La Scala, was a major venue that had so far eluded him, but on June
, , he gave his debut concert there in a program consisting of Webers
Euryanthe Overture, Mozarts Haffner Symphony, Respighis Fontane di
Roma, and Strausss Don Quixote. The reviewer for Corriere della Sera re-
marked on the audiences enthusiastic response but took a natives liberty of
criticizing Walters approach to Respighis tone poem, especially La
fontana di Trevi al meriggio, which seemed somewhat rushed and did not
emphasize the brass as much as listeners had come to expect.10 Walters re-
fined sensibilities apparently did not lend themselves to Respighis raucous
ebullience.
While in Milan Walter at last met a conductor whom he had heard about
for many years. The man he now encounteredwell known for his pene-
trating eyes, hollow cheeks, and devilish mustacheimmediately reminded
him of Lucifer.11 This demonic master of the baton was Arturo Toscanini,
who would become a close friend of Walters and whose career would paral-
lel and intersect with Walters on several occasions; both would be driven
from their native lands to find new homes in America.

The Salzburg Festival invited Walter to return in August , and the op-
eras he conducted there were Die Entfhrung and Die Fledermaus, which
featured (though only once in the same performance) Fritzi Massary as
Adele and Richard Tauber as Eisenstein. It must have been a delightful
evening. Walter was again working with Massary, whose artistry in Die Fle-
dermaus he had already savored two years before in Berlin, and Tauber was
no less satisfying. Though the tenor had plenty of experience in serious
lyric-tenor roles, he gained a large and loyal following for his work in lighter
opera, especially the operettas of Lehr, who highly prized Tauber. Walter
was certainly among his fans; in ,when asked to write a tribute for the re-
cently deceased Tauber, he recalled hearing the tenor for the first time in
Dresden: I had the feeling that there on the stage stood a born musician and
one to whom was given the secret of beauty.12
Two noteworthy events took place midway through September , as
the new season began. One was a splendid new production of Fidelio at the
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Stdtische Oper on September , with sets by Alfred Roller (who had
designed the sets for Mahlers famous production at the Vienna Hofoper in
). After the performance the Oberbrgermeister Gustav Bss threw a
banquet in honor of Walters fiftieth birthday, the other significant event.
Several prominent musical figures were invited, including Tietjen. De-
lighted that Walter and Tietjen had so quickly raised performance standards
at the new theater, Bss thanked them both heartily, though the festivities
that night focused on Walter. As a token of his esteem, Bss presented Walter
with a special baton,a pretty and valuable product of the jewelers art.Wal-
ter, for his part, gave a speech on one of his favorite themes, the difficult
choice of focusing on the art of ones own time or on art for all time, and dur-
ing the performance of Fidelio he again had the feeling that only art that
stresses the eternal is the genuine article. That didnt mean, he hastened to
add (perhaps sensing that his words would sound reactionary), that modern
works shouldnt be performed on the stage, for they too could stress the
eternal. The obvious implication behind Walters statement, of course, is
that works that dont stress the eternal and that follow fads are not worth
pursuing or producing.13
The birthday celebration touched Walter, yet on September the
Berliner Tageblatt brought an unpleasant surprise: news that Tietjen had
been appointed general manager of the Berlin Staatsoper. Incensed, Walter
called up his colleague and demanded an explanation. Tietjen explained
that he had been sworn to secrecy on the matter but argued that this turn of
events would allow both of them to realize their plan for a merger between
the Stdtische Oper and the Staatsoper. Walter remained unsatisfied: I
replied that he should not have included me in his obligation of secrecy, as I
was more vitally affected than anybody else by his assumption of a new
sphere of activity. . . . Suggestions made by me on behalf of the Municipal
Opera would from now on have to be considered by him from the stand-
point of whether or not they conflicted with the interests of the State
Opera.14 For all the praise that had recently been bestowed on Walter, this
new turn of events seemed like a slap in the face, and indeed his days at the
Stdtische Oper were numbered from that time forward.
Nevertheless, he pressed on with his work there. His most important
operatic production in was the Berlin premiere of Puccinis Turandot,
which took place on November . Walter conducted, and Tietjen was the
director. Mafalda Salvatini sang Turandot; Lotte Schne, Li; Anton Bau-
mann, Timur; and Carl Martin Oehmann, Calaf. Puccinis posthumous
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work had already played in Milan, Rome, Dresden, Cologne, and Vienna; its
historical significance was recognized immediately, and seizing it before the
Staatsoper represented a coup for the young company. Leopold Schmidt
wryly commented that the Staatsoper, preferring to dabble with fruitless ex-
periments (like Wozzeck?), had allowed the Stdtische Oper to celebrate a
genuine triumph. Walters attitude to Puccinis music at this time is hard to
pin down. He had conducted Madama Butterfly on a number of occasions,
often eliciting highly enthusiastic responses from the public and the press.
In conducting Turandot he again gave his all, accomplishing wonders with
his forces, and while the orchestra was not, as Schmidt observed, on a par
with those in Milan or Dresden, Walter inspired the players to bring out all
the wondrous sound in the score; he uncovers buried subtleties and gives us
not only what is terrifying and powerfully monumental but also a fairy-tale
sweetness and gentleness. He was justly hailed as the hero of the evening.15
Yet some had reservations about Walters approach to the work. Adolf
Weissmann found that Puccinis opera became lyricized in Bruno Walters
hands; the elements of grand opera and orientalism receded into the back-
ground.16
So much for the reception of the opera. But what did Walter himself
think of Turandot, and of Puccini generally? One would think that Puccinis
extraordinary lyric gift, his virtuoso orchestration, his deft manipulation of
well-wrought themes would have appealed strongly to the conductor. Yet
Walter says nothing of this premiere in Theme and Variations. After the ini-
tial performances, he passed the work on to Fritz Zweig, though this in itself
is no indication that Walter felt indifferent toward it, since he often turned
operas over to colleagues after a few performances during this phase of his
career. Nevertheless, he probably found Puccinis work less satisfying than,
say, the Ring or Fidelio. In he wrote to a young music student in Japan
who had expressed his admiration for Madama Butterfly, Please discrimi-
nate in music. Do not put a certainly charming work of theatrical and musi-
cal talents like Butterfly on a level with our lofty classic music by Brahms or
Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms, Schubert or Bruckner.17 Admittedly, more
is involved here than just Puccini versus the Teutonic masters; theatrical mu-
sic is pitted against lofty symphonic works. Nevertheless, Walter seems
never to have appreciated Puccini as deeply as one might have expected
from a man with a penchant for lyrical beauty.
After the premiere of Turandot Walter returned for the most part to fa-
miliar repertoire at the opera house and in the concert hall. The more out-of-
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the-way operas performed at the Stdtische Oper were taken by Walters
colleagues, mainly by Egon Pollack and Fritz Zweig. Walter led a highly suc-
cessful new production of Falstaff early in March and later that month
offered a sampling of Beethovens works with the Philharmonic, giving a
speech on Beethoven for the hundredth anniversary of the composers
death.18 His friendship with Hans Pfitzner continued to manifest itself in
tangible ways: at the end of March, a Pfitzner Week, less ambitious than the
one arranged in Munich in , took place in Berlin, with Der arme Hein-
rich and Von deutscher Seele, both under Walter, at its core. By this time, it
should be noted, Pfitzners conservative political stance had crept to the ex-
treme Right. In Pfitzner met Adolf Hitler and soon developed a pro-
found admiration for the aspiring leader of Germany.19 Walter, however,
surely knew nothing of his friends Nazi leanings and, after the war,
expressed utter disbelief when confronted with some of Pfitzners more
discreditable actions.
Success shone on Walter whenever he performed in Berlin, yet com-
plaints grew ever louder and more frequent that the director of the Stdtische
Oper was too often absent from his post. In January Walter wrote to
Gustav Bss, chairman of the operas supervisory board, that he was deeply
upset by the rebukes leveled at him for his supposed neglect of his duties
during a recent trip to Russia. The grievances had been raised not only pri-
vately, by the supervisory board, but also publicly, by the press, which had
apparently been informed by members of the board. With his patent devo-
tion to the Stdtische Oper, he wrote, he was surprised that he had to endure
such abuse. Prepared to dissolve his relationship with the opera company af-
ter his current contract expired,he hoped that delicate decisions made by the
board would not be leaked to the press. Bss wrote back that the decisions of
the board were a matter of public record and recommended that Walter
patch things up with his colleagues at the Stdtische Oper.20
The grievances about Walters absence, however annoying to the con-
ductor, were not groundless. He had left Berlin on many occasions and
would continue to do so throughout ; some of his ventures outside the
citys boundaries, though, were perfectly unobjectionable, since his contract
allowed for a fair amount of guest conducting. In May, for example, he re-
turned to Covent Garden for his annual performances there. While Walter
conducted in London, a young guest conductor, Georg Sebestyen (better
known by the name he later adopted in France, Georges Sbastian), ap-
peared at the Stdtische Oper. The Hungarian-born Sbastian had admired
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Walter on many occasions in Munich and had even written a eulogistic essay
on him for Die Musik.21 His connections with Walter would in fact reach be-
yond the limits of their musical collaborations, for he became Delia Rein-
hardts second husband, after her divorce from Gustav Schtzendorf.
(Schtzendorf, in turn, married the soprano Grete Stckgold, another
singer who frequently worked with Walter.)
While Sbastian and Walter always remained on friendly terms, the
same could not be said about Walter and another conductor, Wilhelm
Furtwngler. During Walters brief stay in England, in fact, a business trans-
action developed that was hardly likely to ease tensions between the two
German conductors, though neither was at fault. Anton Weiss of the Vienna
Philharmonic had invited Walter to conduct three or four of its subscription
concerts, along with Schalk and Furtwngler. Walter wrote back on May
that he was perfectly happy to conduct the concerts offered by the orchestra;
as for his payment, the quickest and most painless solution was to pay him
whatever Furtwngler would receive.22 (Walter didnt bother to inquire into
Schalks remuneration.) When Walter received his next letter from Weiss,
the news it brought proved irritating and insulting. Dated May , it arrived
in Walters hands only on June , and Weiss claimed in it not have received
Walters letter of May . Furtwngler, it turned out, had agreed to conduct
five or six concerts, so the Philharmonic now offered Walter only two sub-
scription concerts and one nonsubscriptionroughly half as many concerts
as Furtwngler would be conducting.23 This prompted a bitter reply from
Walter, who found the postal delays in their correspondence puzzling and
incomprehensible. But for me the most incomprehensible thing, he
wrote, is that you,after having officially offered me three to four of your reg-
ular concerts, have accepted Herr Furtwnglers demand to conduct five to
six concerts, which therefore forces you retroactively to reduce the offer
made earlier to me. You will understand that I cannot accept this, since it is
not compatible with my prestige.24
Though plans for his guest engagements in Vienna crumbled, Walter
had offers in abundance to conduct outside Berlin, some of them from the
other side of the Atlantic. Early in June he again set off for New York.
This time, however, his destinations lay far from his initial landing place; he
would cross the entire country to perform first in Cleveland and then in San
Francisco and Los Angeles. On this occasion Elsa and Gretel joined him.
Lotte remained in Europe, perhaps in Wrzburg, where she was engaged as
a singer at the Stadttheater during the and seasons. There
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she sang a number of lighter roles and met a young director, Arthur Maria
Rabenalt, whom she married.25 It was around that Rudolf Bing first
met Rabenaltwho later scored a number of successes in major theaters
at the opera house in Darmstadt. Bing recalled him as young and very tal-
ented, but married, rather unsuitably, to Bruno Walters daughter Lotte
they had been working on annual contracts at a little theater in Wrzburg,
she as a soprano, and in these little towns one has nothing else to do, so they
were married. Soon they were divorced.26 It was evidently not a happy
union, but the correspondence that has surfaced so far has shed no light on
Lottes brief first marriage.
We do, however, know something about Walters visit to the United
States. He had never experienced an American summer before, and on his
arrival in New York, where his cross-country journey began, the heat over-
whelmed him. Cleveland, he wrote, was hardly more bearable.27 The
event that drew Walter to Cleveland was the triennial Sngerfest of the North
American Sngerbund, a three-day festival beginning June . A crowd of
some , filled Public Hall and marveled at the chorus of , voices
that filled the huge auditorium with song, the Musical Courier reported.
Artistically the engagement was a triumph, and financially the results were
most gratifying.28 The orchestra consisted of players from the Cleveland
and Detroit orchestras, and Walters first appearance in Cleveland was
an unqualified success. He opened the ceremonies with the overture to
Tannhuser and returned throughout the festival to conduct other works by
German and Austrian mastersmostly standard repertoire, with the excep-
tion of the Transformation Music from Monika Vogelsang, an opera by
Rudolf Schueller, a local composer and one of the participating choral con-
ductors.29 Though by no means the only conductor, Walter was clearly the
big star. At the conclusion of the festival, according to the Musical Courier,
the , people who attended the final concert united in giving Bruno
Walter a rousing farewell that must have made a most pleasant memory for
that talented conductor to carry back with him to Germany.
But before returning to Germany, the Walters had to travel farther west.
In a sweltering train compartment they sweated their way to California,
where Walter made his Pacific debut in Hillsborough on Sunday, July
a well-attended event, even though it fell in the middle of a holiday weekend.
This was followed on July by his San Francisco debut at the Exposition
Auditorium, which drew a crowd of eight thousand. Again the popular and
critical response was enthusiastic. Like others before him (and after), Alfred
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Metzger was especially impressed at what Walter could achieve in such a
short time. Throughout the program the conductor was able, although he
had but two rehearsals, to impress his individuality and personal touch
upon the orchestra. . . . He belongs to that class of leaders who accomplish
remarkable results with just the least hint of what he wants and he has his
men so well in hand that they grasp his slightest meaning without fail. In
short, he is a great conductor.30
Another immense auditorium awaited him in Los Angeles, the Holly-
wood Bowl (seating ten thousand), which Walter approached with due cau-
tion, though this enormous outdoor stadium would become one of his regu-
lar venues in the s and s. Hollywood hype surrounded his debut
there: Elsa was identified as having been one of the best-known singers in
Germany, Gretel as a stage celebrity in Berlin.31 Despite his doubts about
the amphitheater, Walter was surprised to find that conducting in a space
whose acoustics were patently inadequate could nevertheless produce satis-
factory results. What had happened to me to make me undisturbed by the
night wind threatening the sheets on the musicians desks, to make me over-
look the insufficient brilliance of the fortissimo and the unreliability of the
pianissimo? There was the splendor of the California night, of the starry sky,
and of the dark mountains surrounding us; there was the touching silence of
the immense throng.32
The trip to America, however enjoyable, took its toll on Walters health.
Upon his return to Europe he learned that he had double pneumonia. Un-
able to participate in the Salzburg Festival, he rested in St. Moritz, Switzer-
land, during August and early September. Though this was a brief profes-
sional setback, his illness and convalescence had the advantage of bringing
to him an increased maturity and deeper tranquillity, which helped him
acquire a deeper understanding and appreciation of Bruckner.33 But his at-
tention was not devoted solely to aesthetics. This was also a period for
solemn reflection on the course his life had taken, with his difficulties in
Berlin preying on his mind. In disgust he wrote to Hans Pfitzner in late Au-
gust that, though still enervated, he hoped to arrive in Berlin midway
through September, ready for workready for aggravation would be
more like it. A public break with the Stdtische Oper had thus far been
avoided, but Walter ruled out staying there beyond the coming season, and
he doubted whether he could last even that long.34
One of the aggravations that Walter had to prepare himself for was a new
opera (first presented in Leipzig earlier that year) by Ernst Krenek, the
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young composer who had completed two movements of Mahlers Tenth
Symphony and had married Mahlers daughter Anna. Kreneks latest cre-
ation, Jonny spielt auf, had become a smash hit in Germany in a very short
time. One disenchanted reviewer characterized the works fast-spreading
popularity as an epidemic, labeling it Jonnytis vulgaris.35 Injecting jazz el-
ements into opera,Jonny was a daring and controversial work,different from
anything the Stdtische Oper had thus far presented. But the combination
of jazz and classical elements would always rub Walter the wrong way. In
, when asked whether the present time could bring forth great com-
posers, he responded, Well, why not? . . . We have some great talents today;
unfortunately, they have all let themselves be influenced so strongly by jazz
that they can no longer develop their own personalities.36 And later in his
life, in a notorious interview, he went so far as to offer a flat condemnation of
jazz as an insult. . . . The monotony of the use of percussion, the uninter-
rupted shrieking of the muted brass is nearly unbearable to me.37 Tietjen
admitted that Jonny was no more to his taste than to Walters, characterizing
it as a revue; yet he also felt that Krenek became magnificent when he in-
troduced the jazz rhythmsa telling difference between the two musicians
aesthetic sensibilities.38 Not surprisingly, Walter gave no performances of
the opera, which went to the new member of his conducting staff, Georges
Sbastian.
Other modern works, probably recommended by the business-minded
Tietjen, made their way onto the performance calendar of the Stdtische
Oper. Robert Denzler, another conductor then on the roster, led a double bill
of two older works by Stravinsky, an opera and a ballet, The Nightingale and
The Firebird. Both were billed as being presented for the first timeat the
Stdtische Oper, at least. While Sbastian and Denzler were offering Krenek
and Stravinsky,Walter refreshed operas that had become part of his repertoire.
In October he gave a new production of Glucks Orfeo ed Euridice, using his
own arrangement, which mixed elements of both the French and the Italian
versions, and which concluded not with the standard ending but, curiously,
with the finale from Glucks Echo et Narcisse.39 In December Walter revisited
an opera he had introduced to Vienna, Debussys Pellas et Mlisande.
During the same period, the Berlin Philharmonic continued with its
Bruno Walter Concerts, one of the more noteworthy taking place in early
November, when Walter and Vladimir Horowitz collaborated in a perfor-
mance of Tchaikovskys Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor. The concert
marked the first time that Walter and Horowitz performed together;
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Horowitz, of course, would go on to become the most celebrated pianist of
his generation and would marry Wanda Toscanini, daughter of the centurys
most celebrated conductor. The concert was covered by Alfred Einstein, the
new chief music reviewer for the Berliner Tageblatt, who took over the posi-
tion left vacant after Leopold Schmidts death in April. A man of extraordi-
nary cultural breadth, Einstein became one of the leading musicologists of
the twentieth century, remembered above all for his monumental study of
the Italian madrigal, though he published books on a wide variety of musical
subjects. He had heard many of Walters concerts in Munich, where hed re-
viewed for the Mnchener Post, and he had written a short tribute to Walter
for the journal Musikbltter des Anbruch.40 Though one of Walters
strongest supporters in Berlin, Einstein could also be one of his loudest crit-
ics. In reviewing the concert with Horowitz he made no attempt to conceal
his disdain for the concerto that the musicians had chosen. Nevertheless, he
was utterly won over by Horowitzs performance; the Russian pianist
played with such lan, with such a rich palette of colors, with such fine
taste, and the playing was so far removed from the brutal and the saccharine,
that one was absolutely delighted by his virtuosity and musicianship.41
Two months later Einstein reviewed the world premiere of a work by
Richard Strauss, which should have been an event of great moment. As it
happened, the piece that Walter introduced on January , , is one of
Strausss least-heard worksPanathenenzug, written for Paul Wittgen-
stein, the famous pianist who lost his right arm in World War I. A brother of
the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul came from a Viennese family
that had long supported the arts in general and music in particular; Walter
recalled having played music with Ludwigs wife during his earlier years in
Vienna.42 Strauss was by no means the only composer to write music spe-
cially for Paul Wittgenstein; indeed, the list of distinguished composers who
wrote with his special requirements in mind includes Ravel, Prokofiev,
Korngold, and Britten. The piece, running to about half an hour, took the
form of a passacaglia and was strikingly different from the aggressively post-
romantic Straussian tone poems that Walter usually conducted, though it
had an eighteenth-century neatness and restraint that would be in keeping
with some of Strausss later works, like Capriccio and the Oboe Concerto.
Unimpressed, Einstein admired the pianists artistry but found the compo-
sition itself banal and empty; Strauss, he commented, was lost without a pro-
gram.43 The piece seems to have been forgettable for Walter as well, for in

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his memoirs he made no attempt to note Strausss Panathenenzug as one of
the works hed introduced to the world.
If Einstein handled Strauss roughly in his review, his treatment of Walter
shortly afterward was plainly a case of tough love. Walters absences had be-
come intolerable for the reviewer, and a mediocre production of Handels
Ezio, conducted by Robert Denzler at the Stdtische Oper, seems to have
pushed Einstein over the edge. The production was very poorly prepared,
wholly unworthy of a major opera house in Berlin. Who was to be held ac-
countable? Surely Walter himself. It is his institute, Einstein wrote. If I may
be permitted to say so, he doesnt trouble himself enough over his institute.
His performances are good, but his are almost the only good ones. And his are
far too infrequent. We simply cant have enough of him. . . . Bruno Walters
successes in London, Amsterdam, New York, and Oklahoma [sic] bring us
heartfelt joy,but the Stdtische Oper is going to the dogs.And if he really wants
to have thirteen vacations in twelve months, then he must allow a leader and
conductor who is up to standard to take the reins during his absence.44
It was true that Walters constant traveling outside Berlin had a deleteri-
ous effect on his opera company, but the city also profited from his wander-
ings, for he encountered new soloists and young composers abroad, and
brought both foreign performers and fresh compositions to Berlin. One of
the new talents he discovered during his travels would become the foremost
symphonist of his generation. In , while Walter was guest-conducting in
what was then called Leningrad, the conductor Nicolai Malko asked him to
listen to the first symphony of a man barely past twenty, Dmitri Shosta-
kovich.45 Walter immediately recognized the budding composers original-
ity and talent and later arranged to have the work played by the Berlin Phil-
harmonic.So it was that on February ,,Shostakovichs First Symphony
had its German premiere. The four-movement work, lasting somewhat over
half an hour, bore the stamp of an individual composer who knew what he
wanted and how to achieve it. In shunning extreme experiments, the sym-
phony won over not only Walter but several of the critics, including Einstein
and Max Marschalk. He can do a great deal, this young Russian,
Marschalk wrote, and he can do more than some who, in recent years, have
caused a great fuss. He has a sense for line and color, and his instrumentation
is exceedingly skillful, one could almost say refined.46 Walters total devo-
tion to the performance was duly noted, as was his beautiful accompanying
of Artur Schnabel in Mozarts Piano Concerto in G Major (K. ), also on

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the programwhich ended with Beethovens Fifth. Clearly a memorable
night.
Although Walter and his parents lived in the same city, his schedule was
so full that he rarely had time to see them. Late in February, he wrote to them
from Budapest, You ought to receive at least a greeting from me from a far-
away country, since when Im in Berlin you hardly see me at all any more.
Here, despite all my work (I had a concert yesterday, Im conducting today
and tomorrow), Im still relatively free.47 He would be coming back to
Berlin for a few days to rehearse some operas and concerts, then off to
Prague by March . His regret at not being able to spend more time with his
parents must have increased exponentially over the next two years, for his
mother died in , his father in , both in their mid-eighties. Later,
however, from the vantage point of one who had seen the horrors of World
War II, he could find comfort in the thought that theyd been spared the
ordeal of witnessing the Nazis rise to power.48

A new opera made its way onto the stage of the Stdtische Oper in April
. The first major work by Erich Wolfgang Korngold that Walter had per-
formed since the famous double bill of Violanta and Der Ring des Polykrates
in , Das Wunder der Heliane had had its world premiere the previous
October in Hamburg. Korngolds fame, which had continued to grow since
his early successes, was reaching its peak; in a poll conducted by the
Neues Wiener Tagblatt listed him as one of the most highly esteemed men in
Austria.49 Nevertheless, much of his fame had revolved around his arrange-
ments of operettas and his spirited conducting of lighter works, so Heliane
represented, in some ways, Korngolds reminder to the world that he was
still a serious composer.
The Berlin production of Heliane, on April , , starred Grete
Stckgold in the title role, Hans Fidesser as the Stranger, Emil Schipper as
the Ruler, and Alexander Kipnis as the Jailer. The audience responded
warmly, offering ovations to the composerwho attended the performance
after the second and third acts. Putting a subversive spin on the issues, the
opera deals with such loaded themes as sexual repression and erotic libera-
tion, political and spiritual tyranny, patriarchal authority, and that perennial
favorite, adultery. To add another controversial touch, the plot has Heliane
raising the Stranger (whom she loves) from the dead, with a Christ-like
power that is not lost on the characters themselves. In the first act, Heliane is
to bare herself on stage for the Stranger, and even if she is actually wearing a
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chemise of airy thinness underneath her cloak, the disrobing must have
achieved a stunningly sensual effect. While some of these themes had made
their way into opera long before, the thin edge of the wedge was slowly pry-
ing open the door of propriety; Einstein, who had reviewed the world pre-
miere, reiterated his thorough distaste for the libretto, though he allowed
that the music was incomparably better than the book. All the same, the
music (like the book) was too derivative for himtoo Puccinian (though to
modern ears Korngolds distinctive voice is far louder than Puccinis). Wal-
ters interpretation stressed the drama above all, and Einstein noted the im-
pressive dramatic intensity that Walter built in the final act.50 Although the
opera had been a box office success in several cities and, as a cultural artifact,
was widely viewed as a foil to the enormously popular Jonny spielt auf, its
run in Berlin was short-lived.51 Walters yearly commitments at Covent Gar-
den took him away from the opera soon after its initial performances, and
even those had hardly won over the critics. One of the reviewers, Adolf
Weissmann, commenting on its ill reception in Berlin, conceded that the li-
bretto contained matter potentially effective on the stage, and also that Korn-
gold knew how to write opera as almost no one else did. Its only a pity, he
added, that he has so little taste.52
While the earlier part of May found Walter again conducting Wagner in
Londonthe Ring cycle, Die Meistersingerthe real excitement awaited
him at the end of the month. On May he arrived in Paris to lead a month-
long Mozart marathon that would prove a revelation to the French while tax-
ing Walters stamina to the point of collapse. Already in plans had been
made for a Wagner Festival to be held in March at the Grand Thtre des
Champs-lyses, with Walter and Erich Kleiber sharing the conducting du-
ties, but the festival never materialized.53 Now Walter alone, beginning on
May , , was scheduled to conduct a series of five Mozart operas, each
work receiving three performances, all in close succession: Don Giovanni
(in Italian), Cos fan tutte (in Italian), Die Zauberflte (in German), Die Ent-
fhrung (in French), and Le nozze di Figaro (in French). Before leading the
operatic performances, he gave a concert with the Orchestre de la Socit
des Concerts, and at some point he found time to record several sides with
the Festival Orchestra. Almost predictably, exhaustion overwhelmed him
just as he reached Figaro, and doctors ordered him to rest. On very short no-
tice, Reynaldo Hahncritic, composer, singer, conductor, and erstwhile in-
timate of Marcel Proustkindly agreed to take over the last leg of this jour-
ney through the major Mozart operas.54
A N O C

 For his Paris concert debut, on May in the Salle Pleyel, Walter offered
Mahlers Fourth, with Rene Destanges as soprano soloist, and Stravinskys
Piano Concerto, with the composer himself at the keyboard. Furtwngler
had just visited Paris on tour with the Berlin Philharmonic, leaving a
stronger impression than Walter, who, as one critic noted, wasnt conduct-
ing his own ensemble and hadnt had adequate time to rehearse.55 (Walter
must have flinched to hear the unflattering comparison with his younger ri-
val, which would doubtless have opened old woundsthe missed positions
in Leipzig and Berlin, the frustrated concert series in Vienna.) Nevertheless,
despite far from ideal conditions, Walter managed to deliver a memorable
performance. Robert Brussel, reviewing the concert in Le Figaro, had previ-
ously known Walter only as an operatic conductor who captured the spirit
of the worksmainly through his fidelity to the texts.He found many of the
same qualities when Walter directed an orchestra in concert. His gestures
are precise without ever being automatic, firm but not at all hard, passionate
without being bombastic.56
While Mahlers Fourth was a work that Walter conducted with great fre-
quency throughout his career, the music of Igor Stravinskyby some ac-
counts, the greatest composer of the twentieth centuryrarely appeared on
Walters programs. During the season, however, he had pro-
grammed Stravinskys Pulcinella Suite in Berlin and Leipzig. That suite, of
course, belongs to Stravinskys neoclassical period, the movements being
based on eighteenth-century works once attributed to Pergolesi. It is there-
fore not surprising that the Piano Concerto, the Stravinsky piece that Walter
chose for his concert in Paris, was also markedly neoclassical in character
Brussel drew a comparison with Bachs Fifth Brandenburgthough the an-
gular lines, dissonances, and sharp syncopations represented a tangible link
with modernism. How did Walter approach the piece? One reliable eyewit-
ness, Stravinsky himself, offered a surprising account: The performance
was a pleasure altogether unanticipated. I expected a Romantiker, from such
a different and vergangenen generation, to lack the technique for this kind of
music, but my scrambled meters gave him no trouble at all and he conducted
the Concerto as well as any conductor with whom I played it. (I, on the other
hand,would never have the technique to do hismusic; I sorely envied his ru-
bato.)57 It was a gracious tribute indeed to a conductor who had never per-
formed (and had probably never liked) Le Sacre du printemps.58
If the orchestral concert drew qualified praise from the critics, the
Mozart operas were a colossal success. They took place at the Thtre des
A N O C

Champs-lyses, and the ensemble was again the Orchestre de la Socit
des Concerts du Conservatoire. One of the purposes of the festival was to
bring together musicians from different nations to collaborate artistically,
and among Walters cosmopolitan cast of singers were Mariano Stabile,
Frida Leider, Alexander Kipnis, Lotte Schne, Marie Gerhardt, Hans
Fidesser, Paul Bender, Rene Destanges, Georges Meader, Gabrielle Ritter-
Ciampi, and Ren Maison.59 The event won popular and critical acclaim;
according to one report, so many Parisians flocked to the theater to hear Die
Zauberflte that over five hundred had to be turned away from the last per-
formance.60 In his reviews, Pierre-Barthlemy Gheusi of Le Figaro attrib-
uted much of the success of the Mozart cycle to Walters masterly conduct-
ing, which showed what could be accomplished with the musicians who
performed regularly in Paris. It would be saddening, he wrote, if such
lessons were lost on our conductors.61
The only sound documents of the festival itself are studio recordings of
the overtures to Die Zauberflte and Le nozze di Figaro (the latter very rare
and never officially released), both with the Festival Orchestra.62 Walter
takes decidedly brisk tempi for both overtures, and the effect is exhilarating.
He also conducted the same orchestra in a recording of Schumanns Fourth
Symphony, with more uneven results. The intonation, especially between
the strings and the woodwinds, leaves much to be desired, and a number of
uneasy transitions from one tempo to another suggest very limited rehearsal
time. Nevertheless, this is a vigorous performance, and some of the ac-
celerandi and crescendi are particularly forceful. There is nothing cautious
or routine in the playing.
After the Mozart cycle Walter felt thoroughly drained and, according to
one report, irritated at how the business side of the festival had been man-
aged.63 During his enforced period of relaxation in Switzerland, he rumi-
nated on the unsatisfactory state of affairs at the Stdtische Oper. Tietjen
had the misfortune of having to consult him on several vexing business mat-
ters. The tenor Hans Fidesser, who had worked with Walter in Berlin and
Paris and whom Walter wanted to retain at the Stdtische Oper, was appar-
ently trying to negotiate an arrangement with the Kroll Opera allowing him
to perform in both houses.64 It was not the kind of news that Walter wanted
to hear. In general, he was also suffering from a malaise over the current state
of opera. At some point, probably in , he wrote an essay to which he gave
the ominously Wagnerian title Operndmmerung (The Twilight of
Opera).65 His point of departure is the question whether opera as a
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medium, as an idea, has become obsolete. He thinks not. How should
one accept that such riches would lose their charm or that the capability for
inspired surrender, the love for the human voice and for music, the interest
in dramatic development, and so forth, could wither? Then we would stand
before a Twilight of the Soul, and it would be not opera but rather the hu-
man heart and its role in culture that would be in danger. For Walter, the real
enemy to the future of opera lurks in the carefully prepared new production
. . . that alters the spirit of the work, lifting it from its proper sphere in order
. . . to force upon it the allure of novelty. He makes a plea for authenticity
and, in doing so, apparently sides once again with the more conservative
element. Walter, however, doesnt want to conserve what is dead but to
maintain vitality in what is living, as his concluding analogy shows: The in-
stitutions to whose care opera is entrusted almost have the duty of a zoolog-
ical garden, whose directors must provide living conditions corresponding
to the nature of each of the creatures in their care in order to keep it healthy
and to allow the full development of its being. His troubled thoughts about
the future of opera were no doubt inspired in part by his unsatisfactory rela-
tionship with Tietjen at the Stdtische Oper, which created tensions that
would soon lead to open conflict.
By August, Walter had regained his strength and was ready to face yet
another Mozart Festival, this one in Salzburg, where he conducted Cos as
well as three concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic. But while he entered
Mozarts world of well-governed harmonies, surrounded as he was by gor-
geous landscapes and splendid architecture, he no doubt felt a need to re-
solve the ever growing dissonance in his operatic work at the Stdtische
Oper. After much frustrating correspondence with Tietjen and others about
running the theater, Walter wrote a long letter in September to Gustav Bss,
who had been one of his staunchest supporters. In , Walter wrote, he
had become musical director of an independent opera house. Tietjen had
discussed the possibility of establishing a connection between the Stdti-
sche Oper and the Staatsoper, a collaboration that could work, in Walters
opinion, only if the two companies merged under the joint directorship of
himself and Tietjen. This might well have led to the building of a single, very
strong Berlin company. But Tietjen alone had assumed the directorship of
the Staatsoper, while still acting as manager of the Stdtische Oper, and Wal-
ter was limited to being music director at the new house. I am now the cap-
tain of a ship, Walter moaned, that has been coupled by a cable to the jour-
ney of another ship. As an example, he cited the difficulties with Fidesser,
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whose services were sought by the Kroll and the Staatsoper. Walter felt that,
for aesthetic and practical reasons, Fidesser would have to confine his activ-
ities to the Stdtische Oper, and Tietjen had shown solidarity with Walter.
Yet several weeks after the matter had apparently been settled, Tietjen al-
lowed Fidesser to sing at the Staatsoperan utterly unacceptable turn of
events for Walter. And there were bound to be other situations in which
Tietjen, as manager of both houses, would make decisions regarding casting
and repertoire that would be in his own interests, not in Walters, and on
which Tietjen would have the final word. The current state of affairs was
galling for Walter, who had grown accustomed, in Munich, to having a
clearly defined role regarding the organization and development of a uni-
fied, independent company, whereas now he had an unclear position in a
company that had lost its independence. After voicing his grievances, Walter
asked for Bsss confidential promise to accept his resignation. The affair
would be kept quiet unless the situation grew so unbearable that Walter
would feel compelled to make a public statement, and then the two of them
could agree on the exact form that statement would take.66 The negotiations
recalled, in some particulars, those awkward months in before Walters
departure from Vienna, when he desperately wanted to quit the city.
As Walters relationship to the Stdtische Oper continued to deterio-
rate, his connection with the Gewandhaus Orchestra grew stronger. For the
season, Walter was allotted the better part of the Gewandhaus con-
certs, and on October he made a positive impression on the critic Adolf
Aber in Leipzig with the first of his concerts for the new season. Abers pref-
erence for Walter over Furtwnglerwho had recently left his position at the
Gewandhausis unmistakable. For Aber, Furtwngler had done much to
eliminate the freedom that Arthur Nikisch had achieved with the orchestra,
and Walter, no despot, was liberating the players again:
He doesnt have to force upon the orchestra his thoughts on every
quarter note and every eighth; he even allows himself to be carried
for a while by the waves until, when the climax approaches, he re-
takes the helm with greater firmness and pulls every last bit from his
musicians. Such music making requires from the orchestra its own
highly developed joy in playing music, its own ardor. All this
Arthur Nikisch once cultivated in the orchestra to the highest de-
gree. And it seems to me that quite some time must pass before the
orchestra, which in recent years has been accustomed to uncondi-

A N O C

 tional subordination under Wilhelm Furtwnglers victorious will,
finds its way again to this freer sort of music making.67
It may come as a surprise to see Furtwngler, now often viewed as an expo-
nent of rhythmically free interpretation, portrayed as something of a musi-
cal dictator, while Walter, today remembered largely for the sensuously flex-
ible yet controlled performances of his last years, is admired for the freedom
he gives to the orchestra. Yet how sharp-sighted of Aber to recognize Wal-
ters striving for a communal effort on the part of the orchestral players, who
were expected to have their own highly developed joy in playing music.
At the opera house in Berlin, standard repertoire prevailed, though
Robert Denzler gave the local premieres of Kurt Weills Der Protagonist and
Der Zar lsst sich photographieren in October. Walter enjoyed a triumph
with a new production of the Paris version of Tannhuser and,on November
, , gave the world premiere of Julius Bittners Mondnacht. The new
work, strongly Viennese in plot and music (like Bittners earlier operas), was
well receivedlargely, as the reviewers noted, because Walter himself had
brought so much to the production. Another triumph was Walters new pro-
duction of Verdis Otello, given in December, with Carl Martin Oehmann as
Otello, Maria Mller as Desdemona, and Wilhelm Rode (a guest from Mu-
nich) as Iago. To judge from the many clippings that Walter had amassed, it
was a production that he was particularly proud of.
Highlights of Walters concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic at the end
of included a performance of Mahlers Third, a Schubert program in
which Walter accompanied Dusolina Giannini at the piano, and a perfor-
mance of Ernest Blochs Concerto Grosso, also with Walter at the keyboard.
The reviewer Karl Westermeyer noted that, several weeks before, Blochs
piece had been introduced to Berlin by Heinz Unger, at which time it had
met a lukewarm reception; now, for the same piece under Walter, the
applause was great.68
An entire program of out-of-the-way music, coupled with an unprece-
dented choice for a conducting partner, distinguished a concert Walter gave
at the end of the year. Always aware of womens contributions to musical cul-
ture, Walter made history at the Berlin Philharmonic on December , ,
by helping to break down a long-held gender barrier. He devoted an entire
program to the music of his old friend Ethel Smyth, and, since they shared
duties at the podium, Smyth became the first woman to conduct either the
Berlin Philharmonic or the Bruno Kittel Choir, which participated in the

A N O C

concert. The program began with the overture to The Boatswains Mate,
conducted by Walter; then Smyth directed a performance of her Concerto
for Violin, Horn, and Orchestra, with Marjorie Hayward playing the violin
and Aubrey Brain the horn. Walter returned for the Prelude to Act II of The
Wreckers, followed by love scenes from the same act, sung by Rose Pauly
one of the centurys most celebrated Elektras, then known as Rose Pauly-
Deesenand Carl Martin Oehmann. The concert concluded with two
choral numbers, Nacht (Sleepless Dreams) and He holla ho (Hey
Nonny No), under Smyth. The audience responded with tremendous fer-
vor, though Westermeyer later wrote that the benevolent applause was not to
deceive anyone into thinking the concert had been a success: She is not a
composer in the true sense of the word, not a creative nature, he carped,
for the derivative character of her music is unmistakable.69

While Walter enjoyed his share of triumphs and endured ever-growing frus-
trations in Berlin, his reputation outside his home city continued to reach
new heights. It is a sign of Walters increasing importance in the worldwide
musical scene that, at the beginning of , when Toscanini was unable to
conduct the Philharmonic Symphony-Society of New Yorkan ensemble
that had come into being when the New York Philharmonic and its rival the
New York Symphony Orchestra merged in Arthur Judson asked
Walter in confidence whether he could take Toscaninis place. It was obvi-
ously in the best interest of the newly assembled organization to have con-
ductors who would draw the largest audiences and whose names enjoyed
the highest prestige. Despite the tempting offer, Walter cabled back: -
.70
The concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic held few surprises in the
earlier part of . One novelty for Berlin was Janceks Taras Bulba,
though the piece was then over a decade old. While Janceks music rarely
appeared on Walters programs, this tone poem seems to have appealed to
him, for he continued to perform it well into the s. Other high points in
the Philharmonics programs included the Brahms Piano Concerto in D Mi-
nor, with Edwin Fischer as soloist; Beethovens Missa solemnis, with the
Bruno Kittel Choir; and Mozarts Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat Major
(K. ), with Walter and Ossip Gabrilowitsch playing the keyboards.
The inevitable news was made public in the latter part of March :
Walter would be leaving the Stdtische Oper at the end of the current sea-

A N O C

son. His frustrations with the present state of affairsin which Tietjen con-
trolled both houses while Walter was music director of only onehad be-
come intolerable. He had longed to transform the two opera companies into
a unified ensemble, with a stable roster and plenty of first-rate singers.
Instead, he was forced to accommodate two separate institutions and to put
up with unstable personnel and casts that juxtaposed mediocre and superb
talents. For years he had asked for greater cooperation and had found it
wanting. Seeing no indication that the situation would improve, and having
informed the management long before that he would leave if no steps were
taken to rectify the situation, he chose to relinquish his duties at the Stdti-
sche Oper.71
Some were stunned by the news. In Vienna Lotte Lehmann heard re-
ports so contradictory that she didnt know what to believe. Should you
not remain the leader of the Stdtische Oper, she wrote, I also wouldnt
want to sing there any more. This opera company stands and falls with you,
and it will turn into a second-rate institution the moment your hands have
left the reins.72 The Berlin critics were united in viewing this turn of events
as an artistic blow to their city. The Vossische Zeitung carried a long front-
page story explaining the events that had resulted in Walters departure.73 In
the Berliner Tageblatt Einstein ran a tribute to Walter, sympathizing with his
desire for a merger between the Staatsoper and the Stdtische Oper under
unified artistic direction.74 Though it was common knowledge that Walter
was next in line to conduct the Gewandhaus Orchestra, for a while there was
hope that he might reconsider leaving the Stdtische Oper; but by the early
days of April, Einstein had reconciled himself to the inevitable. From my
own memories, he wrote, I dont know what the institute was before his ar-
rival, but I know what it became when he himself prepared and conducted a
performance, to what heights of accomplishment it could rise. Though
pained by the loss of such a great artist, Einstein knew that Walters depar-
ture was based largely on his convictions: Walter himself is inclined to see a
symbolic act in his departure from the Stdtische Oper. He is turning away
from a moribund cultural form that now leads an artificial existencea lux-
ury item, for which there is no longer a vital need. Perhaps he is right, though
our point of view must differ from his. It is saddening that one of the
strongest props of the opera tradition is leaving the Berlin opera in the lurch
at a critical moment, and it becomes all the more crucial for all those who are
responsible to support this tradition or, better yet, to create it anew.75

A N O C

 As in Munich, Walter chose to perform Pergolesis La serva padrona
and Schencks Dorfbarbier (but not Acis and Galatea) after announcing his
departure. The comic operas, presented on March , were perhaps meant
as a sugar coating to the bitter pill he was offering. The same double bill of
comic operas was scheduled for April ; Walters services, however, were
required elsewhere. A violin prodigy had been scheduled to perform three
concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic under Fritz Busch,but Busch had to
travel to Dresden at the last minute owing to the death of his father. The con-
cert agent Louise Wolff quickly contacted Walter, who agreed to substitute
on very short notice. The young violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, recorded in his
memoirs his gratitude to Walter on the occasion of his Berlin debut: I do
not believe that anyone else of his eminence would have cancelled an en-
gagement at the opera, as he did, to conduct for a twelve-year-old traveling
fiddler known to him only by report. Not only was Walter canceling an en-
gagement at the Stdtische Oper; he was canceling one of his farewell ap-
pearances there. Menuhin recalled the tremendous musical support he felt
playing under Walter: It seemed that whatever I did, he was always there,
perfectly with me, an accompanist such as I had never known, who left me
with no sense of pushing, no sense of pulling.76
Walters final opera during his tenure at the Stdtische Oper, given on
April , was Fidelioanother echo of his farewell to Munich. Then he was
off to London for the German season from late April to late May, once again
with his usual singers: Reinhardt, Lehmann, Leider, Olszewska, Melchior,
Kipnis, and the rest. On his return to Berlin he enjoyed a special musical
treat. His friend Arturo Toscanini and his Milan troupe toured Vienna and
Berlin in May. All the scenery, stage machinery, and costumes were im-
ported from Milan, and even the stage directors, electricians, tailors, hair-
dressers, and shoemakers of the Scala family were brought along.77
Berlin audiences sat spellbound as they listened to Toscaninis intensely
driven interpretations of Aida, Falstaff, Lucia, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto,
and Il trovatore. The Italian conductor ran a tight ship, and his unsentimen-
tal approach to Verdi, Donizetti, and Puccini proved revelatory. Walter at-
tended some of these performances, admiring them for their perfection and
stylistic sureness.78 For a Berlin Festival held the following month (during
which Furtwngler led a performance of Beethovens Ninth), Walter con-
ducted one work, Das Lied von der Erde, with Sigrid Onegin and Jacques
Urlus, on June . After that, aside from his occasional guest engagements,

A N O C

which included his popular concert series with the Philharmonic, Walters
work in Berlin was over.
In an interview given after his departure from the Stdtische Oper, Wal-
ter lamented the financial crisis in Europe that made it difficult for music-
lovers to attend concerts. In America, things were quite different. The
American has above all the desire to advance culturally, to learn something,
to see something new, Walter observed. The cost of going to a concert
doesnt play a role in his budget. He is not burdened by it; on the contrary, he
has the inner freedom to enjoy the evening, which is to bring him new
sources of stimulation. In fact, the atmosphere at a concert in America was
well-nigh ideal, and the American public could be reckoned among the
most artistically knowledgeable in the world.79
Perhaps with these idealized thoughts in mind, Walter spent the sum-
mer in the United States again, this time limiting himself to West Coast ap-
pearances, conducting in San Francisco and Los Angeles (again at the Hol-
lywood Bowl) in late July and August. In both cities he included Blochs
Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra and Piano Obbligato, taking the key-
board part himself. While most of the other repertoire was predictable, a few
items that were unusual for Walter made their way onto his programs:
Prokofievs ClassicalSymphony,Charpentiers Impressions dItalie,Ravels
Rhapsodie espagnole, and Tchaikovskys Nutcracker Suite.
On his return to Europe Walter paid a visit to Sweden, where, on Octo-
ber , he gave his first concert with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
The heart of the program was Mahlers First, complemented by Strausss
Don Juan and Mozarts Eine kleine Nachtmusik. While the orchestra would
enjoy his intermittent visits until , Sweden itself would have special sig-
nificance for Walter when the political climate in Germany grew hazardous,
since Gothenburg not only served as a sanctuary for his brother and sister
during the Nazi period but eventually became their new home. The situa-
tion in Germany, however, had not yet become critical, and Walter headed
back to Berlin and Leipzig to commence the last phase of his career in his
mother country.

A N O C



Gewandhauskapellmeister
Leipzig,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

I did not understand a world

Where such a thing might happen . . .
Pfitzner, Palestrina

The position of music director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of

Leipzig, one of Europes most venerable musical establishments,
with its roots in J. S. Bachs Leipzig collegium, appealed strongly
to Walters love of cultural continuity. The orchestras twofold tra-
dition of keeping alive the great musical works of the past while
championing important new compositions was close to Walters
heart, and he was prepared to commit the rest of his active career
to it. To care for its continued mission and its enduring impor-
tance in the musical life of Europe seemed to me, a man of fifty-
three, a worthy task for the rest of my life, he stated in his autobi-
ography, adding a little sadly: Like so many others, I expected to
see Nazism decline . . . and, with the Gewandhaus as the center of
my work, looked forward to a flourishing activity in a progres-
sively musical and decreasingly political world.1 As late as
he would still maintain, at least publicly, that such an illustrious
institution should not be affected by unsettling political events
that it must be allowed to carry out its artistic tasks in the higher

sphere in which it belonged, just as earthquakes cannot disturb the bird in
flight.2
Walters esteem for Leipzig as a musical center was reciprocated by the
players, many of whom wrote to Walter after the war, and especially by the
music devotees who had experienced Walters conducting as early as
and must have had vivid memories of his concerts during the and
seasons, in addition to his ten concerts of the season.3
Walters manner of conducting reminded some of Nikisch, a history of the
Gewandhaus reported, and that was felt at once by the Gewandhaus. The
people of Leipzig could relate to Walter more than to Furtwngler.4 One of
the leading Leipzig critics, Adolf Aber of the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten
(also the Leipzig correspondent for Die Musik), emphasized how lucky the
Gewandhaus was to have secured someone of Walters stature and interna-
tional reputation so soon after Furtwnglers abrupt departure. Aber, whose
high opinion of Walter hardly ever wavered, patently regarded Walter as
Nikischs true successor, writing that with Walters appointment, an unset-
tling chapter in the history of the Gewandhaus, an interregnum of several
years, has been brought to an end. Enthusiastic about Walters program-
ming, he noted how the conductor supported the promotion of contempo-
rary creations with especial warmth.5
There was, however, one aspect of the Leipzig job that was less attrac-
tive to Walterthe prospect of residing in the city itself, a place singularly
devoid of charm, in Walters words.6 To his disappointment he could find
no trace of the young student Goethe, and, on the whole, the city seemed so-
cially and architecturally (perhaps even gastronomically) uninspiring, de-
spite its thriving university life. So he decided to keep his Berlin home, espe-
cially since he was still conducting a regular series of Bruno Walter Concerts
with the Berlin Philharmonic. The Gewandhaus season was sufficiently
light to allow him to travel back and forth between the two cities; the distance
at that time could be covered in about two and a half hours by car.
Though it is doubtful that Walter voiced his disenchantment with
Leipzig to any of its public officials, his harsh judgment of the city as a place
to live and his decision to remain in Berlinthe acknowledged center of
German culture during the Weimar periodmay not have sat so well with
the denizens of Leipzig. For instance, Alfred Heuss, the critic for the
Zeitschrift fr Musik (and formerly its editor), initially doubted Walters
dedication to the orchestra, wondering in January if Walter would re-
ally be a true Gewandhauskapellmeister or merely a semi-regular guest con-
G

ductor.7 At some point Heuss apparently decided on the latter, for in a re-
view of a concert devoted to Haydn, the performance of which he did not
care for one bit, he remarked that Walters programming was incoherent
because for Bruno Walter, Leipzig is nothing more than a side occupa-
tion.8 Even Aber, Walters champion, fretted that Walters many interna-
tional activities might prevent him from wholeheartedly dedicating himself to
the Gewandhauss well-being, though he was soon reassured on that score.9
Walters first concert in his new role as Gewandhauskapellmeister took
place on October , just a week after the death of chancellor Gustav Strese-
mann and just eighteen days before the fateful New York Stock Exchange
crash, which plunged the German economy into the worldwide Great De-
pression, undoing the small amount of economic recovery that had taken
place during the previous six years under Stresemann. Loans from America
had been a large part of that recovery; when the crash instantly dried them
up and the older loans suddenly became due, Germanys still fragile econ-
omy began to collapse. Many historians agree that it was this combination of
economic events that enabled Hitler and his Nazi Party to begin their final
successful campaign for political power; once again Walter had rounded a
bend in what he hoped would be a purely artistic, nonpolitical career, only to
be thwarted by political events after all.
Nevertheless, his first season with the Gewandhaus, in which he con-
ducted ten of the regularly scheduled nineteen concerts (and two additional
concerts),seems to have gone fairly smoothly.Both Aber and Max Steinitzer,
the other critic for the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, wrote accounts of Wal-
ters performances that glowed off the page. For them, a new era in Gewand-
haus history had begun. But Walter got only mixed, if respectful, reviews
from Alfred Heuss, a founding member of Alfred Rosenbergs Kampfbund
fr deutsche Kultur, formed in to fight modernism. A Mozart scholar of
some repute, Heuss seems to have had very definite expectations concern-
ing the proper performance of Mozarts (and other earlier composers) mu-
sicexpectations that Walter failed to meet. Walters music-making was
exceptionally rich, he reported in his review of Walters first Gewandhaus
concert; that is to say, too rich in the classical first movement of the Con-
certo Grosso in G Minor by Handel and the Eighth Symphony of
Beethoven, so that the overpotent luxuriousness of soundwonderfully
lovely at firstwith time dulls somewhat. But with Strausss Tod und Ver-
klrung, Heuss declared, Walter (here politely referred to as the great con-
ductor) was completely in his musical element.10
G

 Clearly grouping Walter in the romantic school of conducting, Heuss
described, in an article on the performance practice of Mozart and other
classical composers, how Walter made undue use of crescendi. He decried
Walters relapse into a Wagnerian style of conducting, which, with all the
new understanding of the proper way of executing dynamics in the works of
classical composers (that is, with sudden shifts from piano to forte, rather
than gradual crescendi), Heuss found not really justifiable today.11 Ironi-
cally, Walters performance of Tchaikovskys Fifth Symphony the following
season, in December , seemed too classical in style: It was played with
such sharp articulation, as if it were by Haydn.12 So for Heuss, Walters
classicism was too romantic, his romanticism too classical. Unfortunately,
Walters performances with the Gewandhaus from this period have not, so
far as we know, been preserved on private recordings, but his studio record-
ings of Mozarts Symphony no. in G Minor with the Berlin Staatskapelle
(January ) and the overture to Le nozze di Figaro with the British Sym-
phony Orchestra (April ), as well as recordings of classical symphonies
with the Vienna Philharmonic from a few years later, reveal clean (almost
period) articulation, tapered phrases, and generally quick tempi.13 Of
course, Heuss might have taken exception to the occasional Wagnerian re-
laxation of tempi for lyrical second themes.
Heuss was, not surprisingly, vastly more conservative in his tastes than
Aber or Steinitzer, both of whom were fairly favorable toward the new com-
positions Walter chose, with a few reservations from time to time. But
Heuss, a few years earlier, had published a long, three-part article entitled
Discussions of the Style of New Music, in which he lamented the decline
of Germanic music.14 While citing French Impressionist influences, among
other causes, as being to blame, he also offered some not very positive com-
ments concerning Schoenbergs music, to which an entire section was de-
voted. Heuss was unhappy with many of the new works that Walter chose to
perform, though not because they were too modern. Rather, they seemed
too lightweight by comparison with the great German masters. Of the works
performed during October and November of Walters first season, Kurt
Thomass Serenade was no joy, lacking in style and emotionally some-
what limited, while Ravels gorgeous song sequence Shhrazade had little
musical to say to Heuss, and Kreneks Kleine Sinfonie provoked the critics
open contempt.15 On Shostakovichs First Symphony, he at least bestowed
cautious praise, concluding that more should be heard from this composer
discovered by Walter.16 But in Walters almost four seasons as Gewand-
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hauskapellmeister, the only modern work to earn Heusss outright praise
was a piece by Hermann Wetzler, the German-born son of American par-
ents: a symphonic poem entitled Assisi, given on March , , which
Heuss described as a beautiful, noble work.17
Though Heusss estimation of Walters conducting was by no means
entirely negative, the overall tone of his reviews was generally much less
complimentary than that of the other Leipzig reviewers and that of Heusss
Berlin colleague Fritz Stege, who reviewed Walters Berlin activities for the
Zeitschrift fr Musik. Oddly enough, Steges views were more straightfor-
wardly racist than Heussshe was the musical adviser to the Deutsch-
vlkische Freiheitsbewegung, an organization that later merged with the
Nazi Party. Yet his estimation of Walters conducting during these last, deci-
sive years was generally quite approving. His reviews and those of others, like
Alfred Einstein,are sufficiently complimentary to reassure us that Walters bat-
teries were not running down, as Heuss would often have his readers believe.
In fact, early in Walter conducted a program with the Berlin Phil-
harmonic that must have required especial liveliness on his part: Tnze
aus zwei Jahrhunderten, with orchestral dances by Beethoven, Mozart,
Rossini, Dvork, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Schubert, and, of course,
Johann Strauss. There was also a striking work by Richard Strauss, an
arrangement of keyboard dances from Franois Couperins harpsichord
suites. Einstein gave this unusual program an encomiastic review, admiring
Walters ability to breathe life into so many different styles (though he admit-
ted that the Strauss work had little to do with Couperin): One can hardly
say which piece from this abundance Walter brought off with more fulfill-
ment, more freedom, more life: the clarity and resilience of the classical or
the sensuous rubato of the Slavic pieces. It was a feast.18
Walter was especially fond of Viennese waltzes; Thomas Mann re-
corded an occasion on which the Manns and the Walters met in a Viennese
caf, where Walter eventually sat down at the Bsendorfer piano and
played.19 We can actually get some idea of how this might have sounded
from a recording he made in his Beverly Hills home in that included
Strausss Wiener Blut and Wienerwald.20 Though Walters piano is out
of tune and his technique rusty, hardly the match for his great flexibility of
rhythm and liveliness of articulation, his obvious enjoyment at rendering
these Viennese standards resonates in every bar. Alex Nifosi of the BBC
Symphony Orchestra described the dedication and sense of style Walter
displayed when conducting a Strauss waltz: It was almost as if he were
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showing off his beloved Vienna . . . There was certainly no hint in it that he
was playing music of a quality any different from his normal symphonic
repertoire.21 And the same could easily be said for the Strauss selections
that he recorded with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in , though
the liveliest and most sweeping of all his extant Strauss performances were
captured in ,when in Edinburgh he led the Vienna Philharmonic for the
first time after the end of World War II.22
Given his enthusiasm for Strauss waltzes, it is no surprise that Walter
had a high regard for Die Fledermaus, considering it a work of art unique in
its kind, possessing beauty without heaviness, levity without vulgarity,
gaiety without frivolity, and a strange mixture of exuberant musical richness
(somewhat resembling Schubert), and popular simplicity. That, at least,
was how he described the charm of the work, adding the qualifier that all
magical attractionand happily soremains inexplicable, simply because
it is magic.23 Early would find him conducting it once again, this time
in Amsterdam on February at the Wagner-Vereeniging in a highly suc-
cessful production directed by Franz L. Hrth. Indeed, it was so successful
that it piqued the interests of both Covent Garden and the banker Baron
Henri de Rothschild, who invited Walter and the Amsterdam organization
to bring the production to Paris at the Thtre Pigalle (which Rothschild
had built) in March. When the impending Paris Fledermaus performance
was announced, a controversy broke out, for Max Reinhardt was making
plans to bring his Berlin production to the Thtre des Champs-lyses in
June of that same year. Walter apparently did not consider this a great draw-
back since, as he wrote to a friend in Paris, the two Fledermaus productions
would be very different, his being a traditional Fledermaus, Reinhardts a
fantasy of a modern director-genius on the theme of Fledermaus.24 He
also felt that, despite the German dialogue, Parisian audiences would enjoy
the work immensely, for what Parisian could resist the Danube waltzes?25
The idea, however, of having the two Fledermaus productions within just
three months, each involving one of Germanys most prominent artists, pre-
dictably led to a series of articles in Viennese and German newspapers.
Though one critic did maintain that it would be interesting for Parisian au-
diences to compare the two, this view was not shared by everyone. An article
in a Berlin newspaper even hinted that Rothschilds bringing Walters Fled-
ermaus to the Thtre Pigalle, the superlatively beautiful modern theater,
would spell financial disaster for Reinhardt and would not bode well for fu-
ture German productions in Paris. The reasoning was apparently that Wal-
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ters Fledermaus, though it featured German singers, could not be consid-
ered German because it was produced in Amsterdam.26
And Walter was sensitive to the potential insult to his old colleague
(with whom relations never seemed quite cordial), writing him a carefully
worded letter in which he assured Reinhardt that he would do everything in
his power to relieve the situation, though he is sketchy about the kind of
relief he would be able to provide. Reinhardt sent back an equally diplo-
matic telegram in which he proposed canceling his Paris engagement, not
believing that a typically German work would do well financially in Paris and
concluding, with palpable irritation, that he didnt want to hear any more
words on the subject. Walter would not let Reinhardt off so easily, however,
and responded with a two-and-a-half-page letter, urging him to go ahead
with his production, stressing the differences between the two, and insisting
that, since Reinhardts production was uniquely his, he should not be afraid
of any duplication.27 In the end, Walter lost the argument; Reinhardt sent a
telegram to Rothschild, allowing the Pigalle performance to take place, and
Reinhardt presented his Fledermaus at the Pigalle a couple of years later.
No such controversy, fortunately, accompanied the plans to bring the
production to Covent Garden. Walter had evidently wanted to conduct Die
Fledermaus in London for some time but had encountered difficulty per-
suading the board to mount a production.28 Againthough it is hard to
imagine today (with Fledermaus a popular New Years Eve offering in many
parts of the world)there appears to have been some feeling among theater
managers and critics that such an innately Viennese work would not appeal
to audiences outside Austria or Germany. In any case, the success of the Am-
sterdam production was such that Colonel Blois, the new managing director
of the Grand Opera Syndicate Limited, was finally persuaded and, as in the
Thtre Pigalle production, the sets were lent by the Amsterdam Wagner-
Vereeniging.
The operas enthusiastic reception was sufficient to quash any nagging,
skeptical voices, and Walter, mainly known to Covent Garden audiences for
his conducting of Wagner and Richard Strauss,once again demonstrated his
special love for the Viennese waltz. Last night, the finale of the second act
showed the younger generation what dancing really is, the London Times
reported, and before the third act, Herr Bruno Walter and the orchestra
played the famous Blue Danube with all its supple insinuating measures
charged with that blend of languorousness and excitement which makes the
Viennese waltz unique in music.29 The opera was such a success that a
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special performance took place on May at the request of the King and
Queen and was revived the following year.
While Die Fledermaus was remembered fondly by many who were for-
tunate enough to attend the performances, Walter himself, oddly enough,
had some reservations about the production. Years later Harold Rosenthal
(Covent Gardens archivist from to , the editor of Opera, and the
author of two books on Covent Garden) wrote to Walter asking him to
record a few words for a planned centenary celebration of Covent Garden.
He hoped Walter would talk about German opera in the s, especially
about how Walters Fledermaus transformed Covent Garden. Surfeited,
however, with the glitter and gaiety of the Waltz King at this stage in his ca-
reer, Walterwhile happy to contribute to the celebrationretained a very
different set of memories: I dont think I was able to transform the atmo-
sphere of Covent Garden by introducing Die Fledermaus. On the con-
trary, I never felt happy with this experiment.30 With his usual epistolary
reserve, Walter does not specify what made him unhappy about his experi-
ment, and we can only hope that he enjoyed it more at the time than in ret-
rospect, since it was so obviously enjoyed by his London audience.
Meanwhile, during the course of his season, Walter continued
to conduct all over Germanya Hamburg Otello, concerts in Mannheim,
Chemnitz, Munich, and Nuremberg, to name only a fewbut was conspic-
uously absent from Vienna, even while he was championing Viennese music
in Amsterdam, Paris, and London. In fact, though Walter still felt deep ties
with Viennese culture and music, a behind-the-scenes intrigue had taken
place the previous year, temporarily cooling his relations with the Vienna
Staatsoper. At the end of Schalk had resigned as director, and many Vi-
ennese operagoers and critics, especially Julius Korngold, wondered why
the Generalintendant, Franz Schneiderhan,did not appear to be making any
attempts to secure Walter as Schalks successor and instead courted
Furtwngler,who seemed unenthusiastic about the job.31 (Furtwngler was,
in fact, negotiating with the Berlin Philharmonic.) The not-so-soft whispers
in Walters favor finally culminated in an open letter, printed on the front
page of the Neue Freie Presse. Can anyone dare to claim, the editors asked,
that this firebrand, this great student of Mahler, this sympathetic, spirited
musician who radiates love of life and the force of creativity, that he is not
suited to our environment, that he is not the right person to improve the en-
semble, to reorganize the concert programming, to exert authority and to re-
cover those great heights that today can still be found as a living presence on
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good evenings?32 In the face of so much public pressure, Schneiderhan
eventually wrote to Walter, proposing that they meet in private to discuss the
matter; Walter suggested the Westbahnhof railway station and went there at
the appointed time, but neither Schneiderhan nor anyone else from the
opera management came to meet him. Though Walter eventually received a
letter of apology from Schneiderhan, he was not pleased when a notice ap-
peared in the Neue Freie Presse stating, in short, that he had asked for too
much money. Addressing the concern expressed by Korngold and in the
open letternamely, that the opera company would sink into mediocrity
Schneiderhan published a response praising Clemens Krauss, who in the
meantime had gotten the appointment, stressing his Austrian origins (and
Walters lack of Austrian birth). The intrigues and the jingoism must have
brought back unpleasant memories of Walters early days in Vienna as
Mahlers assistant.
Recounting the whole sequence of events in Theme and Variations,
Walter was convinced that the Ministry of Education, then ruled by the
Christian Socialist Party, opposed his appointment and that the Ministrys
confidential man, a former music critic who had been hostile to Walter
when he was Mahlers assistant, had deliberately misrepresented his de-
mands in order to dodge the issue. When Walter encountered Schneiderhan
years later in Salzburg, however, the director assured him that it had all been
a grave misunderstanding.33 The whole incident was doubtless part of a
larger tangled web that Walter couldnt fully unravel, so he was content to
stay away from the Vienna Opera for a few years. But his uneasy relationship
with the Staatsoper during the early s did not prevent him from con-
ducting the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival over the next few
summers, while the dearth of his performances in Vienna during the Leipzig
years was keenly felt by the Viennese public. Describing Walters appear-
ance with the Vienna Tonknstler-Orchester in the spring of , Victor
Junk remarked that hardly any other artist received such a warm reception.
A thousand hands are stretched toward him, and the roaring applause,
translated into the language of words, wants to say: Why are you not with
us?34 As it happened, Walter would be with Vienna in less than two
years, for reasons that, in , were probably far from the minds of those
Viennese stretching out their hands.
The rise of the Nazi Party, however, was already casting long shadows in
the autumn of . With the elections on September just a day before
Walters birthdaythe National Socialists secured seats in the Reichs-
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tag, making it Germanys second largest party, whereas previously it had
been the smallest. Walter was hardly unaware of the ominous turn politics
had taken: I vividly remember the night preceding September . We spent
it at our Berlin apartment, listening to the radio. Emanuel Feuermann was
with us. Every few minutes, the triumphant voice of the announcer would
tell of the progress of the election. We knew at about three in the morning
that Hitler had polled about ,, votes. . . . Feuermann, usually so
gay, left us with the words: Its all over with Germany; all over with Eu-
rope.35 But for many German intellectuals and artists it was still difficult
not to hope that their country would weather what might be just a political
tempest in a teapot, that the Nazis apparent gain in power would prove no
more lasting than the attempted Communist takeover of Munich in .
The historian Golo Mann has described in his autobiography how, even as
late as , life in academia continued sedately: Everyone pursued, as best
he could, his obligations, his interests, his pleasures. The professors faith-
fully went on giving their lectures and seminars, which had absolutely no
bearing on the misery in the country.36 Even Golo Mann himself, cannier
than most by virtue of being Thomas Manns son and a keen observer in his
own right, admitted that he was not unhappy to vote for Hindenburg in the
presidential elections of , unaware of how dangerous Hindenburgs
conciliatory attempts to contain Hitler would be. Who could foresee that
we had made a bad choicebut then, he wondered, what alternative did
we have?37
Walter, too, carried on as best he could, conducting, in addition to his
regular season in Leipzig and his series of six Bruno Walter Concerts in
Berlin (which included the premiere of Nikolai Lopatnikoff s First Sym-
phony on February ), a Meistersinger in Hamburg, Das Lied von der Erde
in Munich, a Brahms Requiem in Vienna, Don Giovanni at La Scala (his
only appearance conducting opera there), a radio performance of Die Zau-
berflte in Berlin, a Mahler Second with the Queens Hall Orchestra in Lon-
don, as well as concerts in Amsterdam, Budapest, Prague, Frankfurt, and so
on. But unlike Golo Manns acquaintances, Walter, unable to lose himself
completely in his work, began to experience a growing sense of dread.
From that moment, even my stubborn optimism began to wane, he re-
called. Although I could not dimly foresee what was to come, I felt op-
pressed by the increased darkening of life.38 It is poignant to imagine Wal-
ter repeating his performance of Die Fledermaus at Covent Garden that

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spring, a work that, he felt, causes human errors to assume the appearance
of delightful misunderstandings, and life in its entirety that of a fugitive par-
adise, while his daily life must have been pervaded by a growing dread.39
Given the unsavory political situation in his native land, Walter was ea-
ger to continue his activities abroad, so the termination of his engagements at
Covent Garden hit him especially hard. In April and May of he con-
ducted his German season as usual and was once again warmly received,
though perhaps not quite so favorably reviewed. Of this years Fledermaus,
the Times reported that Bruno Walter gave us all the impetuosities and lan-
guors of the music, but not quite all its lightness. There was just a touch of
deliberation in the hanging-up of the rhythm.40 The critics also found
some of his Wagner performances too frenetic: of his Rheingold, for instance,
the Times reviewer complained: We could wish that he would not insist on
vividness so incessantly, particularly that he would not make the drums cari-
cature Wagners majestic writing for them, and not urge the wind players to
such energy that they splutter and miss their notes. A simpler reading might
secure better playing.41 This springs series of London Times reviews, of
course, also contained many appreciative comments, and audiences, though
smaller than in previous years, were larger than those for the Italian season.
Yet it may have been partly these reviews that inspired some to think that
Walter and Hegers German seasons were becoming tired and even sloppy,
that fresh blood was needed to inject life into an opera company that was
foundering, both artistically and financiallyin other words, the return of
Sir Thomas Beecham.
Beecham had meanwhile raised a great deal of money for something he
called the Imperial League of Opera, and securing him as music director
would mean consolidating his proposed opera company with the Royal
Opera Company. The popular conductors presence would not only gener-
ate more ticket sales but also guarantee some ready money. With Europes
shaky economic situation and Englands Gold Standard crisis of , the
National government had recently cut the operas subsidies. Desperate
times called for desperate measures.42 To begin with, the German singers
were re-engaged for lower fees. Further, as Walter learned only by reading
the newspapers, Beecham was to take his place as chief conductor. Unin-
formed of these plans by the company itself, Walter was understandably
quite upset; moreover, since he had not been consulted on how to make pub-
lic the circumstances surrounding his replacement by Beecham, he feared

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that people might view his dismissal in a bad light. I do think, he wrote in-
dignantly to Colonel Blois, that after all my work in Covent Garden I de-
served a more considerate action from your side.43
His ties with two of Europes leading opera companies having been sev-
ered in less than three years, Walter appeared to be drawing away from opera
and becoming more and more a purely symphonic conductor. Such a career
progression was (and remains today) common enoughit is widely ac-
knowledged that conducting opera requires great stamina and emotional re-
silience. And, though the art of electric recording was being refined through-
out the s, Walters records during these years still consisted mainly of
short orchestral selections, including a solemnly potent rendition of the
Funeral Music from Gtterdmmerung with the British Symphony Or-
chestra (). At the relatively young age of fifty-four, however, Walter was
not yet finished with opera, and during the summer of he once again re-
turned to the Salzburg Festival, conducting his share of Mozart operas (Don
Giovanni and Die Zauberflte), as well as a new production of Glucks Orfeo
ed Euridice, directed by Karlheinz Martin with choreography by Margarete
Wallmann, who would serve as ballet director for the Vienna Staatsoper from
to .By all accounts the production was a great success.The reviewer
for Die Musik described it as sensational, and the reviewer for the Neues
Wiener Journal wrote three lengthy paragraphs, praising Walters conduct-
ing; Martins ingenuity in working with a difficult stage; Wallmanns choreog-
raphy, especially the unforgettable moments in the Dance of the Furies;
Sigrid Onegins performance as Orpheus; and everything else about the pro-
duction.44 Walter had always held the opera in extraordinarily high esteem,
writing years later to Stresemann that it was, in its way, the most sublime
work of musical drama, and that neither in Gluck nor in some of our other
great masters would such heights of musical and dramatic inspiration [again]
be reached.45 So it must have been especially gratifying to work on what was
clearly one of his favorite operas with such talented colleagues.
Both Walter and Wallmann looked back on their collaborations with
pleasure, though Walter could not resist teasing Wallmann about her work-
ing methods, somewhat at odds with his own. I think back gladly on the
time we spent together, he wrote to her in , and the renewed acknowl-
edgment of the artistic understanding between us. This understanding does
not, however, include our working methods, as four-hour, midnight re-
hearsals in the dew were not my cup of tea and should really not be yours. I
can only hope that you will refrain from such extravagances in the future.46
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 Meanwhile, there was another, more materially obvious reason why
Walter was unable to ignore the growing economic difficulties (and ensuing
political instabilities) in his country: the venerable Gewandhaus Orchestra,
like so many of Germanys cultural institutions,was again suffering from lack
of funds. The season would be the th anniversary of the
Gewandhaus Hall, but at the end of the season, despite a successful
tour with its famous Director Walter, its grave financial outlook cast a pall
over the planned celebration, and many wondered if there would be much
festivity at all, or even a normal concert season.47 Nevertheless, plans went
ahead; the number of subscription concerts was reduced from twenty to six-
teen to lessen subscription prices, and programming became more conserv-
ative, focusing on standard repertoire to ensure good audience attendance.
Walter agreed to commit to a significant number of concerts (thirteen out of
sixteen, including the Festkonzert planned for November ) at the ex-
pense of offers from other cities, even though it was not certain that the
Gewandhaus season would remain intact. This earned him a long round of
applause at the end of a performance of Beethovens Ninth Symphony and
ecstatic praise from Adolf Aber: It is really an inestimable bit of luck for the
Gewandhaus that an artist with such a great sense of responsibility for the
institution remains at its disposal during this critical time.48 That July an
appeal was made to the music-loving population of Leipzig for support, but
the funds received were insufficient, and the Gewandhaus, traditionally a fi-
nancially independent institution, now had to rely on municipal funds to
continue its operations. The willingness of the Leipzig town officials to save
the institution from possible extinction was seen by some as highly com-
mendable, but, as with the Berlin Philharmonic, the intertwining of music
and public money would give rise to unpleasant complications.49
From an artistic standpoint, however, the institutions festival week
(November ) contained special events for the Leipzig public, includ-
ing a historic concert, the programs of which were printed on cream-
colored paper to look like programs. From the first violinists desk,
Charles Munch, then the Gewandhauss concertmaster, led the orchestra in
pieces by Dittersdorf, J. C. Bach, Reichardt, Hiller, and Haydn. Walters two
concerts on November and were the crowning events of the festival.
For the first concert Beethovens Fifth Symphony, Mozarts Symphony no.
in E-flat Major, and Webers overture to Euryanthe were supplemented
by readings from Goethe and Schiller, and Hans Hermann Nissen sang
Hans Sachss final monologue from Wagners Meistersinger, in which Sachs
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speaks of the endurance of German art. The selection from Meistersinger
must have seemed especially meaningful to both audience and performers;
for wasnt this celebration of one of Germanys oldest musical institutions in
the face of economic hardship a clear demonstration of Wagners senti-
ments? The irony in programming what later came to be regarded as a
harbinger of anti-SemitismSachs, as Wagners mouthpiece, speaks of
German arts withstanding pernicious or evil influenceswas perhaps
only seen in retrospect.
The following evenings concert,consisting of Mendelssohns Overture
to A Midsummer Nights Dream, Schumanns Piano Concerto with Edwin
Fischer, and Brahmss First Symphony, was admired even by Alfred Heuss,
who called it one of the most marvelous evenings that we owe to Bruno
Walter, the house conductor. Heuss also went on to praise Walters dedica-
tion, saying that he had proved his true loyalty to the institution during this
important time.50 All in all, despite the orchestras uneasiness over its shaky
financial status, there seems to have been a general feeling that the festival
concerts established Walter as Gewandhauskapellmeister once and for all, a
difficult time had been survived, and a new era had well and truly begun.
But Walter, like others, heard the distant rumblings of trouble ahead.
Earlier in he had received an invitation from Harry Harkness Flagler to
conduct the New York Philharmonic during the season. Since the
New York Symphony Orchestra had merged with the Philharmonic in ,
Flagler had become the orchestras new president. As early as January ,
in fact, Arthur Judson had tried to secure Walter as a guest conductor, but
Walters busy schedule in Europe had always prevented him from accepting.
Now, however, there were more urgent reasons for doing so, and although
Walter had already committed himself to all the Gewandhaus concerts not
conducted by either Thomaskantor Karl Straube or the chamber orchestra
director, Edwin Fischer (the celebrated pianist), the Gewandhaus manage-
ment generously agreed to free him for January , realizing, according to
Walter, that in view of the threatening internal situation in Germany every-
thing should be done to facilitate the resumption of my relations with Amer-
ican musical life.51 As a result, Walter was engaged for a seven-week period,
beginning mid-January and extending to the end of February. Coinciden-
tally, Hermann Abendroth, who would soon replace Walter as Gewand-
hauskapellmeister, was engaged for Walters January Gewandhaus concert.
As with his Gewandhaus and Berlin concerts, Walter was determined
that his programs should contain a significant number of works by living
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composers; but Arthur Judson cautioned him against having too many, say-
ing that, while the board had a policy of presenting new works of value, the
public had become skeptical about their worth, since so many pieces were
performed once and never repeated. He suggested that Walter pick two or
three novelties that he considered especially important. In the end it was
decided to include four of the various new compositions that Walter pro-
posed: Ernst Kreneks Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit (it belongs to the
best novelties possible); Franz Schmidts Variationen ber ein Husarenlied
(very excellent, effective . . . the orchestra can excel); Prokofievs Prodigal
Son Suite (very important, interesting, serious and grateful [i.e., gratify-
ing]); and Daniel Gregory Masons Second Symphony (an excellent, im-
portant work).52 Two of Walters suggestionsBruckners Fifth and a
Mozart piano concerto with himself as soloistdid not come to fruition,
possibly because, as Judson hinted in one of his letters, the board felt that
both Mahlers Fifth (which Walter did conduct) and Bruckners Fifth in the
same season would be heavy going for New York audiences, so the Bruckner
symphony was saved for the following year. As for the Mozart concerto, its
omission remains a mystery, especially since Walter tried to impress on Jud-
son how much he would like to perform something in that vein. I would of
course charge nothing for that and consider it included in my obligations,
he wrote. It is a kind of a specialty of mine. He proceeded to name an im-
pressive array of cities in which he had performed as soloist and conductor,
but it was not until December that Walter actually played and con-
ducted the Mozart D Minor Piano Concerto in New York.
Though Walter had been cordially and enthusiastically received by the
New York public and critics in his performances with the New York Sym-
phony Orchestra, his debut with the Philharmonic seems to have taken the
megalopolis by storm. Walter in Triumph read the headline of Olin
Downess first review. The already eminent New York critic nearly gushed
over the evening: The instant the string choir sounded the opening har-
monies of a Handel Concerto Grosso, with a tone superb in its depth, full-
ness and virility, the audience realized the presence of an authoritative and
inspired interpreter. Interest and excitement grew as the concert went on. At
the end the audience did not hurry from the hall, but remained to applaud
and cheer the conductor.53 While Downes admired Walters Handel and
Haydn, he waxed rhapsodic when it came to describing Walters rendition
of Brahmss Second Symphony: Theme merged into theme, he wrote,
thought into thought with a perfect enchainment. The second movement
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he characterized as noble and impassioned, the Allegretto as bewitch-
ing, and the finale as irresistible.
The remainder of Walters long stretch of concerts received many
reviews abounding in praise, especially his rendition of Berliozs
Symphonie fantastique. Walters collaborations with soloists such as Ossip
Gabrilowitsch in Brahmss Second Piano Concerto and Yehudi Menuhin
in Brahmss Violin Concerto also enjoyed enthusiastic words from the
press. In some respects, however, Olin Downes proved the counterpart to
Alfred Heuss back in Leipzig, in that he simply did not find much to like in
the new works Walter had chosen. True, Downes was more charitable to
Krenek than the German critic had been, finding ingenuity in Der Tri-
umph der Empfindsamkeit but also a facetiousness and grimacing that
grew a little tiring. Schmidts Variationen ber ein Husarenlied, performed
on the same program, seemed hard on the innocent bystander, while
Prokofievs Prodigal Son Overture was deemed not very impressive. It is
strained, and it echoes other pages of Prokofieff.54 In this verdict, Downes
could have found some sympathy from the composer himself, who consid-
ered the suite less important than his other compositions; indeed, he de-
scribed to his friend Vernon Duke how he put it together so that the re-
maining material of the ballet would not go to waste, not having foreseen
that Walter would get so fixated on the suite.55
Daniel Gregory Masons Second Symphony was a work Walter particu-
larly liked; he wrote to the composer that his musical language had devel-
oped the capacity of personal confession without sacrificing musical pu-
rity.56 Nevertheless, Downeswho had praised Masons First Symphony
in deemed the new piece unoriginal and its orchestration none
too successful.57 Mason and Walter had become friends by now, and
Downess words no doubt wounded on personal as well as aesthetic
grounds. How much more painful it must have been to hear Downess harsh
judgment on Mahler, which had not softened since Walter first conducted
his mentors music in New York in . While Downes admired Walters
conducting of Mahlers Fifth Symphony, particularly since Walter con-
ducted from memory, he couldnt hear that Mahlers symphony contained
anything subtle or complex. Everything is a big pose or a big noise,
he wrote, adding with just a touch of defensiveness that German
musicians . . . are disposed to believe that Americans do not understand
Mahler as yet . . . but with every performance of Mahler the conviction
grows that he is understood here entirely too well. . . . Mahler is not a
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profound composer.58 Downes did note that, while a few audience mem-
bers left during the symphony, there was also a contingent that ap-
plauded furiously and called Walter back to the stage many times. If
Walter could not change Downess low opinion of Mahler, it is doubtful that
anyone could.
Not every critic was fully swayed by Walter. Herbert Peyser, who would
also write for the New York Times and had often heard Walter conduct, wrote
a short sketch of him for the periodical Disques that appeared directly after
Walters concerts in New York. It was the most critical assessment of Walter
to appear in America, raising objections to the conductors style that would
often be echoed by others (such as that he was feminine and sentimen-
tal), as well as grievances that few have since voiced (that his fortissimo was
harsh, raucous, crass, that he was not a conductor of what the Germans
call large Format ). But even Peyser compared Walter only to the towering
conductors of the early twentieth centuryFurtwngler, Mahler, Muck,
Nikisch, Toscaniniand confessed that there was no question of [Wal-
ters] rank among the most popular and deeply esteemed conductors of the
present age.59
So, with a successful return trip to New York to his credit, Walter
headed back to Leipzig and Berlin for another round of concerts. In that
spring, also, Walter conducted his first concert with his friend Adrian
Boults BBC Symphony Orchestra on April . Then it was on to Salzburg
for repeat performances of Orfeo ed Euridice, followed by an array of fall con-
certs. By December he was back in New York for a new series of Philhar-
monic concerts. In an article entitled Concerts and Their Function, he
had recently defended the preponderance of classical works in the few
concerts he was giving that season in BerlinAll our relationships need to
be nurtured and renewed if they are to remain a part of our life and our be-
ingbut he was quick to add that he was not in principle averse to pro-
gramming unfamiliar compositions.60 Indeed, undeterred by Downess
negative comments concerning the previous years novelties, Walter pro-
grammed several more in New York, including Prokofievs The Gambler
Suite, the Bloch Concerto Grosso with Walter as piano soloist (a work he
had already performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockholm, and sev-
eral cities in Germany), and Arthur Shepherds Horizons: Four Western
Pieces for Orchestra. Another rarity on Walters programs was Charles Mar-
tin Loefflers The Death of Tintagiles, which featured as a prominent solo in-
strument the antique viola damore, with its unearthly resonance.The works
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by Shepherd and Loeffler attracted special attention,having been composed
by living Americansone native-born, the other a naturalized citizen.
Daniel Gregory Mason had brought Shepherds work to Walters attention
two years earlier, and it evidently piqued the conductors interest, for he kept
the score longer than originally plannedthough one wonders what Walter
thought of Shepherds use of cowboy tunes, which, according to one re-
viewer, represented a not unsuccessful effort to express in music something
of the spirit of one of the most characteristically American parts of this coun-
try.61 The work by Loeffler, on the other hand, might have been written in
his native Alsace as well as in Bostonand is based on a hair-raising drama by
Maeterlinck, though its themes struck one critic as too lyrical for the story
they were supposed to convey, and the viola damore, played by Zoltan
Kurthy, was like a hopelessly sweet crying rather than the expression of
terror.62
One of Walters last concerts in this series included Mahlers Second
Symphony, and while reviews of Mahlers composition were naturally
mixed, most critics had something positive to say about Walters perfor-
mance, as if to imply that the performance was more impressive than the
piece itself. The reviews make one regret that RCA Victors carefully
worked-out plans to issue a live recording of the performance fell through,
possibly because of the high expenses involved.63 It would have been Wal-
ters first record with the Philharmonic, and its players would have included
several musicians who had performed under Mahler.
In Germany, meanwhile, the Nazi Party was swiftly spreading its poison
through the German government. On January Walter was conducting a
Sunday afternoon concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, while across
the ocean,where it was already evening,Hitler,Gring,and the rest were cel-
ebrating what would certainly be Hitlers appointment the following day as
chancellor of Germany. Coincidentally, Walter was joined in the Brooklyn
concert by another soon-to-be expatriate, Lotte Lehmann. At noon the fol-
lowing day, the Nazis expectations were fulfilled, and Hindenburg made
Adolf Hitler chancellor. Walters last concert in New York that year was on
February , the day before Berlin storm troopers burned the Reichstag.
Nevertheless, Walter and Elsa sailed back to Germany, with Walter planning
to conduct his March concerts as usual. Later, he would remember vividly
the strained atmosphere on board the ship as all the passengers avoided
speaking of politics, taking pains to hide their anxieties or their high hopes,
depending on their attitude toward the Nazis. When the Walters disem-
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barked in Cuxhaven, they were met by Lotte and Gretel, who had both driv-
en up from Berlin, and the sight of them was Walters last joyful experience
on German soil. Or rather, he added, symbolicallyprior to my landing.
For no sooner had I set foot on firm ground than I felt a chilling wave of
strangeness flow toward me from the outwardly familiar surroundings.64
The sight of swastikas flying everywhere was a source of revulsion; Walter at
first refused to eat in any restaurant where they were displayed, only to be in-
formed by his daughters that they would go hungry as a result.
Max Brockhaus, the Gewandhaus Committee president, had been fran-
tically telephoning Walters Berlin apartment. Over the telephone he would
only hint at the emerging unpleasantness, and it was not until Walter arrived
in Leipzig the next day that he was apprised of what was happening: Man-
fred von Killinger, Leipzigs Chief of Police, had threatened to forbid Wal-
ters upcoming concert if the management itself refused to cancel it. This the
management was unwilling to do; nor would it accept Walters proffered res-
ignation, for the Gewandhaus had always prided itself on its cultural in-
tegrity and independence, though with its recent dependence on city
money, such autonomy would prove harder to maintain. Thereupon Brock-
haus, with Walter assisting, spent the next few days telephoning influential
people in the hope that someone would exert influence upon the new gov-
ernment on behalf of one of Germanys oldest musical institutions. In those
early days of Nazi rule, such dreams were still entertained, Walter com-
mented ruefully.65 In Leipzig such dreams were entertained only for a few
days, for despite Brockhauss best efforts, on the morning of the concert the
management received word from the police that, in the name of the Saxon
Ministry of the Interior, they were forbidding both the concert and the gen-
eral rehearsal. Brockhaus, the other members of the management, and the
musicians themselves were so devastated that they could hardly speak. After
a series of muted good-byes, Walter left, pausing only to gaze for a moment at
the noble Gewandhaus hallnow, of course, lacking its statue of the Jewish-
born Mendelssohn.
So ended a chapter in the history of the Gewandhaus, before it had
even rightfully begun!66 And in fact, Walters brief spark of accomplish-
ment in Leipzig was swiftly extinguished and buried, like the transitory
flame that the Nazis hoped it would be. Arthur Nikischs direct descendant
stands on the conductors podium of the Gewandhaus once again, began a
review of the next Gewandhaus concert, which Furtwngler conducted.67
Adolf Aber was gone, and the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichtens new critic,
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Julius Goetz, expressed opinions clearly more in keeping with the party line
of the new regime. A history of the Gewandhaus written in mentioned
Walter only in passing, lumping his nearly four seasons with the previous,
directorless one of (and, predictably, making mention of Walters
original name, Schlesinger). In short, the whole of Walters activities amounted
to little more than a transition between Furtwngler and Abendroth, the
true conductors.68 A festschrift written some years after the war in
(for the orchestras th anniversary) did little to change this view of history,
though now Abendroths tenure was viewed as the first stable period after
the Nikisch years.69 It was not until that Fritz Hennenberg wrote of
Walters three-year directorship as an actual era in the orchestras history, if a
sadly shortened one.70 But Walter attached no blame to the institution itself
for its historians revisionism, writing a congratulatory letter for that very
festschrift in which he is treated as little better than a guest conductor:
The time in which I served as Gewandhauskapellmeister lives on in my
heart in its wealth of uplifting artistic experiences.71 Soon after the war he
also showed his appreciation of the orchestra in a more practical way by
donating money to several elderly players or their widows.
Walters abrupt departure from Leipzig was only the beginning of his
misfortunes at the hands of the Nazis. When he arrived in Berlin, he found
Louise Wolff and her colleagues Sachs and Simon in distress, for they had
just received a warning from Goebbels that Walters Berlin concert should
be canceled because there might be unpleasant demonstrations. No one
could decide exactly what this meant, so, at Walters suggestion, Erich Sachs
telephoned the Propaganda Ministry directly. Louise Wolff s daughter,
Edith Stargardt-Wolff, related how they all listened to his end of the conver-
sation, increasingly aware of how complicated the situation was becoming.
Then the concert cannot take place and must be canceled, they heard him
say. But it is a Bruno Walter Concert, in a series which carries his name,
and so cant be conducted by anyone else. Nevertheless, Walter Funk, who
later became the Nazisminister of economics,insisted that they were not go-
ing to forbid the concert, but that if it took place, they could expect violence
in the concert hall. Therefore the concert must take place under another
conductor. Stargardt-Wolff described how shocked they all were, how they
had been naive enough to believe that Walter could still conduct in Berlin,
even after he had been forbidden to do so in Leipzig. At this point, she re-
lated, Walter stood up, looking pale but controlled, and said, Then I have

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no further business here, and departed with great dignity, leaving them
deeply depressed.72
According to Walter, Funk had closed his thinly disguised ultimatum
with the following mysterious statement: Besides, Herr Walter is politically
suspicious.73 When Elsa Walter, who had been waiting outside the office,
heard this menacing remark, she told her husband that he should leave
Berlin at once. They decided he should not even go back to their apartment.
So Walter and Lotte went almost immediately to the train station and
boarded a train for Semmering, leaving Elsa and Gretel behind to close up
their cherished Berlin home and prepare for a permanent move to Austria.
As is well known, it was Richard Strauss who eventually conducted
Walters Berlin Philharmonic concert on March . How Strauss came to
agree to this, and who exactly suggested that he take over, are the questions
that mark where the accounts of Walter and Stargardt-Wolff diverge. In Wal-
ters version, when Sachs told Funk that they had decided to cancel the con-
cert, Funk informed them that the concert would take place with Strauss
conducting, and, Funk assured them, Strauss would certainly agree. Walter,
it seems, had no reason to doubt the truth of this, writing acerbically in his
autobiography that the composer of Ein Heldenleben actually declared
himself ready to conduct in place of a forcibly removed colleague.74 But,ac-
cording to Stargardt-Wolff, no definite candidate to replace Walter had been
suggested until the following day, when Elsa arrived at Louise Wolffs office
and, after allaying their anxiety over Walter by informing them that he was al-
ready in Austria, stated that it was Walters wish to have Richard Strauss take
over the concert. This seemed like a good idea to all concerned, especially
since Strauss was already in Berlin. But Strauss at first refused, even when
told that Walter had suggested him. Then Louise Wolff was visited by two
Nazi journalists, one of whom was Hugo Rasch of the Nazi news organ, the
Vlkischer Beobachter. Stargardt-Wolff leaves the other journalist unnamed,
but he was probably Julius Kopsch (who in was president of the Inter-
nationale Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft). Wolff had meanwhile engaged the
Bremen conductor Ernst Wendel to take Walters place, but these two party
men informed her that the government wanted Strauss to conduct the concert.
Julius Kopsch himself wrote to Walter in with the intention of clar-
ifying some of the circumstances of Strausss agreeing to take over the con-
cert (in other words, to defend Strausss actions). According to Kopsch,
Louise Wolff had asked him, as a friend of Strausss, to convince Strauss to

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take over, which Strauss agreed to do only when he learned that the orches-
tra would suffer a serious financial blow if another conductor took over.75
Walter replied that he could accept Kopschs version, yet the fact remained
that Strauss had directed a concert that Walter himself, as a result of political
circumstances, was unable to conduct. But, he assured Kopsch, his admira-
tion for Strauss as a musician remained unaffected by these events, though
the two conductors kept their distance for the remainder of their lives.76
Four years after Kopsch wrote to Walter, Stargardt-Wolff published her
account, and almost immediately Kopsch telephoned her, questioning
whether her version was accurate. Since Kopsch was very likely the second
Nazi journalist, we can only speculate as to his reasons for wanting to draw
attention to events that, on further examination, might reveal his own activi-
ties as a Nazi Party member. Meanwhile the Strauss family was also not
happy that the Stargardt-Wolff version linked Strausss name more closely
with the Nazi Party than even Walters had. Eventually, Stargardt-Wolff pub-
lished an explanation in a publication of the Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft,
in which she denied any intention to darken Strausss name and insisted that
it was Walters own wish that he take over.77
Ironically enough, Walter had written an introduction to Stargardt-
Wolffs book, but he clearly had not had an opportunity to read her manu-
script in its entirety. Instead, he caught sight of her explanation in the soci-
ety publication and, deeply disturbed, wrote to her, insisting that he had had
no say in who would take over his concert and asking her to publish a cor-
rection.78 Stargardt-Wolffs reply was adamant; she was, she said, the sole
surviving witness, and she had to convince Walter that her version of the
story was absolutely accurate, that Elsa really did say it was Walters own
idea for Strauss to conduct.79 Together, they came up with a compromise,
rewording the passage to state that, after speaking with Elsa, Louise Wolff
had received only an impression that Walter had suggested Strauss, and
this was subsequently published in the Richard-Strauss-Gesellschafts next
bulletin (December ).80 Despite Walters astonishment at reading a ver-
sion of the story so at odds with what he remembered, the ensuing exchange
between him and Stargardt-Wolff was not really hostile. One gets the im-
pression that each felt the other was simply remembering events incorrectly
and not that there was any deliberate attempt on either side to falsify the
record. In the end, we must consider the possibility that Elsa, who was not
averse to taking matters into her own hands, put forth Strausss name her-
self.
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 As might be expected, Nazi newspapers such as the infamous Vlkischer
Beobachter hailed Strauss as a hero. Hugo Rasch wrote that Strausss substi-
tuting for Walter, as well as Erich Orthmanns taking Fritz Stiedrys place in
a performance of Der fliegende Hollnder, proved that Germans were ab-
solutely not dependent on foreign-blooded conductors.81 In an interview
(also infamous) in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, Hans Hinkel denied that
Walters concert had been either banned or made impossible in any way; as
far as he knew, the concert management had wanted to cancel it, but Strauss
had stepped in, earning the German peoples thanks.82 For the New York
Times, however, Hinkel modified his story, claiming that it was simply not
possible to provide police guards for Walters protection, since our storm
troops have more important functions than providing protection for con-
certs. As for the threatening letters from America, Hinkel maintained that
the German people resented that the American public made itself the
spokesman for Herr Walter in a conspicuous manner.83 A draft of a chilling
statement that the new regime planned to make concerning Walters concert
has survived, drawn up by the office of the Kampfbund fr deutsche Kultur
(KfdK). A model of obfuscation, it not only states that Walter freely chose to
give up his concert when protection could not be provided but also implies
that the reason protection might have been necessary was that Walter had
chosen for his soloist the Czech soprano Jarmila Novotn, who had suppos-
edly spoken out against Germany and German culture in the most unac-
ceptable manner.84 This sort of rhetoric coming from the Prussian State
Commissioner for Science, Art, and Culture, who may have been one of the
prime movers behind Walters persecution, is hardly surprising. But Fritz
Stege, who, despite his politics, had thus far treated Walter favorably in his
Berlin reviews for the Zeitschrift fr Musik, quickly jumped ship. It is
painful to read his description of the audiences enthusiastic reception of
Strauss, who had not let threatening letters from Jewish-incited America
deter him from taking over the concertthis from a paper that had in years
past referred to Walter as a great German conductor.85
These were still early days, however, and not every journalist in Ger-
many immediately clambered onto the Jew-banning bandwagon. Fritz
Klein, editor of the liberal Berlin newspaper the Deutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung, a man whom Walter had met at the Berlin Rotary Club, published a
long and courageous article on a front page loaded with headlines concern-
ing the activities of Germanys new chancellor. Though he chose his words
carefully, Klein wondered how the loss of such important artistsWalter in
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particularcould possibly be good for Germany. He was so great an artist
and so musical a person, Klein argued, that it was impossible to banish
thoughts of Walter in connection with the German musical scene, and what-
ever people believed about there being too many Jews in Germany, there was
no reason to retaliate with an extreme anti-Semitism that then throws out
the baby with the bath water.86 As events unfolded, Klein published other
criticisms, which may have cost him his job. A similar article appeared in the
Frankfurter Zeitung after Walter canceled a concert he was scheduled to
conduct in Frankfurt, in which the author recalled that nobody had done
more since World War I to bring back recognition for Germanys cultural
values than Walter.87
In fact, though Daniel Goldhagen in a controversial book has recently
gone to great lengths to show that, by the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, anti-Semitism in Germany had evolved into a deeply ingrained fear
and hatred amounting almost to a collective memory, many Germans of Wal-
ters acquaintance, if they were indeed possessed of such hatred, never felt it
toward Walter.88 As soon as they learned that Walter had been driven out of
Berlin, outraged German music-lovers, helplessly watching the new extrem-
ist government running roughshod over their culture, poured out their feel-
ings privately in letters to Walter and his wife. Over and over they thanked
Walter for the hours of enjoyment he had given them, expressed their dis-
may, and wondered how this could possibly be happening. Anyone who
could conduct Mozart as Walter did must be a true German in his heart, one
particularly impassioned letter cried; its author heard the morning bells
marking some celebration of the German state but stayed in his room and
was ashamed of his Germany.89
This outpouring of supportive letters,both from his former country and
from abroad, enabled Walter to cling to his underlying faith in humanity.
Though Germany appeared to be slipping into the abyss, people in other
parts of the world were still displaying the sort of admirable sentiments that,
Walter had always maintained, people were capable of. And his ability to
make music would carry him through this darkest hour of his life (and that of
so many others). I have loved Germany as well as one can love and have al-
ways felt myself to be German, he wrote to a friend of Elsas, but since he
was considered foreign where he believed himself at home, music must now
be his home.90 At this time especially, he felt that musicians had an obliga-
tioneven a moral dutyto attempt to counterbalance the spreading dark-
ness, and his belief in musics ability to bring out the best in humankind was,
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in some ways, his greatest comfort. Indeed, the importance of all the arts was
as great as it had ever been. In a stalwart speech given at a dinner of the Lon-
don Music Club on April ,at which he was the guest of honor,he declared,
What we have to do is to stand our ground, to keep faith and loyalty to our
arts, to the great thoughts, which the noblest minds of humanity created, to
keep faith and loyalty to the ideals of freedom of thought and of understand-
ing and peace between the single persons and between the nations.91
But privately,with his closest friends,Walter found it difficult to speak of
recent events without lapsing into great sorrow. The loss of my home coun-
try was a real sadness for me, but let me tell you that even this great personal
loss is not the most tragic part of those last experiences and of my present
feelings, he wrote to Harry Harkness Flagler, who as the years passed
would become one of Walters closest American friends. Imagine, that it is
not only I and the very many other artists and scientists and so on, who have
lost Germany by being compelled to leave her, no, we must think that the
whole world lost Germany, because this Germany which was such a Roy-
aume [i.e., realm] of Spirit and Humanity, a center of artistic and scientific
life, does not exist anymore. Despite his belief that musical performances
might alleviate peoples suffering in some way, Walter, like the German intel-
lectuals hed had to leave behind, felt powerless, unable to help. I feel my
helplessness to quench a huge fire with a glassful of water, he wrote in the
same letter. This mourning has not a great style, it is a daily torture and I am
not the coward to make my escape and be satisfied that I personally and my
family are not damaged, at least not materially. Nevertheless, Walter shied
away from giving in to hatred or revenge, which some of his contemporaries
who had also suffered persecution simply could not understand and even
considered a bit suspect. But he was adamanthe did not want to be re-
garded as a political martyr. I loved Germany dearly, I suffered terribly by
her suffering, but I never felt the least inclination to judge a person after his
or her Nationality, race or religion, he told Flagler.92 And he refused to
grant the North American Newspaper Alliance an interview, asking them to
understand that my language is music which lacks possibility of telling
political tales.93
But now things had gone too far for Walter to remain completely de-
tached from politics, so shortly after leaving Berlin he asked Count Kanitz
the former Minister of Agriculture and a devotee of Walters conducting, a
man with some influence among the older government officialsto inquire
into the meaning of politically suspicious. Kanitzs inquiries revealed that,
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according to the Propaganda Ministry, some Communist documents con-
taining Walters name had been uncovered. It surely did not help that Wal-
ters programs in Leipzig and Berlin had included what some viewed as a
disproportionately large number of Russian compositions, with premieres
by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Lopatnikoff. The Lopatnikoff symphony
was doubtless especially repugnant to the Nazis, since its program notes
claimed that its style was a kind of Russian pastiche, working against all the
German symphonic leather.94 Despite his disinclination for things politi-
cal, Walter felt he must take some steps to deny any Communist involve-
ment, especially since the accusations made against him might put him and
his family in some danger, even outside Germany. As he wrote to Kanitz, he
sent proof of his noninvolvement with communism to a lawyer in Berlin, not
only to right himself, but to protest the treatment of one who had led such a
blameless life.95 To this lawyer, Dr. Korn, Walter described in great detail
his opposition to the Communist uprising in Munich in . He had stood,
he said, very badly with Kurt Eisner, the leader of the short-lived Bavarian
socialist government, doing his best to hinder his influence at the Munich
Nationaltheater. He refused to direct a concert organized by Eisner, though,
at the advice of friends, he agreed to conduct a short overture in a long con-
cert and did so without a red ribbon in his buttonholehe believed he was
the only participant to eschew the Communist emblem.96 Though Walter
felt strongly that art and politics did not mix, he clearly was capable of taking
a political stance when the occasion demanded it.
Meanwhile, the Deutsche Wochenschau published the news of the sup-
posed finding of Bolshevist Walter material, a news item soon picked up by
the Zeitschrift fr Musik, which had been moving further and further to the
Right ever since Gustav Bosse (not to be confused with Walters friend, Gus-
tav Bss) became its publisher in and Fritz Stege had joined Heuss as
editor-in-chief.97 Here again Walter felt the need to set the record straight,
writing terse statements to both Bosse and the publisher of the Deutsche
Wochenschau to the effect that there was no such material, that Walter had
never taken an active role in politics, that he had never belonged to a political
party, and that his life was devoted solely to art.98 To his credit, Bosse wrote
back, agreeing to include Walters statement and, true to his word, printed it
in its entirety in the June issue of the Zeitschrift fr Musik without any dis-
claimers or sarcastic asides.99 By this time the newspaper was laced with ar-
ticles in support of the steps that the new government was taking to counter-
act evil influences, and some were written by Bosse himself; so his
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willingness to help Walter defend himself, albeit it in a very small way, reveals
a complexity of attitude beyond simple racism. Oddly enough, another Ger-
man music journal, the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, blithely reported on Wal-
ters activities at least as late as May , devoting an entire column in that
issue to both Walters and Furtwnglers concerts in Vienna as if they were
simply two distinguished guest conductors taking Vienna by storm
though there is perhaps an underlying irony in the articles opening state-
ment that Bruno Walter, who for many years could only come to his musical
home for a couple of days, has this time been in Vienna for several weeks and
has imprinted the entire musical season that is even now coming to a close
with the stamp of his personality.100
Very shortly after Walters expulsion from his native land, Wilhelm
Furtwngler boldly defended Walter against his detractors. Despite their ri-
valry, Furtwngler had continued to regard the older conductor as an exem-
plary figure. In his private notebooks, for example, Furtwngler had jotted
down in that true conductorshe listed only two, Toscanini and
Walterdid not follow academic precepts on how to conduct. And though
he respected both his chief rivals, there were times when he clearly preferred
Walters approach. In , while ruminating on Toscaninis recent perfor-
mance of Haydns Clock Symphony in Berlin, he condemned the stiff
and soulless effect of Toscaninis approach to a passage in the Andante,
adding, I should like to hear a passage like this done by Bruno Walter, for
example.101
Not all of Furtwnglers thoughts on Walter, however, were hidden from
the public. In an open letter to Joseph Goebbels that ran in the Vossische
Zeitung on April , he expressed how shocked he was to witness Walter and
other proponents of German culture suddenly fleeing for their lives, and he
urged that men like Walter, Klemperer, Reinhardt, and so on, must be al-
lowed to be heard in Germany in the future as well. But he also added an un-
fortunate comment on good and bad art, revealing his own prejudices and
exposing a chink in his rhetorical armor: If the battle against Jewishness is
directed principally against those who, rootless and destructive, attempt to
operate through kitsch, dry virtuosity, and the like, then it is only proper. . . .
If this battle, however, is directed against true artists, then it is not in the best
interest of our cultural life. So retention of the good Jews who had risen
above the limitations of their race, the argument seems to run, might be a
politic move for the greater good of Germany.

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 Public utterance of sentiments so critical of Nazi ideology did nothing
to endear Furtwngler to Joseph Goebbels, who immediately shot back an
outwardly civil response in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger. Instead of lament-
ing that men like Walter, Reinhardt, and Klemperer would no longer be
heard in Germany, Goebbels wrote, it would be better to view the current
turn of events as a liberation of the true German artists whose voices had
been smothered throughout the previous fourteen years of the Weimar Re-
public. (Presumably he was writing of such men as Paul Graener and Carl
Ehrenberg, recent Nazi converts, whose music Walter had promoted.) And
while it was true that some non-Jewish German composers were guilty of
writing bad musicrootless and destructive, full of empty virtuosity, and
so onthis was only a sign, Goebbels maintained, of how deeply the roots of
Jewishness extended into German culture. 102
While the plight of exiled Germans was being debated in the papers,
Walter and his family prepared themselves to settle permanently in Austria,
with no immediate hope of returning to their homeland. Some might won-
der at Walters decision, expedient though it was, to take up residence in a
country that in some ways had long had a more openly anti-Semitic strain
than Germany itself and where, in , the Nazi Party already had strong
support. Many expatriates, such as the Manns, stayed away from Austria on
the advice of friends who felt that it was sinister and to be avoided, opting
instead for Switzerland.103 Gino Baldini, who had served as Walters per-
sonal representative during his New York appearances, asked him why he
did not return to America, where he was loved, and wondered whether Ger-
many or Austria merited Walters loyalty.104 Walter told him not to worry,
that he would be perfectly fine in Austria, where he had been a naturalized
citizen for the last twenty-three years. He described how the president of
Austria (Wilhelm Miklas) had asked Walter to come to his box at a concert
and had allowed them to be photographed together as a kind of paying po-
litical homage to an artist to whom has been done a political wrong from his
own country.105 Writing to Harry Harkness Flagler, however, he was less
optimistic, commenting doubtfully that if Austria would keep clean of the
poison of the germs who made Germany so sick, we would perhaps settle in
Vienna.106 Those germs remained dormant for only the next five years.

Nomad Again

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

I have already wandered far and wide . . .

Wagner, Siegfried

Germany, in expelling Walter, has made a present of its greatest

conductor to the rest of the world.1 This was how one London
newspaper put it, and it was certainly the opinion of music direc-
tors in many countries who, surmising that Walter suddenly had
more free time, hastened to invite him to conduct. In fact, Walter
was allowed only one day of relaxation in the mountain air of Sem-
mering, outside Vienna. The following day he received a tele-
phone call from Rudolf Mengelberg,who asked him to replace the
indisposed Willem Mengelberg (Rudolfs uncle) for several con-
certs with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. A mere
ten days earlier Walter had written to Rudolf that he hoped to be
able to conduct the Concertgebouw at some point and that he
would let him know when his schedule was clear.2 With his
schedule now open, he was happy to accept, for conducting the
Concertgebouw, with which he had such a friendly relationship
and had enjoyed many special performances of Mahler in particu-
lar, was a welcome musical solace for his battered heart. So
he took the Edelweiss train through Switzerland, France, and

Belgium, traveling to Amsterdam from Vienna without crossing into Ger-
manyno easy proposition. In fact, the number of lengthy trips he would
take in the next five years in order to continue conducting throughout Eu-
rope while avoiding Germany is staggering.
If Walter had hoped that the Amsterdam presses would simply report
on his concerts and leave politics out of it, he was to be disappointed. No
sooner had he crossed the Dutch border than several journalists boarded
the train and sought to interview him, doubtless hoping he would let out
some scathing remarks about the new German regime. But Walters replies
were necessarily cautious; Elsa and Gretel, as well as his brother Leo and
sister Emma, were still in Germany, and he feared that they might suffer
reprisals for any strong words on his part published in foreign papers.
Instead, he talked mainly of his future plans and his happiness at returning
to the Netherlands, the land that was also so close to Gustav Mahlers
heart.3
Upon his arrival at the Amsterdam train station, where Rudolf Mengel-
berg and Eduard van Beinum greeted him, Walter encountered a peaceful
demonstration staged by the Amsterdam Social Democrats. They cheered
him as he stepped onto the square, and a spontaneous chorus began to sing
De Stem des Volks, an old Netherlands freedom hymn. For Walter, it was a
surprise, hardly bearable because of the deep emotion it caused him.4 An-
other surprise lay in waiting for him; during one of the rehearsals Gretel, still
residing in Germany with her husband, came up from the audience to greet
him as he left the podium. Though not given to public displays of emotion,
Walter could not contain himself and, before the orchestra and the press,
stroked her hair and exclaimed, Gretel, it gives me infinite happiness that
youre here. Then the father and daughter gazed at each other for a long time
without speaking, one of the papers reported, and their eyes filled with tears.5
In this charged atmosphere, Walter conducted concerts with the Con-
certgebouw in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Haarlem (the pro-
grams included Mahlers Fourth and Fifth symphonies, music now banned
in Germany), then returned to Vienna, where his wife arrived soon afterward
with tales of the horror she had left behind in Berlin. She, who had hardly
ever shed tears, fell on my neck crying bitterly when she alighted from the
train, Walter recalled later.6 The sight of Nazi mobs wrecking Jewish shops
and beating people in the streets was bad enough, buteven worse for
Elsasome of her relatives had defended them, and shed had to sever rela-
tions with her own family members.
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 In Vienna, meanwhile, Walter was a hero. In addition to the planned
performance of Mahlers Eighth by the Vienna Singverein, the Vienna Phil-
harmonic invited Walter to conduct an extra concert on April . The pro-
gram was tailor-made for him, consisting of the Mozart Piano Concerto in D
Minor with himself as soloist, three of Wagners Wesendonk-Lieder sung by
Rosette Anday, and Mahlers First. Vienna was naturally not free of Nazi
sympathizers, but none seem to have attended this concert, and Walter re-
ceived an ovation the intensity of which was rare, even in Vienna.7 The Vi-
ennese Nazis could not leave Walter completely alone, though, and on April
, the day of the Singverein performance, the Deutschoesterreichische
Tageszeitung published an offensive article about the concert.8
If this article had any effect, however, it was to make even more people
attend the Singverein concert. The house was completely sold out, re-
ported the Neue Freie Presse, and the audience was full of prominent Vien-
nese citizens, including President Wilhelm Miklas. The performance won
accolades, while a separate article was devoted to the ovations that followed,
which lasted over half an hour. Much as Walter disliked addressing audi-
ences after performances, the feeling here was too great for him simply to
walk off silently. He motioned with his hand, waited for the audience to calm
down,then declared that the best thing we have in the world is musichere
in Vienna,music has its home.I am fortunate!9 According to Paul Stefan,half
an hour passed before the lights in the Musikverein were finally dark.10
Walter might have felt that Vienna was musics home, but many other
cities were waiting to welcome him. After conducting in Budapest, it was on
to London, where more plaudits awaited him. First he conducted the newly
reconstituted London Philharmonic in a concert of Mozart, Wagner, and
Beethoven at Queens Hall. The Times review must have pleased him, for it
was a model of restraint, describing only the concert itself, with absolutely
no mention of his recent political experiences. An account of this event a
couple of weeks later in New Yorks Musical Courier was not nearly so un-
derstated: No conductor, not even Toscanini at the head of the New York
Philharmonic, has received the ovation that greeted [Walter] when he
emerged on the platform of Queens Hall.11 Following the two repeat per-
formances of this highly acclaimed concert was a dinner in Walters honor
given by the London Music Club at the May Fair Hotel, with Sir Thomas
Beecham presiding in place of Sir Edward Elgar, who was seriously ill.
Adrian Boult (not yet Sir Adrian) was unfortunately also unable to attend,
but among the guests was one of Walters other great English friends, Dame
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Ethel Smyth. At the dinner Beecham related how, twenty-three years before,
he had asked Smyth if she knew of anyone who could conduct her opera The
Wreckers better than he could. Certainly: I have a young friend in Vienna
whom you ought to invite to LondonMr. Bruno Walter, she replied.12
Walters trip to London was not entirely taken up with conducting and
banquets; it was on this visit that Smyth introduced him to Virginia Woolf.
On the whole, the two were favorably impressed with each other, though
Woolf wrote somewhat disparagingly in her diary that Walter was swarthy
and fattish. Yet she was deeply moved, both by his intense personality (or
even genius) and by his visceral reaction to the recent events in Germany.
He is very nearly mad; that is, he cant get the poison as he called it of Hitler
out of him, she wrote, describing how Walter spoke to them for some time
about Germanys disgrace and the terrible state of the world. Perhaps be-
cause of his long friendship with Ethel Smyth, Walter spoke more frankly to
her friends the Woolfs than he did to most people, telling them: We must
refuse to meet any German. We must say that they are uncivilised. We will
not trade with them or play with themwe must make them feel themselves
outcastsnot by fighting them; by ignoring them.13
Despite these strong words to friends, Walter was still not inclined to
make public declarations of his private anguish. After being feted in London,
he could perhaps have gone to Paris; but, as he explained to Flagler, he had
postponed any Paris engagements because I was afraid that the demonstra-
tion there would have changed so far to a political character that, at once, I
may have been considered more an object of political interest than an
artist.14 Instead he retreated to Switzerland for a rest,to ready himself for the
upcoming Salzburg Festival. He had, of course, been conducting in Salzburg
regularly for the last several years. But now his appearance had added signifi-
cance for Austrianshe was no longer a visiting conductor from Germany
but one of their own. Both Walter and Max Reinhardt, also barred from his
native land, had become heroes of the festival and were followed by adoring
crowds wherever they went. An artist such as this must certainly remain at
the forefront of the festival, which would be hard to imagine without him,
wrote Hermann Ullrich, reviewing Walters first concert with the Vienna
Philharmonic, a subtle dig perhaps at those who had lost him.15 The audi-
ence, however, didnt waste time with subtleties, showering Walter with roses
at the end of the concert.16 Meanwhile Nazi sympathizers, hard at work, did
everything in their power to turn people against the festival,sending airplanes
overhead to drop leaflets denouncing the anti-Nazi government under Chan-
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cellor Engelbert Dollfuss and attaching fake bombs (which turned out to be
little more than firecrackers) to telephone polesmuch to the derision of the
music-lovers who had come to hear the concerts. There were naturally some
German singers who had canceledor been forced to canceltheir
Salzburg engagement, but their places were swiftly filled.
From a purely musical standpoint, this summers festival was also spe-
cial because it included Walters first Salzburg Tristanin fact, his first Tris-
tan in Austria. Ironically, it was the first Wagner opera conducted at the fes-
tival, which up to this point had consisted mainly of operas by Mozart,
Strauss, Gluck, and other non-Wagnerians. Though Walters Tristan was
clearly one of the high points of the festival, repeats of Die Zauberflte and
Orfeo ed Euridice, three concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, and his an-
nual song recital with Lotte Lehmann also gave audiences many chances to
show their appreciation, both publicly and privately. One of the greatest
novelists from Americas Gilded Age attended the festival that year, and her
discriminating palate was not disappointed with the proffered fare. Mozart
Symphony Concert supremely conducted by Bruno Walter, Edith Wharton
wrote to a friend.17
Walter appreciated both his audience and the singers who stepped in at
the last minute, for now, more than ever, he regarded Salzburg as a special
sanctuary dedicated to art and beauty, divorced from worldly upheavals. In
America you have a great beauty spot called Yellowstone Park, he told a
New York Times reporter. Within its borders all the last disappearing beau-
tiful thingsbirds, animals and everything else it is good to keep on earth
are preserved and safe. Why cannot Salzburg, why cannot, in fact, all Aus-
tria, which is small and weak politically, be made such a refuge for art and for
music, under the protection of the League of Nations, for instance?18 In
hindsight, its hard to believe that Walter and some other Austrians could ac-
tually have entertained such hopes; but at the time, with Dollfusss strongly
anti-Nazi regime, the idea did seem plausible. Thus it was with some re-
newed optimism that Walter set sail for America in September for a con-
ducting stint lasting from early October to mid-December.
At the same time, Walter was still trying his best to avoid undue public-
ity and to concentrate on conducting. I do not at all like the idea of being in-
terviewed and photographed on the liner, when I arrive and getting political
headlines and attributes in the papers, he wrote to Bruno Zirato (his liaison
at the New York Philharmonic) before leaving Europe. If you see a way for
me and Mrs. Walter to get off the boat unobserved I would appreciate it
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highly.19 Naturally Zirato was unable to keep the press at bay entirely, but at
least the article in the New York Times announcing Walters arrival began
with a musical headline, , before moving
on, in smaller type, to .20 And in Walters open-
ing concert, at which he was received with a welcoming demonstration of
unusual length and ardor, Olin Downes commented in his review that
no doubt the demonstration received added impetus from the fact that Mr.
Walter is one of the great artists who have been driven from Germany by Hit-
lerism.21 For the rest of his conducting run in New York, however, the crit-
ics confined themselves to discussing details of the performancesno
doubt a great source of satisfaction for Walter.
Driven from Germany or no,in America as in Austria,Walter was still con-
sidered one of the foremost interpreters of German music,and his programs in
the fall of contained perhaps even more Germanic works than usual.Wag-
ner, Beethoven, Brahms, and Strauss, along with the Austrians Haydn,
Mahler, Mozart, and Bruckner, dominated his repertoire, which led Downes
to grouse that all music was not made in Germany.22 But his grievance
stemmed from purely musical considerationsit was too early for the recent
political developments in Germany to become inextricably linked to German
culture. In any case, as the above headline trumpeted, Walter did not neglect
American music, giving the New York premieres of Randall Thompsons
Second Symphony and David Stanley Smiths 1929, a Satire. Walter, retain-
ing fond memories of Thompsons work,wrote to the composer over a decade
later: I always remember with great pleasure your Second Symphony which
belongs to the best compositions I had the good luck to perform.23
In truth, as this series of concerts with the Philharmonic wore on,
Downess griping notwithstanding, it could certainly be said that there was
something for everyoneEnglish works by Bax and Elgar; Gallic composi-
tions by Chausson, Franck, Ravel, and Berlioz; Slavic contributions from
Jancek and Tchaikovsky; the Polish Chopin and the German Schumann; a
Viennese program complete with waltzes and sleigh bells; and even a tone
poem by Respighi, Vetrate di chiesa. Elgars Violin Concerto with Jascha
Heifetz, the first performance of the work by the Philharmonic, attracted
particular attention, as did Berliozs Symphonie fantastique, by now one of
Walters specialties.
One program that also intrigued the critics included excerpts from
Wolfs Der Corregidor. This was another much-maligned work that Walter
seems to have taken pains to resurrect and reinstate. In America as in Ger-
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many, it appears to have worked; Lawrence Gilman, for one, was completely
convinced of its worth. What makes one disinclined to take too seriously
the charge of theatrical ineffectiveness that is sometimes brought against
Der Corregidor is the plain factevident, I should suppose, to anyone
who knows the scorethat the music is charged with an almost unflagging
dramatic vitality, he wrote; and in answer to the objection that the score is
chiefly a series of beautiful vocal numbers (which, he is quick to point out,
is a criticism that could be leveled at many works in the standard repertoire),
the comment is grotesquely inapplicable to Der Corregidor. This music
fits the delectable comedy like a gloveis perfectly shaped to its wit, its
gayety, its gusto, its recurrent tenderness. As for the performance, Mr. Wal-
ter conducted with complete authority.24 The conductor maintained his af-
fection for the work until the end of his career,writing to a friend in that,
in spite of its weaknesses, he could not understand why Der Corregidor had
not found a permanent place in the German operatic repertoire.25
The year was now drawing to a close, an indescribably tumultuous
year for Walter personally, and yet as a musician he seemed to be more in
command than ever before. But all these artistic triumphs could not com-
pletely wash away the sorrow in his heart. It is no cheerful world, no happy
time within which this day falls, he wrote in a letter congratulating his
brother Leo on his sixtieth birthday. But it will only be to your credit to
hold your head high and to be cheerful when the circumstances call for the
opposite.26 Walters advice to his brother no doubt echoed the advice he
had been giving himself all along, and one can imagine that Walter, as he
sailed back to Europe for a vacation in St. Moritz, was wondering what fur-
ther upheavals the new year would bring.
For the moment, however, life seemed to be settling into a pattern: living
in Austria, vacationing in Switzerland, and conducting just about every-
where in Europe outside Germany. In mid-January he conducted the Or-
chestra Stabile Fiorentina; on January he gave a concert with the BBC
Symphony in which Prokofiev played the British premiere of his Fifth Piano
Concerto. He went back to Amsterdam in February for a series of concerts
rich in Mozart and Mahler. In March and April he returned to Vienna to
conduct concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic and, even more exciting for
the Viennese public, to appear at the Staatsoper, where he had not con-
ducted opera since leaving in .
This year Vienna will not have to visit Bruno Walter in Salzburg, be-
gan Walters old supporter Julius Korngold, reviewing the first of his three
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Vienna Philharmonic concerts and describing the jubilant reception Walter
received. The audience, Korngold declared, stripped Walter of his interna-
tionality so to speak, and reclaimed him as a Viennese conductor.27 Both
Korngold and Josef Reitler, the Neue Freie Presses other music critic, em-
phasized Walters connection to Mahler, and both implied that such a
Mahler disciple belonged only in Vienna; so it was fitting that the last of Wal-
ters three concerts contained Das Lied von der Erde.But the truly wondrous
thing was to have Walter back at the Staatsoper, where he directed new pro-
ductions of Verdis Ballo, Tchaikovskys Eugene Onegin, and a special per-
formance of Tristan. One has to give credit to Clemens Kraussa rival con-
ductorfor recognizing how meaningful Walters opera conducting would
be to the Viennese public and for allowing the success of the season as a
whole momentarily to outweigh his personal ambitions. Marcel Prawy re-
calls that his idea was to make the Vienna Opera a one-man band, and the
one man was Clemens Krauss, and Krauss was especially determined to re-
serve all the new productions for himself.28 But, his personal ambitions
notwithstanding, Krauss held Walter in high esteem, once declaring in an in-
terview that Walters concerts at Salzburg had made a great impression on
him, that he admired Walters personality, and that working with him was a
great, unalloyed pleasure.29 His giving Walter the opportunity to take over
not one but two new productions for his return to the Staatsoper reveals not
only his respect for Walter but also a more generous spirit than most people
are willing to grant him.
Krausss artistic integrity did not go unnoticed by Josef Reitler; in his re-
view of Ballo, he commented, Certainly every production conducted by
Walter will have its cachet and attract the interest of the opera-going public.
We value the high artistic and insightful principles of Director Clemens
Krauss, who does not easily let productions rehearsed by him out of his
hands.30 Reitler himself,to be sure,belonged to the group of operagoers for
whom Walters conducting had a cachet, for he described all three operas
in the warmest terms, stressing especially Walters great sense of theater. It
is a sign of a born theater director, he wrote, reviewing Onegin, that he al-
ways makes music in the closest contact with the stage; catching inspiration
from the moment, he gives his all to the work, bestowing upon it his nerves
and spirit, drawing from his own spirit.31 We do not know if Krauss read
the review and regretted giving up these productions, or if, like the rest of
Vienna, he too felt that Walter was back in Vienna where he belonged and
rejoiced in it, for the moment at least.
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 Walter had reestablished his home base in Vienna, but during these
years of wandering, London and Paris became his frequent late spring
haunts. At the beginning of May he conducted Don Giovanni in Paris, then
sailed across the Channel to London to take part in Boults London Music
Festival, a series of six concerts at Queens Hall. The programming was suf-
ficiently standardlargely Brahms and Beethoven (with Walter conducting
some Richard Strauss and Bruckner)to cause the press to carp about the
festivals somewhat grandiose title. After Walters two London concerts, he
set sail for another Paris Don Giovanni in mid-May, then returned to Lon-
don to record Brahmss Fourth Symphony and Mozarts Symphony no.
with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. No doubt he would have appreciated
the Chunnel.
For the London Music Festival it was originally intended that the con-
ducting duties be split evenly between Boult and Walter, but Weingartner
was eventually engaged to conduct the last concert because Walter felt un-
comfortable at the idea of having Wilhelm Backhaus as his piano soloist,
writing to the management with surprising vehemence that Backhaus was an
official favourite of Hitler. When the management demurred, Walter wrote
again that there is remaining in myself a very strong resistance against a col-
laboration with a fellow-being in sympathy with the most anti-spiritual (and
in consequence anti-artistic) system of our times.32 Clearly Walters recent
wounds had not yet healed; it was rare for him to denounce a colleague so
strongly, and his unwillingness to do so after the war often earned him harsh
criticisms. Ironically, Backhaus and Walter appeared to have had some sort
of reconciliation shortly afterward, when they were both living in Switzer-
land, for Backhaus wrote to Walter in , after Elsas death, to offer his
condolences. Writing from Lugano, he recalled passing Walters old house
and the memories it evoked of the prewar years they had experienced to-
gether.33 A few years after the war, moreover, Walter suggested to Bruno Zi-
rato that Backhaus might be used as a soloist with the New York Philhar-
monic, noting that he behaved very well politicallyas a matter of fact, he
left Germany for good and spent all these years in Switzerland, so there
could be no political objection to his appearing with the orchestra.34
Despite these continued brushes with politics, the year was proceeding
smoothlysummer was on its way, and Walter was preparing for another
Salzburg Festival. Then near the end of July, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss
was assassinated when a group of armed Austrian rebels incited by German
Nazis stormed a cabinet meeting. Walter describes how his drive from
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Hallein to Salzburg, normally forty-five minutes long, took twice the time
that evening, as his car was stopped repeatedly by the Austrian militia,
demanding to see his papers.35 There had been a Nazi plot to take over the
Austrian government by force or even assassination if necessary. Though
Dollfuss had received a last-minute warning from one of the plotters who
had changed his mind, he dismissed his cabinet and remained to confront
the rebels, bleeding for two and a half hours before finally dying. So the cab-
inet members escaped, and the plot failed, but Dollfuss, who has been called
the heartbeat of Austria, was dead, and once again political earthquakes
were threatening to leave gaping fissures in Walters world.36
Dollfusss successor, Kurt von Schuschniggthough history has por-
trayed him as a weaker, more contemplative man, lacking Dollfusss strength
of leadershipnevertheless impressed Walter with his idealism and belief
in Austria. Walter was introduced to him by Alma Mahler Werfel, and
Schuschnigg apparently was equally impressed by the conductor of
Beethovens Missa solemnis, a piece that he especially enjoyed. He may
have been lacking in the political instinct that would have scented the terrible
dangers of the international situation and possibly averted them, Walter ad-
mitted, but he was given strength and inspiration by his firm belief in Aus-
trias political and cultural mission.37 Walter clearly identified with
Schuschniggs idealism and felt that as long as such a man remained chancel-
lor, Austria would be safe for him.But although Walter greatly underrated the
danger from the Nazi menace, he and his family were hardly unaware of it.
Two reels of home movies, possibly filmed by Lotte, show a man and two
women in Salzburg enjoying a pleasant luncheon on a terrace overlooking the
mountains. The camera focuses on them, then pans to one side, sweeping
over the graceful Austrian countryside. Then the camera pans in the other di-
rection until it comes upon a banner with a large swastika hanging from a
nearby chalet, where it lingers for a moment,making the contrast between the
peaceful countryside and the foreboding emblem eminently clear.38
For the most part, however, Walter kept his thoughts focused on music
and his first Don Giovanni in Salzburg. Hed never been quite satisfied with
his previous attempts at solving what he saw as problems in the work. At
any rate, my repeated experiences and disappointments had made me thor-
oughly acquainted with them, he recalled.39 In Salzburg he was confident
that the designer Oskar Strnad and the director Karlheinz Martin would
help him overcome some of the difficulties, but one major obstacle re-
mainedfinding the perfect singer for the title role. Then Walter heard that
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Ezio Pinza had successfully sung the Don in New York. Walter remembered
how he had invited Pinza to meet him in New York and how Pinza, famous
for his effect on the female sex, had particularly enchanted the Walters Bo-
hemian cook. Upon opening the door, she went rushing back and whispered
to Elsa, Maam, theres such a beautiful man outside, leading Walter to
hope that Pinza would be able to produce that immediate personal effect
he thought was crucial for the role.40 Pinza, as it turned out, was to have a
personal effect on Walters daughter Gretel, but for now his importance to
the conductor was as a singer whose voice and charisma were ideal for Don
Giovanni.
Pinza, for his part, was deeply impressed by Walter. Once more I found
myself working with a person of Toscaninis caliber, he recalled, but one
who was neither distant nor harsh. . . . Walter welcomed challenge, meeting
it in the spirit of intellectual and artistic give-and-take, making of it an en-
riching experience.41 Under Walters guidance Pinza changed his portrayal
of the Don as a conquering male, hopping from bedroom to bedroom, to
that of a magnetic rogue . . . doomed by his quest for the perfect woman.42
Gretel may indeed have seen Pinza himself as a kind of magnetic rogue, for,
as Pinza recalls, she kept her distance when they first met in the summer of
. Meanwhile, both Pinza and Gretel were in the process of separating
from their spouses; Pinzas present wife, Augusta, was of a volatile, highly
jealous nature, and Pinza shied away from involving the deeply respected
Bruno Walter family in one of Augustas terrible scenes.43 So although Gre-
tel made an immediate impression on Pinza, their relationship would not de-
velop until the following summer.
In the meantime Walters and Pinzas attempt to make something more
subtle out of the operas title role caught the attention of the critics, one of
whom described Pinza as a fascinating Don Giovanni, full of a passionate,
effervescent love of life.44 The Austrian audiences and critics also appreci-
ated Walters using a version of the opera closer to that of the Viennese pre-
miere in , restoring certain numbers that were usually cut in Vienna in
the earlier part of the twentieth century. The rest of the cast, which included
Dusolina Giannini as Donna Anna, was also highly praised, and the entire
production was a great hit. This summers season also boasted a return per-
formance of Tristan, Webers Oberon, Vienna Philharmonic concerts, and
Walters customary lieder recital with Lotte Lehmann.
The young conductor Erich Leinsdorf, who had been hired as Walters
assistant, contributed to the success of Don Giovanni, though not quite in
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the way he had envisioned. He recalled how his first day was a big letdown.
Walter, holding piano rehearsals with the cast, showed me in no uncertain
way that he needed my assistance like the proverbial hole in the head.
Leinsdorf spent most of the day turning pages for Walter. During the staging
rehearsals Leinsdorfs big chance came when the rehearsal pianist had to
go to the mens room and he had the opportunity to accompany at the pi-
ano for a full ten minutes, during which time he translated one or two mes-
sages from the Italian singers to the Viennese singers. As the rehearsal con-
tinued, Leinsdorf noticed that the Viennese prompter (who could pronounce
Italian but otherwise did not know the language) was confusing the Italian
singers. Leinsdorf, who had studied Italian, could prompt both the Italian-
and the German-speaking singers with far greater success than the official
prompter, and Pinza begged him to prompt at the performance. While it was
unusual for a conductor to descend to the depths of the prompters box,
Leinsdorf, happy to have something to do, agreed, and Walter expressed his
appreciation by writing a charming dedication in Leinsdorf s score and
engaging him as his assistant for next years Maggio Musicale in Florence.45
In October Walter made his first recording with the Vienna Philhar-
monica splendidly elegant yet heroic reading of Beethovens Emperor
Concerto, with Walter Gieseking as soloistbefore returning to Amsterdam
for a series of concerts with that citys premier symphony orchestra. Indeed,
he was to regard his work with the Concertgebouw during these years as one
of the bulwarks of his musical existence. His program for October in-
cluded the premiere of Kurt Weills Symphony no. , which the composer
another German expatriatehad begun in January of and, because of
obvious interruptions, finished more than a year later in France. Weill had
played through the symphony for Walter earlier in the year and was thrilled
when Walter suggested performing it in Amsterdam. It will be really won-
derful if he actually does it, Weill wrote to Lotte Lenya. Because hes now
the biggest international conductor here, having had greater success in
Salzburg than Toscanini!46 Even more excited when he actually attended a
rehearsal, Weill described to Lenya how Walter does it marvelously and
everyone is really enthusiastic, especially the entire orchestra!47 But,
though the work was apparently well received by the orchestra, the Amster-
dam critics were somewhat unkind, implying that the symphonys har-
monies and melodies were reminiscent of Die Dreigroschenoper (Three-
Penny Opera) and not truly symphonic, and that it was in actuality a group of
songs strung together (though Walter liked the work well enough to per-
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form it again in both Vienna and New York). This same Concertgebouw
program also included Prokofievs Third Piano Concerto with the com-
poser as soloist, as well as Brahmss Fourth Symphony, a strange intermin-
gling of styles that one critic described as a difficult, long but extremely in-
teresting exercise for musicians and laymen alike.48
The Weill symphony figured prominently as one of the principal novel-
ties Walter offered during this years run of concerts in New York, but now it
had taken on a new title, Three Night Scenes: A Symphonic Fantasy, which
Walter had suggested to Weill and to which the composer had reluctantly
agreed. According to Lawrence Gilmans program notes, Walter was im-
pressed by its nocturnal, uncanny, mysterious atmosphere, but one won-
ders if, after his experience in Amsterdam, Walter thought that a program-
matic title would make the critics listen to the work with different expectations.
If this was his plan, it failed miserably with the two most prominent New
York reviewers. Olin Downes, pulling no punches, characterized the three
movements as dreary, dull and witless, and Gilman, having written posi-
tively about the work for his program notes, did an about-face and declared
that it was easily forgotten.49 Its easy to see why this was the last purely
symphonic work Weill attempted.
Walters time in New York was somewhat shorter this seasonit lasted
only from December until January and his programming was perhaps
less varied. But he did manage to include two New York premieresRach-
maninoffs Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, with the composer at the pi-
ano, and Daniel Gregory Masons Suite after English Folksongsas well as
Albert Roussels Symphony no. in G Minor, all of which received some-
what kinder comments than the unfortunate Weill symphony. In addition
Walter continued his ongoing crusade for Mahler, offering Das Lied von der
Erde (with Maria Olszewska and Frederick Jagel), which elicited an en-
comium from Lawrence Gilman and a few kind words from Olin Downes,
who grudgingly grouped the final pages of the score among the most gen-
uinely poetical and distinguished passages in all Mahler.50 Though
Downes always admired Walters conducting, he was not so charitable to-
ward Walters notes for the concert production of Glucks Orfeo, which
opened the season. The conductors annotations were without value, he
carped, badly edited, poorly phrased and lacking the slightest information
about this opera.51 Though they did indeed contain some unidiomatic
awkwardnesses, Walters notes were intended to address a problem that
Downes himself mentioned: how to perform a concert version of a work that
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contains several ballet sequences. Instead of writing the kind of historical es-
say that Downes seemed to expect, Walter included a programmatic list of
the numbers, summarizing the content of the arias and recitatives and de-
scribing the drama pantomimed by the dances that he and Margarete Wall-
mann had worked out together. This way Walter hoped to give the listener a
continued tale of the dramatic proceedings, and the notes also served to
give the audience a window into his personal interpretation of a work for
which he seems to have had a special affinity.
When Walter finished his concerts with the New York Philharmonic on
January , he probably had little idea thatpartly because of his own
schedule, partly because of the Philharmonics programminghe would
not be returning until the season. Arturo Toscanini ran into Walter
during his stay in New York and remarked on his good health and unusu-
ally cheery disposition. He doesnt have his wife with him, Toscanini ob-
served, and this explains everything. But Toscanini also knew that Walter
would probably not be returning to the Philharmonic for the following sea-
son. They want to have Furtwngler split the season with me next year.
There have been too many conductors this year, and not very interesting at
that.52
Another year had passed and Walter, still barred from Germany, was be-
coming increasingly allied with the orchestras in two of her neighboring
countries, Austria and the Netherlands. After his usual vacation in St.
Moritz, Walter returned to Amsterdam in February to conduct, among other
things, a concert performance of Acis and Galatea, then back to Vienna in
March, all without passing through Germany. Of course, he had been on
close terms with the Vienna Philharmonic for some years now, and a large
number of the players from his early Vienna years were still members of the
orchestra. Otto Strasser recalled how the atmosphere in Walters Vienna re-
hearsals was loose, relaxed, almost familial, though it was always clear who
was in charge.53 The musicologist and conductor Siegmund Levarie, who
as a young student in Vienna attended many of Walters concert and opera
performances, managed to slip into some of Walters rehearsals and remem-
bered how easy-going they were: In his rehearsals he was kind rather than
demanding. When Toscanini rehearsed, Levarie and the other conserva-
tory students (who had made friends with the janitor in order to gain en-
trance to the rehearsals) had to lie on the floor in the gallery not to be seen.
But Bruno Walter was okay if he saw a few people therehe didnt kick any-
body out.54
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 Walters intimacy with this magnificent orchestral machine resulted in
especially gripping performances, and we are fortunate that, by the mid-
s, recording technology had become sophisticated enough for us to get
some inkling of how intense Walters performances with the Vienna Philhar-
monic could be. Their recordings of Act I and parts of Act II of Die Walkre,
made in June , are particularly rivetingthe orchestra, in its every nu-
ance, seems to be following Walters subtlest indications, and the result is a
highly expressive, supple, and unusually contrapuntal Wagner, perhaps like
no other Wagnerian recording. (It didnt hurt that Walter had Melchior and
Lehmann as his Siegmund and Sieglinde,along with Emanuel List as Hund-
ing.) Throughout the spring of , in fact, Walter spent a good deal of time
with the Vienna Philharmonic: three concerts in March and April, a tour
through England and France in April and May, and then the recording ses-
sions in June. Many again hoped for a closer association between Walter and
the opera house, and when Clemens Krauss, tainted by association with the
Nazis (he had just signed a contract with the Berlin Staatsoper), left in De-
cember , it seemed as if Walter might finally be secured as Viennas
opera conductor as well. But Weingartner was chosen to fill the sudden gap
left by what appeared to many as Krausss defection, though he was quick to
invite Walter to bring his Salzburg Orfeo ed Euridice to Vienna.
Walter did not, however, spend the entire spring with the Vienna Phil-
harmonic. In April he conducted in Budapest, Warsaw, and Prague, and in
May he took part in the newly developing Maggio Musicale in Florence,
concentrating mainly on Mozart, with three performances of Die Ent-
fhrung, the Requiem, and a symphony concert in which he conducted and
played the Piano Concerto no. in D Minor.
Between his travels to these different countries Walter was further de-
veloping his personal philosophy that music was one of the most powerful
means of coaxing nobler sentiments from humanity. It was a belief that he
had held for most of his life and one that he returned to with increasing fre-
quency in his various public statements in . He had come face to face
with humanitys darkest side, so its not surprising that he felt compelled to
counter it by pointing out the possibilities that existed for humankinds bet-
terment. At some point he gave a lecture in Vienna entitled Von den moralis-
chen Krften der Musik (On the Moral Forces of Music), later published as
a pamphlet in , in which he elaborated in great detail on how he felt mu-
sics power was exercised.

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 In Walters view musics great attribute was its ability to lift men and
women out of the narrowness of their everyday lives and transport them to
a higher plane of existence. While performing its primary mission, that of
existing as pure art, music might also make the world a better place. Further,
and despite his insistence that musics power was difficult to define, Walter
had specific ideas about how it achieved this ennobling effect on human be-
ings. Above all, Walter felt that dissonance in musicthough it could
abound freelymust ultimately resolve into consonance. (Here he betrays a
possible indebtedness to Schopenhauer, who likened the resolution of dis-
sonance into consonance to the satisfaction of the will.55) The spiritual ex-
citement created by such delays and hindrancestheir emotional effect
depends precisely on the fact that dissonance strives for consonance, and
unrest strives for repose, which will be withheld from it through the course
of the composition and achieve fulfillment only at the conclusion.56 There
is the distinct implication that it is unnatural to deny the listener a consonant
ending and, by extension, a morally uplifting experience. This was Walters
problem with truly atonal music: that it strips music of its harmonic devel-
opment, and therefore the dissonances lead nowhere and have no meaning.
If music has no meaning, it cannot produce its noble effect. Looked at in this
light, atonal music takes on amoral characteristics, though Walter does not
state this directly. Nevertheless, Walters decision to criticize atonal com-
posersin printat a time when the Nazis had also recently condemned
them was perhaps injudicious.
Walter was, of course, not so naive as to believe that all one had to do to
become a better person was to listen to music. But he did firmly believe that
regular contact with music could, in some cases, actually improve a persons
character. Further on in the essay, he tells a favorite story (he had recounted
it to the London Music Club in ) in which an acquaintance in San Fran-
cisco who taught music to prison inmates claimed that most of the inmates
he taught did not become repeat offenders when freed. Walter also placed
particular importance on singing in harmony, which he found superior to
unisono singing; he likened singing in parts to a society where different
people come together for one purpose. How satisfying it was to sing in har-
mony with his schoolmates, he recalled, not only because of the rich
sound, but also because of the moral satisfaction he derived from joining
with others so harmoniously.57 (That moral satisfaction doubtless carried
over into his collaborations with orchestras.)

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 By contrast, there are those who believe that, while music can be a force
for good, it can just as easily be a force for evil; but Walter was very decidedly
not of their number. His friend Thomas Mann, for instance, loved music but
also distrusted it to a certain extent. As Katia Mann later recalled, Walter was
upset after discovering in her husbands novel Doktor Faustus the con-
tention that music could signify something so sinister, so demoniacally
dangerous, an out-and-out pact with the devil. He didnt want to hear of
such a thing. Why music? For how can music, something as sublime as mu-
sic, which suffers the little children to come unto it, endanger someone so?
He wasnt prepared to acknowledge that at all.58 Katia Mann clearly under-
stood that, for Walter, music had to be a true gift from God and therefore
could hardly be a false gift from the devil.
Inspired as he was by his belief in musics moral power, Walter was as
much interested in matters on earth as the next person, and during the
Salzburg Festival performances, which included the return of his Don Gio-
vanni with Pinza,he was quick to perceive the growing relationship between
the bass and his daughter Gretel, then the wife of Robert Neppach, whom
she had married in .59 When Pinza first arrived in Salzburg that sum-
mer, Gretel greeted him somewhat distantly, showing little more interest in
him than she had the previous summer. Pinza, however, having recently con-
vinced his wife to agree to a divorce, allowed his feelings for her to blossom.
I soon knew that I could love her, he recalled, but I said nothing, de-
manded nothing, and still was happy, so long as I could see her at rehearsals,
at her parents home, and have an occasional meal with her and her family in
a restaurant.60 Then one evening after a gala reception, Pinza summoned
the courage to invite Gretel, along with Lotte and a Viennese music critic, for
further entertainment at a night club. It proved a costly evening for Pinza,
who ended up paying for the meal and two bottles of champagne; he also
managed to burn his tuxedo when someone left a lighted cigarette on his
chair. But these material encumbrances and accidents mattered little to
Pinza, since he had at last received the impression that Gretel cared for him
after all.61
Walter, it seems, not only knew of the relationship but approved. So he
was especially upset when plans to bring Pinza to Amsterdam for concerts
with the Concertgebouw did not appear to be working out, fearing that
Pinza would hold him responsible. I am afraid you have caused me a seri-
ous annoyance with Pinza, he wrote to Rudolf Mengelberg at the end of Au-
gust. Since he beamingly told my daughter that he would sing with me in
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Amsterdam, I have to assume that you had made him an offer; and since he
behaved much differently toward me yesterday in the last Don Giovanni per-
formance, it seems to me that you let him know or suspect that the engage-
ment had fallen through because of me.62 Walter spent the rest of the letter
stressing how important it was for him to maintain a happy working rela-
tionship with his collaborating artists. But resonating between the lines of
this letterbarely legible and no doubt scribbled in hasteis the sense that,
if he and Pinza somehow fell into discord, it could hurt Gretel as well. In the
end Pinza did not come to Amsterdam, probably because a satisfactory fi-
nancial agreement could not be reached; but whatever misunderstanding
may have existed between Walter and Pinza was soon smoothed over, and
Pinza recalled these years of working with Walter in Salzburg in only the
happiest of lights.
During this same month, Walter was taking steps to regain some kind of
regular home life. Right now we are about to take a house in Vienna and, af-
ter years, to have a home again, Walter wrote to his brother. I will hardly be
able to spend more than three months of the year there, but gradually it will
be more, and I have already gotten together my furniture, books, music, pi-
ano, etc. and, as long as I am in Vienna, my domestic life.63 So after another
trip to Amsterdam in October and a brief stint in Prague at the beginning of
November conducting the Czech Philharmonic, Walter returned to Vienna
to conduct six performances of Orfeo ed Euridice, as well as two perfor-
mances of Schoenbergs Gurre-Lieder with the Vienna Symphony and the
combined forces of the Singverein and the Bruckner Choir. But after these
performances he had the luxury of returning not to a hotel but to a home,
surrounded by his books and furniture, which was certainly a comforting
way to round out and appeared to bode well for future years.
As began, it seemed that the pattern of his life was now firmly es-
tablished: vacation in St. Moritz in January; February and part of March in
Amsterdam; April, May, and June in Vienna, with little excusions through-
out the first half of the year to Florence, Rome, Prague, and Paris. In May he
once again cut several disks with the Vienna Philharmonic, the most notable
of which was the world premiere recording of Das Lied von der Erde with
Kerstin Thorborg and Charles Kullman, made from a live concert. As Wal-
ters first recording of the masterpiece that he had premiered, it helped es-
tablish Das Liedperhaps even more than the Ninth Symphonyas the
Mahler work with which he is most closely associated. The sound quality is
necessarily much inferior to that of Walters later recordings of the song
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cycle, but the performance sizzles with tension, then dances with joy, and ul-
timately melts in poignancy.The American tenor Kullman fairly spits out the
words of the opening Trinklied, desperation ringing in his voice, and
Thorborgs Einsame im Herbst aches with sorrowful simplicity. The rest
of the songs are as finely etched, ending with Thorborgs haunting rendition
of Der Abschied. Both singers sound in excellent voice, and surrounding
them is the glorious Vienna Philharmonic of the s responding to Wal-
ters supreme flexibility of tempo, offering subtly nuanced phrases and a
great variety of articulation, always with a natural ease and colorful beauty of
timbre.
Yet the first half of was not without one disturbing interruption to
Walters musical serenity. During one of his Viennese performances of Tris-
tan in June, some Austrian Nazis threw stink bombs, sickening Anny Ko-
netzni, who was singing Isolde. Thomas Mann, who had given a reading at
the Musikverein earlier in the evening, went to the theater with the intention
of catching the rest of the performance and arrived just in time for the third
act and a vile-smelling house. . . . The performance was continued, he
wrote to his brother Heinrich, ultimately with just the orchestra, for the
Isolde, who had thrown up throughout the intermission, made only a lovely
gesture of incapacity and did not rise from Tristans corpse. Mann, of
course, did not pull any punches, remarking that now at least I know ex-
actly what Nazism smells like: sweaty feet to a high power.64 Walter deliber-
ately chose to continue the performance, refusing to give the Nazis the satis-
faction of ruining it, though naturally there were many frightened or simply
nauseated people who had to leave.
As it turned out, the Nazis had also attacked other theaters that night as a
thuggish demonstration of their brute force,and Walter soon received a death
threat, apparently prompted by the announcement of a concert that he was to
give on June with Marian Anderson and the Vienna Symphony, in which
the African-American contralto would sing Brahmss Alt-Rhapsodie. To
Nazi sympathizers, Andersons most recent biographer has observed, the
choice of Anderson was an act of defiance of Nazi cultural policy by a Jewish
musician.65 As was his custom with all singers performing in oratorios or or-
chestral songs,Walter insisted that Anderson know her music by heart,which
she accomplished on short notice. Here was a departure for the Viennese,
Herbert Peyser remarked in his review of the event, and a landmark in their
concert chronicles! What would Brahms have said if he could have known
that his rhapsody would be sung by a Negress? exclaimed one paper in
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amazement and (to its credit, be it said) in admiration. Well, Brahms would
probably have been overjoyed could he have heard how she sang itwith
what intuitive grasp of its poignantly human message, with what spiritual ele-
vation,with what noble contempt of effect and outward show,with what com-
plete subordination of herself to the ends of the composition.66
The next month an inner-ear infection began to plague Walter, prevent-
ing him from conducting at a Bruckner festival. By the end of the month he
had rallied and was once again conducting in Salzburg. This season con-
tained all of Walters greatest Salzburg hitsDon Giovanni, Tristan, and
Orfeo ed Euridice, as well as Der Corregidor, in which he once again won
over potentially skeptical critics. Hermann Ullrich of the Neue Freie Presse,
in particular, ended his rhapsodic review with the hope that this beautiful
work would remain permanently in the festival program.67
As the Salzburg Festival came to an end, a new opportunity arose for
Walter to ally himself even more closely with Austrian musical life. Erwin
Kerber, a member of the Vienna Opera board and an influential person in
the management of the Salzburg Festival, replaced Weingartner as director
of the Staatsoper. Hed had his eye on this position for a while and managed
to convince the aging conductor that it was time for him to go, a suggestion
with which Weingartner complied without any protest, remaining at their
disposal as a guest conductor. Prawy remarks knowingly: It was the first
time a change of Directors had been effected without animosity.68 Kerber,
whose skills lay mainly in administration, invited Walter to be his artistic
director, and the gossip circulating in Vienna was that Chancellor von
Schuschnigg had himself suggested to Franz and Alma Mahler Werfel that
Walter be engaged. In any case, Walter eagerly accepted this momentous of-
fer.69 At last he would occupy the offices that had belonged to Mahler some
thirty years before, or at least he would share them with Kerber. It was a part-
nership that seems to have worked quite smoothly, for Kerber, as Walter re-
called, was highly devoted to his conducting. Nevertheless, the responsibil-
ity of assuming artistic direction of such an illustrious institutionan opera
company, with the myriad problems and complexities peculiar to that art
form, which he knew all too wellnearly overwhelmed him. A man of al-
most sixty, I once more took upon myself the responsibilities of a great
operahouse.70 For the next couple of years he would manage only sporadic
appearances in other European countries, with the exception of Amster-
dam, with which he continued to maintain close ties. Going to America was,
of course, completely out of the question.
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Dies Irae
Vienna and Paris,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

They rush to their end

Who think themselves so strong in their existence . . .
Wagner, Das Rheingold

By the time he celebrated his sixtieth birthday on September ,

, Bruno Walter was firmly reestablished as a Viennese con-
ductor, living in Vienna, conducting at the Vienna Opera and in
concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic. Once Again in Austria
was the heading for the last chapter of Paul Stefans biogra-
phy of Walter, the first book devoted to the conductors life.1 One
of Mahlers earliest biographers, Stefan had been involved with
Walter as early as , when the author directed the musical ac-
tivities of the Society for Art and Culture in Vienna, an organiza-
tion that first made Walters Eichendorff songs known to the pub-
lic. In more recent times Stefan had devoted a short book to the
life of Arturo Toscanini, whose fame as an electrifying performer
was matched by his reputation for despising the forces of bar-
barism then threatening the world. What could be more natural
than that Stefan, as a tribute to Walter in his sixtieth year, should
turn his attention to the music worlds other international sym-
bol of sublime musical interpretation and the struggle against

tyranny? The biography is prefaced by contributions from Lotte Leh-
mann, Thomas Mann, and Stefan Zweig, and though it gives none of the
rich detail provided in Walters autobiography, it does offer the occasional
informative morsel that no other source provides. As one might expect, the
tone is laudatory throughout, with scarcely a word of criticism being
breathed.
A similar tone pervades Walters own biographical essay on Mahler,
published in the same year by the same publisher, Herbert Reichner. The
idea for the book had arisen almost immediately after Mahlers death; in fact,
some elements of Walters essay Mahlers Weg, published in , find their
way into his modestly proportioned biography, which ends with an assess-
ment of both the works and the personality behind them.2 Though gener-
ous in his praise of his subject, Walter is not wholly uncritical. The first part
of the book in particular is sprinkled with reminders of how difficult Mahler
could bethere was the violence with which he rebuffed my insufficient
remarks; he was no educator: he was far too absorbed in himself, his work,
his stormy inner life; his outward demeanour left much to be desired. . . .
[H]e could be harsh and biting, intransigent and swift to anger.3 The sub-
ject of the book, after all, was the man who had a terrible side (as Walter
had once written to his parents), a man under whom Walter himself had
borne his share of suffering.4
But most of the book shows us Walters deep reverence for a master in-
terpreter and a composer of genius. As a firsthand account of Mahlerand
Walter makes no serious attempt to cover those areas and periods of his sub-
jects life that were outside his personal experienceit offers many a valu-
able insight into the workings of a great mind. It also offers insights into Wal-
ters own interpretive inheritance from his mentor. When reading, for
example, that a sense of something done for the first time . . . was the chief
characteristic of his interpretations, we immediately recall that striving to
create the first-time experience was one of Walters constant goals as a con-
ductor.5 Moreover, we learn that for Walter, who freely acknowledged the in-
vention and audacity of Mahlers creativity, the most important elements of
his music were its beauty and depth: The supreme value of Mahlers work
lies not in the novelty of its being intriguing, daring, adventurous, or bizarre,
but rather in the fact that this novelty was transfused into music that is beau-
tiful, inspired, and profound.6 It is a characteristic of Walters interpreta-
tions of Mahlers music that they never sacrifice sublime beauty for the sake
of vulgar effect.
D I

 The same year in which he paid his respects to one close friend, he had
to endure the loss of another, for Ossip Gabrilowitsch passed away on Sep-
tember . Though they had long been separated geographically, Ossip and
Clara had remained among Walters closest friends, and Ossips death, com-
ing on the heels of Walters recent depressing experiences, was almost more
than he could bear. An entire month has passed since our Ossip closed his
eyes, and still I have not found the words to tell you how it affected me, he
wrote to Clara in October. The world had lost one of the warmest-hearted
people that Walter had ever known: When I think of the best that life has
given to me, I would name Ossip and you.7 The only way to recover from
the death of such a valued friend was once again to bury himself in his work.
Hardly had Walter begun his season in Vienna (which opened, not sur-
prisingly, with Tristan) when it was off to Sweden and then to Amsterdam
for an entire month. But by the middle of November Walter was back in Vi-
enna and firmly entrenched in Viennas musical life. A new production of
Don Carlo with Alexander Kipnis, Hilde Konetzni, Franz Vlker, and Elena
Nikolaidi (making her debut) was the high point of December. Nikolaidi
later recalled how Walter had listened to her audition and then promptly
given her the score of Don Carlo with instructions to study it and return in a
few days. He was like a father to me, she remembered. He was not arro-
gant; there was nothing pretentious.8 Some excerpts from this production
have survived in hardly bearable sound, but an intrepid listenerone who
doesnt flinch at hearing Verdi sung in Germancan gain some inkling of
the sparkling production, its splendid cast, and the drama that Walter
coaxed from Verdis orchestral lines, lifting them out of the role of mere ac-
companiment to which they are too often relegated.9 In this same month
Walter also made more recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic, including
Mozarts Prague Symphony and Beethovens Pastoral. While the
Beethoven recording is superb, it is the Prague performance that really
shows Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic at their best, with vigorous
tempi, sighing phrases, and pure, limpid timbres similar to those of the finest
period-instrument ensembles of recent times.
In February and March Walter returned again to Amsterdam, this time
with a slight variation to his routine in the form of a concert production of
Webers Euryanthe with the Concertgebouwthe belated Amsterdam pre-
miere. The reviewers praised the principals, who included Hans Hotter as
Lysiart, but above all there was Walter, whom they regarded as the quintes-
sential opera conductor, bringing them a new and untried work in which he
D I

was fully in his element. Some idea of the dramatic tension with which Wal-
ter seems to have infused the opera may be gleaned from his later perfor-
mances of the overture, especially with the New York Philharmonic.10
Walter spent the rest of the spring mainly in Vienna, repeating recent
productions of repertory operas such as Don Carlo and Eugene Onegin
(though he managed to give concerts in Florence, Rome, and Prague). He
also squeezed in a new production of Webers Oberon, which he had per-
formed at Salzburg,but which had not been performed in Vienna since .
The critic Josef Reitler, calling this forty-six-year gap an archival slumber
of inordinate duration, seemed delighted with the production, Walters con-
ducting, and the cast, which included Helge Roswaenge and Hilde Konetz-
ni.11 In May there came several more recordings, mainly of Mozart, includ-
ing the D Minor piano concerto with Walter as soloist. Here we finally have
the opportunity to hear Walter conducting and playing a Mozart concerto, a
feat that was perhaps more unusual in the first half of the twentieth century
than it is today. In the best performances of classical or romantic concertos,
there is certain to be a sympathetic meeting of minds between soloist and
conductor, but the organic unfolding heard when the orchestra is led by the
soloist is hard to match when two minds are at work. In this performance the
Vienna Philharmonic follows Walters articulation,phrasing,and rubato with
breathtaking closenessfurther evidence of the familiarity between Walter
and the Viennese players. When he slows slightly for the second theme, the
orchestra follows him exactly. And Walters piano technique and light,
pearly touch were still, in , quite impressive. In the s Pablo Casals
once remarked that it was a pity Walter had given up his piano playing, for he
judged Walter a very great pianist.12 Perhaps very great is too strong to
describe Walter the pianist, but, as his recordings show, he was a sensitive
player and had musical virtues that many full-time pianists could learn from.
After three performances of Figaro at the Maggio Musicale in Florence,
Walter took the Vienna Philharmonic on tour in June, performing Mozarts
Requiem in Paris at the Thtre des Champs-lyses. A live recording of
this June performance in fairly good sound has survived and, as with most
live performances, there are a few strange occurrences. At the alto entrance
in the Tuba mirum, for example, which up to this point had been moving
forward with a certain amount of urgency while maintaining its contempla-
tive affect, Kerstin Thorborg can be heard slowing down, with Walter reluc-
tantly pulling back the orchestra to match her. Elisabeth Schumann, if vul-
nerable to the criticism of having a small, chestless voice, sounds quite lovely
D I

in Mozart, though there are one or two shaky notes. Alexander Kipnis and
the twenty-seven-year-old Anton Dermota (who was singing the part for the
first time) fill out the quartet nicely,but the Vienna Staatsoper chorus wobbles
from time to time. Nevertheless, the expressive phrasing and sprightly over-
dotted rhythms wrought by this marvelous Mozart orchestra under Walters
guidance make the recording a compelling document in the history of pre-
war classical performance practice.
Though might seem to have been a sort of Mozartjahr for Walter,
it was his performances of Weber operas that elicited the most interest.
That summer at Salzburg he conducted Euryanthe again, this time in a fully
staged version. Articles about the production naturally made much of
Webers foreshadowing of Wagner; nevertheless, there was a certain under-
lying current of skepticism in some of the reviews, to the effect that only
someone of Walters caliber, convinced as he was of the operas worth, could
make it a success. Bruno Walter threw the entire romantic weight of his mu-
sical personality into the balance in order to bring victory to this opera that
he prizes so highly, commented the critic for the Neues Wiener Journal.13
For his part, Walter was cautiously happy over his success, writing to Flagler
that he was not enough of an optimist to hope that from now [on] Euryan-
the will become a favorite of the Opera-theaters; but perhaps this great suc-
cess will induce other theaters to perform Euryanthe again and this already
would give me a great joy and satisfaction.14
Walters Don Giovanni had meanwhile turned into such a huge hit that
it was performed again for the fourth summer in a row. Walter actually con-
sidered the performance better than that of the previous year, remark-
ing in the same letter to Flagler that equal achievements are not obtainable
so you have to make your choice to have better or worse ones; we chose to
make them better and we worked hard for it. He courteously neglected to
mention that the title role had been sung the previous year by Mariano Sta-
bile (one of Toscaninis favorites) rather than Pinza, though we know that
Walter always considered Pinza the ideal Don Giovanni. A complete record-
ing of the Salzburg performance survives, and Pinza does indeed sound
splendid,as do the other male singers.15 Dino Borgioli,in particular,imbues
the often weak-seeming Don Ottavio with a tender dignity. The female
singers are perhaps not quite as sound vocallyLuise Helletsgruber as
Donna Elvira seems to have been having a somewhat shrill evening. But
there is a tautness of expression, in both the vocal lines and the orchestral ac-
companiment, that lends the opera an eerie sense of inevitability. The drama
D I

set in motion in the first scene is carried through to the endthe inner
scenes come off not as frivolous comic relief, as sometimes happens, but as
events integral to the Dons approaching horrible fate.
Walter had barely a week to recover from the Salzburg Festival before re-
turning to Vienna to conduct another performance of Eugene Onegin in
early September. But the main event for the fall of was a new production
of Palestrina. Walter had originally wanted to perform it the previous year
but first had to spend some time convincing Hans Pernter, the Austrian Min-
ister of Education, to include it in the schedule because, several years before,
Pfitzner had apparently written a racist letter, declining to conduct in
Salzburg. Eager to revive the opera and absolve his friend, Walter retrieved
the letter from the files and, after reading it and noting its similarity to a letter
sent by Sigrid Onegin, felt certain that both letters had been dictated by the
German authorities.16 Although he eventually prevailed, Walter was still
concerned that the production might give rise to polemics concerning
Pfitzner, which would result in the kind of blending of art with politics that
he had always taken such pains to avoid. In the event the project was shelved
until the following year, and Walter, writing apologetically to Pfitzner in June
, had apparently decided that the composers presence at the perfor-
mance would not create any special difficulties and hoped that he would be
able to be there on opening night.17 As it turned out,Pfitzner was involved in
staging and conducting a production of Das Herz in Frankfurt and was un-
able to attend. Some intriguing excerpts from the Palestrina have sur-
vived, revealing a brisker, more declamatory Palestrina with greater elastic-
ity of tempo than is heard on more recent recordings.18
The other main events for what wasunknown to himself or his audi-
enceto be his final season directing opera in Vienna were new produc-
tions of Carmen and Smetanas Dalibor. Though Walter had been conduct-
ing Bizets popular opera since his early twenties, he had put off reviving it in
Vienna because no fascinating songstress with a fiery temperament was
available for the title part.19 But now Walter was confident that the Danish
singer Elsa Brems, who had begun her career in Copenhagen singing the
role, would appear sufficiently enticing. Since much depends on Carmens
acting abilility, it is naturally hard to judge from the few extant excerpts of
Bremss performance whether she lived up to Walters expectations, but in
the surviving fragmentary recordings the productions overall intensity cuts
through the prompters audible barks and the obligatory surface noise.

D I

Todor Mazaroff, another Walter discovery, comes off as an unusually com-
pelling Don Jos, and the Vienna Philharmonic under Walters guidance
milks the ominous qualities of the score for all they are worth. The produc-
tions premiere, three days before Christmas, was attended by Chancellor
Schuschnigg and various other prominent Viennese music-lovers, all of
whom joined Walter for a celebration afterward at the Hotel Imperial.
There we all stayed until far into the night, Walter recalled in Theme and
Variations, gemtlich as only Vienna knew how to make such occasions
even in those late days.20 And late days they proved to beSmetanas
Dalibor opened on February , little more than two weeks before the An-
schluss. This opera is a Fidelio with an unhappy ending, commented the
critic for the Neues Wiener Journal, blithely unaware of the prophetic over-
tones these words would come to have.21 For Fidelios message of brother-
hood and freedom would soon be meaningless in Vienna.
Up to this point, however, it had been business as usual, with Walter and
the Vienna Philharmonic busily turning out more recordings, including a
notable rendering of Mozarts Jupiter Symphony. Surely the most impor-
tant item, however, was the first complete recording of Mahlers Ninth, taken
from a live performance at the Musikverein on January . In later years Wal-
ter was highly critical of this monumental effort, one of his last prewar
recordings with his old friends, and was upset when RCA Victor reissued
the recording in without his knowledgehe learned about it through
reading the New York Times. In an acrid letter to George Marek he criticized
the companys lack of courtesy in going ahead with the release without con-
sulting him first. You will have noticed the musical and technical shortcom-
ings of this recording, he wrote. The turbulent political happenings of
March in Austria interfered drastically with my ability to concentrate
on the merits of the test pressings then forwarded to me to Holland and
made it very difficult for me to come to a definite approval or disapproval.22
Marek countered by praising the recording and sent Walter a copy, suggest-
ing that Walter might get a different impression if he listened to it again. Wal-
ter seemed somewhat mollified in his reply, though he still complained
about the audible coughing, the inescapable pitfall of any live recording.23
Though it is understandable that Walter was distressed at not being
consulted, any enthusiast of Mahlers Ninth must side with Marek on this
one. The sound, aided by the Musikvereins caressingly vibrant acoustics, is
remarkably good for a live recording from . As for musical shortcomings,

D I

Walter may have been thinking of the occasional flubbed note or of those
tense moments in the Rondo-Burleske when the frenetic pace threatens to
make the piece spin out of control. But for the rest, this earliest recorded ren-
dition holds its own with the numerous more recent, stereo recordings and
has rarely been out of the catalogue. As the first movement opens, the lis-
tener cannot help being moved by the sheer beauty of the strings sighing fig-
ures.As it proceeds,builds,and finally unwinds,there is languidness and ur-
gency moving as onethe effect is simply mesmerizing, and throughout the
long movement (here actually under twenty-five minutes), Walter maintains
this delicate balance so that one is somehow simultaneously soothed and
stirred. Likewise the second movement is at once robust and questioning,
with the character of each section sharply delineated, and although Walters
Tempo II is perhaps a bit more pi mosso than poco mosso, the result is an ex-
hilarating, careening waltz; the supple orchestra is more than up to the chal-
lenges posed by this dazzling tempo. The third movement is certainly trotzig
(brave or defiant) enough, and it is easy to imagine members of the au-
dience dizzily holding on to their seats to keep from fainting in the aisles, so
intense is the articulation and dramatic the gestures. There are uneasy mo-
ments near the beginning, but no real train wreck occurs, and in some ways
these hints of averted disaster add to the performances effectiveness. By the
time the section marked Mit grosser Empfindung is reached, order has
been restored, and the foreshadowing of the last movements themein
essence, a turnis indeed played with great expression. When this theme
comes to fruition in the last movement,the Viennese strings probably had no
need for Walters famous admonition to sing, for they sing freely as a matter
of course, and the turn is at once expressive and ornamental. In this perfor-
mance, too, the lines are so well balanced, being both independent and in-
terconnected, that the effect is almost that of a Renaissance motet.
Mahlers Ninth had enjoyed its very first performance, of course, under
Walter, and he would give one more world premiere in Vienna before taking
his enforced leave of the city. One of Schoenbergs students, Egon Wellesz
(who later became one of the most wide-ranging musicologists of the twenti-
eth century), had written a suite based on a play that Walter was particularly
fond of: Shakespeares The Tempest. Entitled Prosperos Beschwrungen, the
piece was introduced to the world by Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic
on February , . It offered an ingenious fusion of styleswith passages
reminiscent of Schoenbergs twelve-tone works (such as the fugal section in
the first movement), Stravinskys Le Sacre du printemps (in the Caliban
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movement), and late Austro-German romanticismthat clearly pleased
Walter, who ordinarily avoided atonality and savage roughness. According
to Wellesz, Walter prepared the score with characteristic diligence: Each
time we met, he wrote, Walter would say to me: Now I have learned
bars by heart, the next time I know the first movement by heart. When he
came to the first rehearsal he hardly had to use the score.24
The piece was well received, and Walter included it again in his concerts
with the Concertgebouw. But, as Walter himself put it, the sands in the
hourglass were running low, and the triumphs of art could hardly impede
the brute menace that was approaching Austria.25 After the fateful meeting
with Hitler at Berchtesgaden on February , in which Schuschnigg agreed
to accept the Austrian Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart into his cabinet as
minister of the interior, anxiety began to spread rapidly through Vienna.
Walter, soon to leave for Amsterdam, was asked by Schuschnigg himself
via the theater director Ernst Lothar to sign a three-year contract with the
Staatsoper. Meanwhile Walter was also asked to cable Toscanini in New
York to secure him for the Salzburg Festival. He was stunned by
Toscaninis refusal, sending him more cables and finally a long letter, assur-
ing his old colleague and friend that the chancellor defends Austria like a
true Knight of the Holy Spirit, and begging him not to leave Austria in case
it goes its own independent road.26 Toscanini, of course, had already ex-
pressed reluctance to return to Salzburg when Furtwngler had been en-
gaged to conduct there the previous summer, and by this time the tensions
between Walter and Furtwngler had grown unbearable for Walter, as he ex-
plained with undiplomatic candor to Toscanini: Furtwnglers atmosphere
isat least for mepolitically, personally, and artisticallyintolerable; and
particularly at Salzburg. . . . Furtwngler has one sole idea: himself, his
glory, his success; he is a man of talent, of personal weight but bad-hearted,
which expresses itself even in his music-making. I have now in Vienna had
new proofs of how bad he is because of his intrigues against me.27 But for
all Walters pleas, Toscanini, politically the shrewder of the two conductors,
remained adamant in his refusal.
Despite gloomy predictions from other colleagues, such as Bronislaw
Huberman, Walter retained his faith in Chancellor Schuschnigg, even after
he had made what were clearly perilous concessions to Hitler. Indeed, soon
after his return from Berchtesgaden, Schuschnigg seemed to undergo a
transformation; the shy, cultured man suddenly became the lion of
Vienna.28 On February he gave a stirring radio address, declaring that
D I

Austria would not budge another inch, crying Thus far but no further!
Walter, preparing to conduct a concert with the Czech Philharmonic, lis-
tened to the speech from his hotel room in Prague, almost regretting that he
had to leave to get to the concert hall. He was convinced that Schuschniggs
speech had inflamed the Austrian people and that, had the planned
plebiscite actually taken place, Nazism in Austria would have been swept
away by the wave of enthusiasm for Schuschnigg. Two days later, at the pre-
miere of Dalibor, the audience rose to greet the Chancellor as he entered his
box before the second act. So Walter left for the Netherlands in an optimistic
mood the following day, hardly thinking that he would not return.29
Walter went about his business in Amsterdam as usual, performing with
the Concertgebouw in a series of concerts that included, on March , ,
the world premiere of Ernst Kreneks Second Piano Concerto with the com-
poser as soloist. All the while, the political atmosphere in Vienna had been
growing ever more ominous. Schuschnigg had announced that the
plebiscite would take place on March , and through telephone conversa-
tions with Lotte back in Vienna, Walter and Elsa learned of numerous
demonstrations for and against Schuschnigg. But, as Walter later recalled,
they still waited trustingly for the plebiscite, holding out hope that the Aus-
trian people would show their revulsion for Hitler in a public election. On
March , however, Walter arrived home after a rehearsal to be informed by
Elsa that Hitler had issued an ultimatum and that Schuschnigg had, after an
initial show of defiance, caved in at last. Walter and Elsa spent the afternoon
and evening listening to the painful farewell speech by Schuschnigg, the ad-
dresses by President Miklas and Seyss-Inquart as the new chancellor, and
the news of German troops advancing on Austria, occupying one town after
another. Walter felt as though he were witnessing not so much the death of
Austria as her horrible disfigurement. If you think of the most beautiful
woman, whose beauty has been destroyed by smallpox or a more terrible
disease and now she wanders about like a caricature of herself, resembling
herself but giving horror at the same timethis is the fate of Austria and
Vienna in particular, he wrote several weeks later to Harry Harkness Flag-
ler. As the letter continues, his command of English grammar, usually im-
pressive, nearly gives out. I sat the night from th to th March on the Ra-
dio, I heard the incredibly terrible news I felt the growing tragedy, I listened
to the change of an amiable voice in Vienna dialect to the triumphant sound
of Berlin Jargon and of the Vienna Valses that filled the intervals between

D I

the historic news to the Prussian Military marches, of the old Austrian hymn
to the Horst Wessel-Lied,the banal and profane hymn of the Third Reich.30
Walter and Elsa now became instant exiles from the country that had be-
come their home; they had sent an enthusiastic telegram to Schuschnigg af-
ter his speech of February and felt certain that, though they might be per-
mitted to enter, they would never be able to leave. Walter resigned his
position at the Staatsoper from a distance, and in an eerie echo of the
newspapers that had so recently lionized Walter in Vienna now began to is-
sue snide remarks instead. Bruno Walter will not be seen wielding the ba-
ton in the awakened Vienna Staatsoper. This once representative artistic
messenger of Austria, who characteristically stays in Amsterdam, will move
his activities to the countries in which his protector, Arturo Toscanini, also
performs German music in an un-German way, the Neues Wiener Journal
crowed, insulting him, Toscanini, and the entire Netherlands in one fell
swoop.31
At this point, however, Walter was hardly concerned with such Nazi-
induced journalistic abuse. Not only had he left most of his worldly posses-
sions in Vienna, but, far worse, Lotte was still there and had been arrested
along with a group of friends with whom she had been spending the
evening, simply because, as Walter told Flagler in the same letter, every
gathering was suspect and the housekeepers denounced people just to prove
sympathy with the conquerors. The news of Lottes arrest had been an-
nounced on the radio during the intermission of one of Walters Concertge-
bouw concerts, and though he managed to finish the concert, as soon as it
ended, he immediately telephoned Erwin Kerber back in Vienna to see what
he could discover. Then he called Gretels husband, Robert Neppach, from
whom she had not yet completely separated, and asked him to travel from
Berlin (where he was living) to Vienna to work with Kerber in effecting
Lottes release. Though Kerber managed to locate the police station to
which Lotte had been taken, neither he nor Neppach was able to contact her.
Meanwhile Walter still had concerts to conduct in The Hague, Monte Carlo,
and Nice, and he recounted how he and Elsa spent the next two weeks in a
state of unrelieved anxiety: My days and nights crawled along in a torment
of waiting which would have been considered exaggerated cruelty even in
Dantes infernal circles.32 Finally, after two weeks, Lotte called her parents
hotel in Nice to tell them that she had been set free.
But there was as yet the difficult matter of getting Lotte safely out of
Vienna. Walter learned that people were still able to travel, provided they
D I

could prove their trip had a professional basis, and luckily Lottes passport
still stated her profession as that of a singer. So Walter asked a concert man-
ager in Prague to engage her for a song recital and was overwhelmed with
gratitude when the splendid fellow went so far as to have large placards an-
nounce the fictitious recital in the streets of Prague. Then, when her exit
permit was delayed, the agent sent a letter threatening that non-compliance
with her obligations would have serious consequences. An agent in Zurich
constructed a similar fabrication, thus opening both borders, and in the end
Lotte chose the Swiss frontier in order to meet Walter and Elsa in Lugano,
where they were presently staying.33 For two weeks Lotte has been out of
the hell that Austria is now, Walter wrote to Clara Gabrilowitsch at the end
of April; we waited for her in Switzerland, at the train station in Lugano,
and it was tremendously moving to embrace her after all the hardships she
had lived through. As relieved as Walter was to have Lotte back safe and
sound, he was now concerned for Gretel, who had to return with her hus-
band to Berlin, where he was employed as an architect and sometime film di-
rector. We suffer from tormented thoughts, he confessed to Clara, know-
ing that she is in Germany.34
With all this going on, Walter attempted to regain some semblance of a
normal life. He had received invitations to conduct from all over Europe, as
he mentioned to both Clara and Flagler, though few from the United
Statesa circumstance he found somewhat puzzling. Still suffering from
the strain of the last weeks and feeling even more in need of rest between en-
gagements than usual, he accepted invitations only from France, the Nether-
lands, England, and Scandinavia. He and Elsa took a furnished apartment in
Zurich and tried to make plans for the future, still hoping to recover a few of
their possessions. Their housekeeper, who had accompanied Lotte out of
Vienna, had brought some of their clothes, as did one of their maids who
joined them later. A friend managed to get a portion of Walters music across
the Czech frontier, but he and Elsa still had to resign themselves to losing al-
most everything theyd left behind in Vienna. The fate of Walters Cadillac
turned out to be so preposterous that it bordered on black humor; it was
confiscated and given to a released criminal now made Gauleiter. As Walter
recalled ironically, My car served the highly meritorious and qualified old
party member and provided him with the comfort befitting his station.35
By the end of April Walter had resumed a routine that resembled his
usual spring conducting schedule, directing concerts and a performance of
Fidelio in Paris, as well as recording Schumanns Symphony no. with the
D I

London Symphony Orchestra and Haydns Symphony no. with the Paris
Conservatory Orchestra. Recorded collaborations between Walter and the
splendid Parisian orchestra are rare, and this sparkling Haydn performance
contains perhaps crisper phrasing, with fewer sighs, than Walters Vien-
nese recordings of Haydn and Mozart from this period. There is, neverthe-
less, a superbly polished exuberance to this Haydn symphonythe musi-
cians seem to be following Walters baton in every minute tempo fluctuation
and inflection. After he finished in Paris, Walter was originally to have con-
ducted the Vienna Opera in Florence in a production of Euryanthe, but this
was clearly impossible now, and Walter intended to withdraw from the pro-
duction. But the director of the festival was so desirous of having Walter con-
duct that he chose to change the programming and have two choral works
Beethovens Missa solemnis and Brahmss Deutsches Requiemperformed
by Italian artists instead.
Traveling to Italy, however, or indeed anywhere, was beginning to pre-
sent serious problems for Walter and Elsa, since Germany had declared that
Austria no longer existed and therefore their Austrian passports were in-
valid. Without citizenship they could neither travel nor stay in one place. To
go to Florence from Paris, Walter had obtained a special permit from the Ital-
ian consulate in Paris, and years earlier he and his family had been granted
the right to live in Switzerland, though they were not Swiss citizens. Since he
hoped to resume his conducting activities outside Switzerland in October,
Walter would somehow have to acquire new citizenship. Now a homeless
musician, Walter felt, as he wrote to a friend in June, like the bird in the
poem from Des Knaben Wunderhorn who pipes and trills to the end of the
world.36
One plan he entertained was to apply for citizenship in the tiny country
of Monte Carlo, known primarily for its casinos. Having lost the Salzburg
Festival (though certainly there must have been many who felt that the
Salzburg Festival had lost Walter), he thought perhaps he might interest the
casinos management in creating a musical and dramatic festival similar to
Salzburgs and that, as a result, the government might be willing to offer him
special treatment when it came to acquiring citizenship. Walter was naturally
quite aware of the disparity between gambling and high culture; when de-
scribing his plan in his autobiography, he was quick to assert that the erec-
tion of a new great operahouse on the rocks of Monaco or in the fine grounds
near the Casino would have made some of the sinful riches of the gambling
establishment available for a noble use.37 Walters plan was met with some
D I

interest but eventually foundered; he neither started a festival nor gained
citizenship. As the summer dragged on, with no definite prospects for ac-
quiring citizenship, he began to wonder how he would be able to continue
his professional life.
Though the Walters long-term plans were necessarily vague, a solution
to their immediate need for a roof over their heads presented itself in
Lugano, Switzerland, where Walter, Elsa, and Lotte had taken a villa with
windows looking out upon Lake Lugano below and the Tessin Mountains
above. The beauty of their new dwelling and the relocation of Gretel and her
husband in Zurich were sources of joy, but Walter could not completely rid
himself of the wretched thought of being condemned to stay permanently
on the shoal on which I seemed to have run aground.38 In the meantime,
however, a new festival had been organized in Lucerne, where Toscanini
conducted a hand-picked orchestra that included members of the Busch
Quartet; hearing Toscaninis rendering of the Sieg fried Idyll in a park near
Wagners villa, Triebschen, was especially memorable for Walter. He himself
conducted a highly praised concert of Weber,Schubert,and Wagner,though
he and the festivals other conductors (Ansermet, Gravina, Busch, and Men-
gelberg) directed an orchestra composed of members from the Orchestre de
la Suisse Romande and the Luzerner Kursaal-Orchester, and the favoritism
shown toward Toscanini on the part of the festivals organizers did not
escape the notice of at least one critic.39
Rescue from the fate that Walter had feared was close at hand. At the be-
ginning of September Walter received a letter from Georges Huismans, the
Directeur Gnral des Beaux-Arts in Paris, telling him that, having learned
of his efforts to become a citizen of Monte Carlo,the French government was
prepared to make him a citizen of France. Walter gratefully telegraphed his
acceptance and left at once for Paris, whereupon he and Elsa were granted
citizenship in a matter of weeks. We now have regular French passports,
he wrote to Rudolf Mengelberg at the end of September; you can imagine
how radiant we feel and how happy we are.40 In return for this inestimable
service, Walter was prepared to put himself at the disposal of Frances musi-
cal scene as much as possible, and for a time he and Huismans even toyed
with the idea of having a huge yearly music festival in Paris to be called the
Ftes internationales Paris, a plan which, with the Nazi occupation of
France, unfortunately turned out to be little more than a pleasant fantasy on
the part of Walter and Huismans.41
Armed with his new nationality, Walter could now begin his season in
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earnest. He set off first for London, where he made several recordings with
the London Symphony Orchestra, including Corellis Concerto Grosso in
G Minor (the Christmas Concerto), one of the few recordings of Walter
directing a baroque work. Though the somewhat literal interpretation of the
dotted notes in the opening Grave, and the unadorned cadences through-
out, might sound plodding and unimaginative today, the performance still
carries a certain sense of baroque phrasing, and it is intriguing to think that
Walter might himself be playing the harpsichord continuo, as he often did in
Handel and Corelli concerti.
He then embarked on a tour of the Balkans and later recalled that he had
agreed to this tour partly out of a desire to see Greece, especially Athens. In
the end he saw more of Greece than hed bargained for: his flight from
Athens ran into some severe weather, and the plane, struck by lightning,
foundered somewhere in the Peloponnesus, though Walter and the rest of
the passengers were miraculously unharmed. After this little adventure,
which left him in some doubt as to whether he would ever want to fly again,
he returned to Paris by train, where he immersed himself in the Parisian con-
cert scene, his activities culminating in a recital with the violinist Jacques
Thibaud and two performances of the Verdi Requiem.42
The absolute necessity of avoiding Germany, even by air, led to further
travel adventures in November. Walter returned to Amsterdam for two con-
certs and was then scheduled to embark on a tour of Scandinavia, to conduct
concerts in Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Oslo. But since the train went
through Germany and was thus out of the question and the only other obvi-
ous way to get from Amsterdam to Stockholm was to fly over Nazi Germany,
Walter decided to make a detour to London and then travel on a small
steamer that made regular trips from London to Gothenburg. This proved
perhaps the roughest sea voyage of Walters life, yet he still found it prefer-
able to flying over Germany.43 And the journeys perils were more than
counterbalanced by the happy memories he retained of his concerts in
Stockholmin particular, his meetings with Prince Eugene, brother of Swe-
dens king, who had impressed Walter as a highly cultured man when they
had previously met in Salzburg. It was at one of the princes parties that Wal-
ter made the acquaintance of important Swedish politicians who later man-
aged to get entry permits for Walters brother and sister, allowing them to
settle in Gothenburg.
By the time Walter returned to Lugano, it was already the middle of De-
cember, and he and Elsa were permitted some weeks rest before they started
D I

traveling again, stopping in Paris for a few days before Walter took the
Orchestre de la Socit Philharmonique de Paris on a tour through Stras-
bourg, Lyon, and Geneva for concerts of Mozart. Then he headed for Lon-
don (conducting concerts with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the
London Philharmonic) and on to Amsterdam for a substantial number of
concerts that lasted until well into February. Through the many dramatic up-
heavals of the last several years,the Concertgebouw had been a source of con-
tinuity in Walters musical life.Back in the fall of Walter and Rudolf Men-
gelberg had made plans for Walter to conduct in the season,but with
Nazis looming in the distance, they both must have had some presentiment
that this would be Walters last appearance in Amsterdam until after the war.
Yet even without the sense of impending doom in Europe, Walter would
no doubt have been eager to renew his ties in America, which he had been
forced to sever temporarily upon assuming artistic directorship of the Vi-
enna Staatsoper. The opportunity came when the NBC Symphony Orches-
tra, in its second season, invited him to direct five of its Saturday night con-
certs in March and April. Most people, Walter included, have assumed that
the orchestra, with its players selected and drilled by the formidable Artur
Rodzinski, had been created expressly for Toscanini. In fact, Samuel Chotz-
nikoff (RCA president David Sarnoffs go-between) allowed Toscanini to
believe this, but NBC was all the while planning to use the orchestra for
other programs as well.44 The orchestra nevertheless had already become
known as the Toscanini orchestra when Walter came to conduct in ,
though the reviewers of his concerts respectfully refrained from compar-
isons between the two maestros and confined themselves to speaking of the
meritswhich they thought were plentifulof Walters efforts.45
The first concert, devoted entirely to Mozart, received perhaps the most
enthusiastic reviews of Walters NBC concerts from his old chronicler Olin
Downes. Mozarts Divertimento in B-flat Major (K. ) could hardly have
been interpreted more charmingly, while the Symphony no. in G Minor
was fully in the tradition, yet so vitalized, and every phrase so instinct with
comprehension and feeling, that it communicated an entirely fresh impres-
sion; the Piano Concerto in D Minor, with Walter playing, elicited the com-
ment that perhaps only a conductor capable of the double task should be
allowed to interpret Mozart concerti. Overall, Downes felt that Walters de-
but with the NBC Symphony was one of its most distinctive concerts, and
that the music flashed and soared, without suspicion of the weight or cum-
brousness of the mortal coil.46 Since these concerts were radio broadcasts,
D I

many of them were privately recorded and have since been released on small
labels, so we may actually compare Walters NBC performance of the D mi-
nor piano concerto with his Viennese performance of two years earlier. The
differences are striking, to say the least, particularly in the first movement,
which in the earlier performance is more lyrical, alternating between agita-
tion and reflection. The NBC performance is only slightly brisker in tempo
but with a rather driving character from beginning to endthe strings use
noticeably more vibrato and sometimes even sound as though they were
pushing the conductor-soloist ahead. The second movement contains per-
haps the closest meeting of minds between Walter and the orchestra and is
not so different from the Vienna performance. And the last movement, taken
at quite a clip in both performances, still has a sense of space in the Viennese
account, while the NBC version borders on the frenetic. It is tempting, of
course, to attribute these differences to the conducting styles of Walter and
the NBCs regular fiery maestro, but we must consider the possibility that
Walter himself, under the influence of what he often referred to as New York
Citys allegro furioso, was mostly responsible for the performances
high-wired character. The bone-dry acoustics of Studio -H in Radio City,
especially when compared with the warm resonance of Viennas Musik-
vereinssaal, might also have been a contributing factor.
Walters remaining four concerts were also fairly well received. The pro-
grams included Berliozs Symphonie fantastique, along with the Corsaire
Overture and excerpts from La Damnation de Faust; Brahmss First Sym-
phony; and works by Weber, Wagner, and Haydn, as well as Daniel Gregory
Masons Suite after English Folksongs. Walters final concert was devoted to
Mahlers First Symphony. This, too, has been issued commercially and is
notable for being Walters first recorded performance of Mahlers Titan
Symphony. While it is perhaps not as coherent, in terms of either musical ex-
pression or basic instrumental ensemble, as his two later studio recordings
with the New York Philharmonic () and the Columbia Symphony Or-
chestra (), it does contain many marvelously vigorous moments.
If the critics refrained from comparing Walter with the NBCs regular
conductor, the musicians, for the most part staunchly loyal to Toscanini,
could not help drawing comparisons, some of them invidious. William Car-
boni, a violist who played in both the New York Philharmonic and the NBC
orchestra, recalled that Toscanini in his later years was afraid that his perfor-
mances would get draggy and heavy like Bruno Walters.47 Another vio-
list, Nicolas Moldavan, described Walters Mozart Symphony no. in G
D I

Minor as graceful and gay, as opposed to Toscaninis version, which was
molto drammatica.48 Then there is the famous story wherein Walter
asked the strings to play with shorter bowings in Mozarts Fortieth, and
when the musicians finally complied, Toscanini rushed furiously from the
roomthough the rumor that the two conductors never spoke to one an-
other again is patently untrue.49 Indeed, near the end of his life Toscanini re-
portedly told the Italian pianist Mario Delli Ponti that Walters recording of
the Fortieth (presumably that with the New York Philharmonic) was better
than his own.50 But Toscanini did not conduct Mahler, and one gets the
sense that, in this work at least, the musicians were wholeheartedly commit-
ting themselves to Walters interpretation. Instead of maintaining the
sharply etched, forward-moving lines that Toscanini favored and that creep
into some of Walters performances with the NBC from time to time, the
strings bend and inflect in an almost Viennese manner. Walters countless
subtle tempo changes are smoothly executed, and there is no lack of fire, par-
ticularly in the last movement.
All this time, while Americans were happily listening to the NBC play-
ing over the radio, Hitlers troops were menacing Poland. Walter had been
invited by Hans Kindler to take over one of his concerts with the National
Symphony in Washington, D.C., and the headlines in the Washington Post
on the very day that Walter was to conduct, April , screamed of desperate
attempts by different countries to stem the tide of Nazism. Walter and Elsa
and Lotte, perhaps seeing the headlines, began to fear that war would break
out at any moment and that they would be separated from Gretel, still in Eu-
rope. But when they set sail for London on April , Europe was merely sim-
mering, not yet boiling, and they were able to reunite with Gretel in Paris in
May. Later Walter recalled this last time his whole family was together
made radiant by all the charms of springwith especial wistfulness.51
During this time in Paris Walter made his only studio recording of
Berliozs Symphonie fantastique, with the Paris Conservatory Orchestra. He
had programmed the work very early in his career; it was one of Mahlers fa-
vorite pieces, and Walter traced distinct similarities between Berlioz and
Mahler, especially in Berliozs daring use of bizarre and grotesque means
for the purpose of reaching the utmost keenness of expression.52 Certainly
there is no absence of expression in this recording, yet it also contains
an overlay of refinement characteristic of the French orchestra and is quite
different from Walters live performances with the New York Philharmonic,
at least one of which (from ) has been preserved. The combination of
D I

passion with restraint is particularly effective in the first movement, where it
serves to highlight the general feeling of schizophrenia that persists through-
out the movement. Walters Un Bal movement is gentle, wistful, with a Vi-
ennese lilt, and a review of his performance with the NBC Symphony back
in April criticized just this aspect of Walters interpretation, calling his con-
ception of Un Bal as a sentimental lndler stylistically indefensible.53 In
the hands of the elegant Paris Conservatory Orchestra, however, the effect is
hardly one of oversentimentality, but more a foretaste of sad times to come.
The same may be said for the Scne aux champs, an epitome of stylish ex-
quisiteness. The last two movements are naturally more explosive, though
never bordering on being out of control. The Dies irae theme in particular
is played with an eerie sense of inevitability that sets ones hair on endand
days of wrath were inexorably approaching Walter.
It is sadly fitting that Walters last European recording before the war
should convey such sober sentiments, for all during this time he and Elsa
had been expecting a catastrophe. While in Washington they had even ob-
tained an American entry visa for Gretel so that, should war break out, she
would be able to come to America with the rest of his family. But what actu-
ally happened to the Walter family in the second half of was more horri-
ble than anything they could have imagined.
Gretel, during the last year, had been ostensibly living with her husband
in Zurich, though she was still seeing Ezio Pinza whenever the opportunity
arose and had been trying to prevail upon Neppach to grant her a divorce.
Pinza recalled how he saw her briefly in Salzburg, and how one day she told
him she had to go to Zurich to see her husband, who wanted urgently to
speak with her. According to Pinza, before she boarded the train, she ex-
pressed some fear that they would not see each other again but reassured the
alarmed Pinza that it was merely a womans whim.54 On August she vis-
ited her fathers friend Arturo Toscanini in his study in Kastanienbaum,near
Lucernehe recalled her beautiful smile on that occasion55 and then re-
turned to her husband. The following day Pinza received a telephone call
from Toscaninis daughter, Wally, who told him that Neppach had shot Gre-
tel as she slept, then turned the gun on himself. Pinza made the long drive
from Salzburg to Zurich to find Gretel already dead and met Walter at his
hotel, whereupon Walter came up to him and placed an arm around his
shoulders. The funeral, he recalled, was attended only by the Walters,
Toscanini and his daughter Wally, and himself. The next day I drove the
Walters to their home in Lugano, the urn with Gretas ashes in my car, the
D I

man I had grown to love like a father sitting beside me, silent with grief.56
While the Swiss police at first announced only that a German citizen had
shot his wife and then himself, Walter was informed almost immediately, re-
ceiving the shattering news while he was in his study, preparing to conduct a
Mozart concert for the Lucerne Festival.57 Completely unable to conduct,
he asked Toscanini to substitute for him and rushed off to Zurich, later can-
celing the remainder of his upcoming appearances in Lucerne.
During his many unsettling experiences of the past several years, Walter
had been able to take refuge in his work, his art being his consolation. But
Gretels sudden and shocking death left him bereft of the will to carry on,even
for the sake of music. She brought light and joy into our life and now it has
become dark and sad, he wrote to the Manns on August ; I do not know
how I can make music when my soul is in such a dismal, painful condi-
tion.58 By the middle of September Walter, feeling no better, telegrammed
Rudolf Mengelberg that his nerves would not allow him to work. Then, in a
letter following, he promised his old friend to try his best to resume his ac-
tivities, though he still wondered whether he would be able to make music.
Here my good intentions are not sufficient, therefore the grace [of God] is
needed, he wrote resignedly.59 Indeed, he was having difficulty thinking
about the future at all, as he told Alma Mahler: I, who until now have lived
only for the present and for the future, have no other thoughts or feelings
than to gaze back at the past. That is where everything beautiful, noble, and
charming used to be.60
But some thought for the future was imperative, since Walter and Elsa
were beginning to have serious doubts about staying in Europe. Paris was
now in constant danger of being bombed, forcing Walter to cancel any tenta-
tively planned performances there. Though he toyed with the idea of going
to London, it seemed best simply to bid Europe goodbye and head for New
York, where he was to conduct concerts at the beginning of the next year. He
had only dim hopes of returning to Europe in the spring. How good that
your children are still so young, he wrote to Rudolf Mengelberg, a couple of
weeks before leaving for New York. Perhaps they will become leaders and
helpers in a new, better Europe. And then, knowing that this might be his
last letter to Mengelberg for some time, he concluded by saying, In this
hope, I shake your hand and call to you auf Wiedersehen.61
On November Walter, with Elsa and Lotte, boarded the Rex in Genoa
and set sail for New York.

D I



Guest Conductor on Two Coasts

New York and Los Angeles,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

. . . for the miracle

I mean our preservationfew in millions
Can speak like us; then wisely, good sir, weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.
Shakespeare, The Tempest

I am thankful for the suns warmth, which beautifies life in this

part of America, Walter wrote the day after Christmas to Chap-
lain Helmut Fahsel, who had presided over Gretels funeral in
Lugano.1 And indeed, living in sunny Beverly Hills, where he and
Elsa and Lotte had rented a house on North Crescent Drive, was
having a salubrious effect on Walters spirits. But, even more reas-
suring, he was beginning to conduct again; for not long after his
arrival in California, he opened the Los Angeles Philharmonics
season with five concertsthe first time he had raised his baton
since Gretels death. Next week I shall have my first concert after
the most tragic event of my life and I will do my very best to make
music as I have done before. But naturally it will be very exciting
for me, he wrote to Harry Harkness Flagler near the end of No-
vember.2 His appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
were exciting for the audience as well, to judge by Isabel Morse

Joness review of the fourth program, which she called one of the outstand-
ing concerts of its history. Throughout the next several years Jones would
remain one of Walters staunchest supporters, and, at this particular concert
at least, her feelings were obviously shared by the audience. With a spon-
taneity seldom seen here, the listeners rose after the rapturous performance
of Beethovens First Symphony and stood applauding the conductor in
company with the orchestra. This sleepy old pueblo woke up and
cheered.3 One cant help wondering how many members of the audience
knew that these concerts were, in effect, the beginning of Walters musical re-
birth, and whether such knowledge helped fuel their display of appre-
ciation.
So, although nothing could ever fully assuage the pain Walter was to
carry with him for the rest of his life, he was beginning to live with it. And be-
ing able to make music again was, in a sense, bringing him closer to Gretels
spirit. I feel, more deeply than ever before, music as a connection to the di-
vine, he wrote to Fahsel, and I know that I dont deceive myself when
through it I feel myself nearer to my Gretel.4 But despite his increasing spir-
itual solace and his calling himself an optimist even in the face of unspeak-
able tragedy, there were still many earthly burdens to bear. For one thing, as
he wrote in the same letter to Fahsel, even with his new, comfortable exis-
tence in America, he felt very close to the suffering of humanity back in Eu-
rope. For another, Elsa was not coping quite as well as her husband and
could hardly bring herself to speak of what had taken place, even with him.
In fact, in these next few years of Walters life, as he traveled back and forth
between the East and West coasts, stopping in the middle of the country in
places like Kansas City to thrill audiences that had never heard him before,
the dark echoes of events across the ocean would never completely leave him.
Since his high-altitude misadventure over Greece, Walter had not been
fond of air travel, but he might have found it a welcome distraction from
brooding on the past and the Europe that every day seemed more and more
lost to him. Certainly he began a series of trips back and forth across the
United States that would rival his treks between Vienna and Amsterdam in
previous years. The year opened with a month-long period of rest,
during which he took some time out to read Manns Lotte in Weimar. Walter
was deeply impressed by the work, describing it to Mann as pure poetry,
innermost beauty, beauty of the sort that could move Goethe to tears.5 It is
tempting to think that, having been so deeply moved by the novel, Walter left
for New York to conduct five performances with the NBC Symphony in an
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especially inspired frame of mind. His rendition of Bruckners Fourth Sym-
phony, which dominated the opening concert, was superb in both its dra-
matic power and its lyricism.6 With the NBC, Walter took somewhat brisker
tempi than on his later commercial recording with the Columbia Symphony
Orchestra, giving the longer movements a strong sense of forward motion but
still capturing the Brucknerian spaciousness.The NBC strings sound almost
Viennese in their flexibility and, particularly in the second movement, simply
beautiful, in both phrasing and tone quality. Even Olin Downes, who had his
reservations about what he referred to as Bruckners familiar structural
weaknesses, concluded that Walter did his audience a noble service in re-
vealing the utmost of the vision and splendor of this singular music.7 (Walter
was soon to expatiate on Bruckner,comparing his singular music to Mahlers,
in an essay he wrote for Chord and Discord, the organ of the Bruckner Society
of America.8) The remaining concerts earned praise as well, especially Schu-
manns Fourth Symphony. But unknown to Walters listeners, the critics, and
perhaps even Walter himself, this was to be his last set of concerts for over ten
years with what had, in effect, become Toscaninis orchestra.
Still mindful of his debt to France, Walter agreed to give a benefit recital
with Lotte Lehmann for the French and American Red Cross. Before the
money could even be donated, however, France fell to the Nazis, and Walter
mourned the loss of France as much as he had mourned the loss of Austria
and, before that, of Germany. The Anschluss, which made Austria forbid-
den territory, was by now two years in the past; France had since become his
musical home, but hed been granted little more than a year in which to en-
joy her hospitality. Yet while France was unsuccessfully trying to ward off
demons, there were elves dancing again in Hollywood Bowl, or so Jones
described Walters rendition of Webers Oberon Overture. With Mozarts
Symphony no. in E-flat Major, the elves became courtiers dancing the
minuet, conversing brilliantly back and forth under the direction of a kingly
personality in a lyric mood (presumably Walter himself ). The contrast be-
tween the light moods that he evidently managed to evoke and the dark
thoughts on France and the rest of Europe that he carried around with him
could not have been greater. At one point in this first of four Hollywood
Bowl concerts, however, reality did intervene; Jones described the Funeral
Music from Gtterdmmerung as somber and very moving; the emo-
tions this performance aroused brought tears, since the fate of the country
where this music was created came to mind and the orchestra reflected the
life tragedy that is in our hearts and minds at this moment.9
G C T C

 Walter may have transported his listeners into a musicians heaven, as
Jones put it, but he himself was unable to remain in that elevated state of
mind for very long. Much of my time is absorbed by the unnumerous [i.e.,
innumerable] demands from musicians and other Refugees to procure them
jobs or Visas or Affadavits etc.I suffer by my inability to help, he wrote to
Flagler in August.10 And, as he told Wolfgang Stresemann in October, the
hysterical drama of the European protagonists was having a bad effect on
him, for a new book, of which he had already written a chapter, had lain un-
touched since the French catastrophe. In theory he still believed in the
steadfast and ever growing importance of music; but, practically speaking,
he was not in any condition to live by this realization, he admitted to his
friend.11 Back in August he had still entertained hopes of returning to Eu-
rope the following spring. I want to go to Lugano and to the grave there, he
wrote to Flagler; my last memories are connected with our house there and
the town.12 He also wished to go to London, where he always received such
moving proofs of friendship for me personally and as musician. England
now, it seemed, was Europes last hope, and Walter likened her to St. George
fighting the evil dragon; if she could only defeat this monster, the world
[would] become a place where life can be worth while again. By September,
of course,Britain was surrounded by German U-boats,and the Luftwaffe was
busily depositing bombs on London and other cities, so Walters chances of
returning to Europe in the near future now appeared bleak at best.
His only recourse at this point was to intensify his American activities,
once again seeking refuge in his work from internal and external horrors. But
he refused to regard this refuge as mere escapism. As he wrote in an article
published in January for Klaus Manns short-lived journal Decision, he
was prompted to examine his conscience after reading a letter from Sir
Adrian Boult in which the English conductor described his musical plans in
great detail and made only brief mention of air raids. I wanted to make up
my mind, Walter declared, whether now, when the battle of humanity is
being fought, music should be allowed to retain the same importance as be-
fore. Not surprisingly, he decided that it could: I began to see that music
does not mean escape from world affairs; it can, in fact, play an active role in
them. . . . To cultivate those things which have given meaning to our lives,
and will redeem our future after the war, is the highest service to the good
cause. The more decency and fair play are trampled underfoot by the enemy,
the more faithfully should we observe them. The more tyrannically the other
side perverts science and art, the more should we encourage a free art and a
G C T C

free science. The best achievements of art, as the highest manifestation of the
human spirit, must ever be held up to the eyes of the world. Allies of democ-
racy, they will deny the voice of force based on enslavement. In the end, he
concluded that the voice of music brings to those who can hear it a message
of hope. It is the high duty of the musician today unfalteringly to spread its
gospel of promise to all mankind.13
And so he began his season in the spirit of an evangelist, bring-
ing his gospel of promise to the New World. At the end of October he con-
ducted three concerts with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, with which he
had not appeared since , when the ensemble had been the charge of his
friend Ossip Gabrilowitsch. For the first two concerts he was joined by the
young African-American soprano Dorothy Maynor, who had made her New
York debut as recently as November ; she gave a sampling of a wide
spectrum of styles, ranging from Mozart and Weber to Charpentier and
Wagner (the Liebestod from Tristan). Walters third concert consisted of
works by Mozart, Schubert, and Straussand while the repertoire might
now suggest overplayed symphonic war-horses, the Detroit Free Press noted
that Schuberts Great C major symphony hadnt been performed there
since .14
Two weeks later Walter was back in Los Angeles conducting a series of
concerts that lasted almost until Christmas. By now he and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic had become quite familiar with one another. Bruno Walter
and our Philharmonic are so at one after a few rehearsals that he has but to
look at them to remind them of his indications, Jones commented after the
opening concert.15 Two days later, in her Sunday column, she painted an
idyllic picture of what musical life in southern California could be like with
Walter as their regular music director. Let us try to keep him here with only
those absences necessary for his opera and occasional appearances else-
where, she declared. He draws the best from our players. He has the per-
sonal power to pull Southern California together, musically speaking.16
Walter was deeply touched by the warmth with which he was being received
on the West Coast, yet the lure of the New York musical scene, with its oldest
symphony orchestra in America and grand opera house, could not be re-
sisted. Already in October hed signed a contract with the Metropolitan
Opera for a minimum of eight performances, and at some point he had also
been engaged for six weeks of New York Philharmonic concerts. As much as
Walter loved Californias mild climate and more moderately paced life-style,
he was ready to return to New Yorks blustery winds and hectic existence.
G C T C

 First, however, Walter spent some time reacquainting himself with parts
of the Midwest, becoming untraceable (or so he wrote in confidence to
Bronislaw Huberman) in Chicago for the week around Christmas before
moving over to Minneapolis for one concert with Mitropouloss Minneapo-
lis Symphony Orchestra, which he also had not conducted since his very
first trip to America in .17 In January it was back to the New York Phil-
harmonic, where his opening concert consisted of the unlikely coupling
of Bruckners Eighth and a Handel concerto grosso. According to Olin
Downes, even in New York the Bruckner symphony sent a number from
the hall before it had finished, while he himself complained that the pro-
gram could have been made more interesting.18
The Bruckner symphony was repeated for the following Sunday broad-
cast, so the entire country could be treated (or subjected, if that was your
viewpoint) to its heavenly length. A recording has survived and, assuming
that Walters interpretation was substantially the same from one perfor-
mance to the next, we may ourselves decide whom to believe. Listening to
the January broadcast,one can think of few conductors indeed who could
successfully impose a brisker movement on this generously proportioned
work, the last two movements of which do, after all, carry the marking feier-
lich (solemnly). What Downes called sentimental could also be heard as
sensuous, especially in the beautifully phrased string lines, and instead of
sounding dragged down, there is an underlying current of forward motion
maintained throughout, even in the Adagio movement.19
After this somewhat daring beginning, Walters remaining run of con-
certs settled into a fairly standard pattern of accepted masterpieces sprin-
kled with novelties. As he told an interviewer for the New York Times, he had
spent the summer studying scores by American composers, and although he
hadnt found many that he liked, there were a few that appealed to him.20
One was Emerson Whithornes symphonic poem entitled The Dream
Peddler, which he presented on January . Walter also gave the New York
premieres of Ernst Blochs Evocations and Korngolds Much Ado about
Nothing Suite, the latter originally composed for the Vienna Burgtheater.21
The Korngold suite, which did not receive an especially favorable review in
the New York Times, apparently needed a goodly amount of rehearsalat
least according to the critic B. H. Haggin, who some years later accused
Walter of having callously allowed Korngolds piece to eat up time that
should have been allotted to a Mozart piano concerto with the young Amer-
ican Webster Aitken as soloist. If the pianist had been Schnabel the entire
G C T C

rehearsal would have been devoted to achieving homogeneity of phrasing
and precision of execution in the joint performance of orchestra and
soloist, Haggin complained, leveling the astounding charge that the Wal-
ter of this incident was no Chevalier and Grand Seigneur, but instead a man
of no artistic conscience and of ruthless inhumanity.22 As it happened,
Aitkens performance did receive a lukewarm review by Noel Straus, who
praised the pianists flawless execution but thought that there were poetic
aspects in this music which were barely hinted at in his perusal, and that his
dynamics differed at many points with those to be found in the score. At
the same time, Straus praised Walters carefully detailed and comprehend-
ing support.23 This being the case, one wonders whether more rehearsal
would have made any difference, and Hagginin this and other instances
seemed almost obsessively convinced that Aitken was the victim, on the one
hand, of concert managers who were not interested in American pianists
and, on the other, of putatively ignorant reviewers like Straus who failed to
recognize the pianists true genius.24
One of Walters Sunday broadcasts included Debussys La Mer, a
comparative rarity in Walters repertoire. Olin Downes remarked that Wal-
ters performance was far from the composers conception and tended
to the heavy-handed and melodramatic.25 Though he had long admired
and performed certain works of Debussy, Walter is today rarely associated
with the great Impressionist composer. If his reading is more dramatic and
more sharply articulated than performances by such acknowledged De-
bussy experts as Boulez, it must also be said that Walters performance con-
tains a kind of surging motion that is hardly heavy-handed and, in keeping
with the three movements descriptive titles, conjures up images of the rest-
less sea.26
Walters much-heralded Metropolitan Opera debut (his first American
opera appearance) came on February with a performance of Fidelio fea-
turing Kirsten Flagstad, Ren Maison, and Alexander Kipnis in the leading
roles. Even before his first performance the company hastened to honor the
renowned European conductor; the previous day he had been presented
with a rosewood and silver baton, and plans for a fete at the Plaza Hotel the
following week were described in some detail in the New York Times. That
Walters debut opera dealt with such grand themes as freedom from oppres-
sion, undying love, and triumph over adversity did not escape the notice of a
journalist from Time magazine, who was quick to contrast the operas tri-
umphant ending with Walters own sad history.But Walter,ever conscious of
G C T C

the dichotomy between the exultant music he conducted and the recent hor-
rors he had experienced, was by now accustomed to such questions. Some-
how this music tells us that happiness is deeper than unhappiness, he as-
serted to a reporter just hours before the performance.27
Several members of Walters cast had, of course, sung under him across
the Atlantic, but many of the orchestral musicians were encountering him
for the first time, and, as violist David Berkowitz recalled, The arrival of
Bruno Walter was eagerly awaited by all of us.28 Yet Berkowitz, and perhaps
other members of the orchestra as well, found that Walters conducting style
took some getting used to. At the first rehearsal, Berkowitz admitted, he
could not understand Walters beat. If I watched him closely, I became very
confused, he owned. Apparently, as one of his colleagues explained, Walter
was consideredby this orchestra at leastto be more a musical inter-
preter than a technician and that you had to know your own part thor-
oughly.29 What exactly Berkowitzs colleague meant by this is not clear; for,
although many musicians have commented that Walters beat was softer and
less direct than that of a conductor like Toscanini, few of them felt he was dif-
ficult to follow. Sir Georg Solti noted that Walter had a strange, not very
clear beat, but he was proof that the beat is not an essential part of a conduc-
tor.30 The violist David Kates, who played in the New York Philharmonic
as early as , remarked that Walters wasnt the kind of beat that
Toscanini gave. Toscanini was very precise. Bruno Walter had a kind of soft
downbeatthe sound would come after that. But, Kates was quick to add,
it was not disrupting.31 The conductor and early-music pioneer Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, who played the cello under Walter in the Vienna Symphony
after the war, remembered absolutely no problems. . . . It was a very clear
beat. And at that time, Harnoncourt related, if a conductors beat was not
clear, the Vienna Symphony could be so nasty.32 The musicologist and
conductor Siegmund Levarie, who studied Walter closely both in rehearsal
and in concert during the s,also described Walters conducting technique
as awfully good and thought that it was ridiculous even to question it.33
Nevertheless, Walters conducting style evidently created discomfort
for some of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestras players; at the same time,
Walter appears to have had doubts about the caliber of the orchestra. Near
the end of his life, when he was making plans with Columbia to record Fide-
lio (a project that was postponed indefinitely because of his ill health), Wal-
ter told John McClure confidentially that Rudolf Bing had suggested he
record at the Met, but Walter did not feel the orchestra was satisfactory for
G C T C

recording.34 Despite the mixed feelings evident on both sides, the record-
ings of Walters broadcasts reveal that, in the end, the orchestra played per-
fectly well under his baton. His Fidelio, in particular, was a huge success;
even Berkowitz referred to it as one of the great moments in Metropolitan
Opera History.35 In what was possibly the most ebullient of his many re-
views of Walter, Olin Downes nevertheless managed to interject a slighting
remark about some minor technical slips in an orchestra which is by no
means equal to leading American symphonic bodies in its quality.36 The
audience, however, apparently did not find such slips a deterrent to en-
thusiasm, creating such a clamor that Walter actually took his own curtain
call, a rare thing for an opera conductor. Unfortunately, no recording of the
first performance has come to light, but the next performance, a Saturday
broadcast, has survived, and there the orchestral playing, if rough in places,
is characterized for the most part by clear phrasing, a vibrant and flexible
rhythmic pulse, and highly dramatic gestures.
Walters first season at the Metropolitan Opera also included several
performances of Smetanas Bartered Bride (in English), as well as Don Gio-
vanni, again with Pinza in the cast. The gossip concerning Pinzas relation-
ship with Gretel had been flying thick and fast, often placing Pinza in an un-
complimentary light. Berkowitz remembered how it was rumored that Pinza
had had an affair with Walters daughter and left her flat, and many people
had mistakenly heard that Gretel had committed suicide, a story still perpet-
uated today.37 Berkowitz did not go so far as to insinuate that Gretel killed
herself over Pinza; nonetheless, he was surprised when Walter and Pinzas
working relationship appeared to be completely amicable, recalling that
Walter treated Pinza with great courtesy and respect.38 Although working
together in the spring of so soon after the sad eventmust have given
rise to disturbing memories for both men, Walter never seems to have held
Pinza responsible for his daughters death. Rather, it appears to have been a
shared tragedy that kept them on close terms until Pinzas own death in ,
and afterward Walter kept up a correspondence with Pinzas wife, Dolores.
In the year or so following Walter and Pinzas reunion in New York, Pinza
was arraigned on suspicion of being a Fascist sympathizer, and Walter did
his best to have him released, testifying in court on his behalf and afterward
writing to Attorney General Francis Biddle to assure him of Pinzas inno-
cence and integrity.39
After his stint with the Metropolitan Opera, Walter returned to the West
Coast, which was waiting to welcome him with open arms. In May he con-
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ducted the San Francisco Symphony for one concert as part of the Berkeley
Festival to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the city. In this and in his
Hollywood Bowl programs during July and August, Walter stuck to stan-
dard repertoire, but his audiences didnt mind at all hearing such thrice-
familiar works as Dvorks New World Symphony; for, as Isabel Morse
Jones commented, it was a revelation of what happens to a familiar work
when a great musician conducts it as if it were a new work.40
The California music critics were not, of course, always completely un-
critical; yet, reading through Walters West Coast reviews from this period,
one gets the sense that they and the rest of the audience attended his con-
certs always expecting to be pleased, uplifted, and at times even transported.
There is not that ever-present impulse to pounce on some aspect of the per-
formance deemed inappropriate that is always lurking at the back of many
New York reviews, even those by such habitual supporters as Olin Downes
and Lawrence Gilman. The state also honored Walter on June , , when
the University of Southern California bestowed on him the degree of Doctor
of Music, which he received in flowing academic regalia.41 The warm sup-
port of the press and public in California, together with its mostly friendly
climate, was a soothing combination, and Walter was tempted to remain
there and not return to New York at all. Our time here in California soon
comes to an end, he wrote wistfully to Leo and Emma, who were still living
in Sweden.42 The Walters spent some vacation time in Monterey, which
Walter described to his brother and sister as a very beautifully located
place, before returning to the East, where he made his first appearance in
Montreal, conducting a concert to benefit the British War Relief and Cana-
dian Red Cross, then proceeded to New York to take up his hectic schedule
once more.
Walters engagements with the New York Philharmonic and the Metro-
politan Opera, continuing into January of the following year, this time held
few surprises. The only new work Walter conducted was David Stanley
Smiths Credo, performed in the company of Beethovens Eroica and
Strausss Don Juan. The highlight of his Metropolitan Opera performances
was a new production of Glucks Orfeo in which he collaborated with Her-
bert Graf; it featured Kerstin Thorborg in the title role and Jarmila Novotn
as Euridice, both of whom had sung the opera with Walter in his last
Salzburg performances. Graf had also worked with Walter in Salzburg (on a
production of Die Entfhrung); the two worked together a number of other
times and remained in touch long after Walter had stopped conducting
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opera. When Graf left the Met in , Walter helped him to obtain a posi-
tion with the Zurich Opera.Like Margarete Wallmann, Graf attempted to get
Walter back into opera, thinking he could persuade him to direct a produc-
tion of Cos in Zurich during his first season there, and like Wallmann he
failed. Graf also tried to persuade Walter to record a concert production of
Cos, stressing what an important artistic document it would be, but Walter
did not feel that particular opera would lend itself to recording; for to leave
out the numerous recitatives would disturb the tonal progression, but the
endless recitatives without staging would be an intolerable burden.43
Their production of Orfeo was praised in almost every respect, though
this time Walter did not have Wallmanns choreography, and Howard Taub-
man remarked acerbically that the ballet in the Elysian Fields was anything
but happy.44 Though Thorborg received perhaps the most sterling re-
ports, Novotn was also lauded for her vibrant vocalization and superb
mastery of the grand line in phraseology.45 Walter himself thought highly of
the Czechoslovakian soprano and would continue to work with her often in
the coming years. Shortly before her death in Novotn recalled her ex-
periences performing with Walter in the most enraptured terms: To sing
under his loving direction was the greatest joy. He seemed to love every note
and tried to awaken his enthusiasm in me,in which he highly succeeded. . . .
It was sublime, unforgettable. Many years have [passed], but the memory I
will cherish forever.46
Novotn also appeared as Pamina in the new production of Die Zau-
berflte, which opened two weeks later, the first performance of the opera at
the Metropolitan Opera House in fifteen years. Herbert Graf again did the
staging, and the opera was sung in English in a new translation by Ruth and
Thomas Martin, the genesis of which owed a good deal to Walters input.
The translators were both musicians who had deeply admired Walter long
before getting to know him personally. Ruth Martin, an American, studied
violin in the s at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. While abroad, she met her
future husband, a Viennese conductor who, like her, had an appreciation for
literature. They both witnessed memorable performances directed by Wal-
ter, and Ruth Martin made a point of attending Walters conducting classes
at the Mozarteum (I would just sit there transfixed and not dare go near
him47). When the Martins settled in America, Thomas accepted a position
as assistant conductor at the Chicago Opera. They decided, after a contro-
versial performance there of Verdis Falstaff sung in English, to try their
hand at translating Die Zauberflte into English, having found much in the
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standard translation miswritten and misaccented. After some months of
collaborative effort they presented the finished translation first to the St.
Louis Opera and eventually to the Met, whose manager, Edward Johnson,
wrote back that the company was planning to revive Die Zauberflte, be-
cause Bruno Walter wanted to do it, and that they had had seven English
translations in the house, and Walter turned them all down. He didnt like
any of them. He had decided a day or so before to go back to doing it in the
original. And by chance ours came in, and he liked it.48 A few weeks later,
they went to New York to discuss the translation with Walter. We used to go
over there for several hours a day, and we went through every note and every
word of that thing. For the most part Walter was a pleasure to work with.
When asking their advice, he genuinely seemed to listen and never pulled
rank, yet he insisted on very great literalness in the translation, and the
Martins sometimes struggled in vain to give greater flexibility to their text.
In the actual performance Alexander Kipnis received the highest praise
as Sarastro (a part taken by Ezio Pinza later in the season), but the remaining
principals (Novotn, Rosa Bok, Charles Kullman, and John Brownlee) did
not disappoint, despite the occasional continental accent. Nor did Walters
conducting disappoint, and Virgil Thomson noted with pleasure that care
for production detail, as well as for musical, had given it a general harmony
and an integrity that are not easy qualities to achieve in a repertory theater,
and that these qualities seemed to be appearing in the Metropolitans pro-
ductions quite regularly this season. Somebody is taking care. I may also
add, for whatever that may mean, that three of those productions were di-
rected by Bruno Walter.49 Walter would often feel unappreciated by the
Metropolitan Operas management, but he was certainly appreciated by Vir-
gil Thomson, who, somewhat like Julius Korngold in Vienna and Alfred
Einstein in Berlin,hinted again and again that the musical scene in New York
improved tremendously when Walter was in town.
Aside from the handful of new works he conducted with the New York
Philharmonic, was more a time for restoration and consolidation than
for breaking fresh ground. During this year he made his first studio record-
ings with New Yorks premier orchestraheart-stopping, intense record-
ings of Beethovens Third and Fifth symphonies, as well as the Emperor
Concerto with Rudolf Serkin, a pianist with whom Walter had worked in the
past and would work again over the next two seasons and then once more in
.50
Near the end of the year Walter also saw his Mahler biography appear in
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a new English edition, though this, instead of being a source of satisfaction,
turned into something of a nightmare. To begin with, he was never happy
with James Galstons English translation, and throughout the rest of his life
he would try to discourage people from turning to itthough it was in fact
quite readable, and he even agreed to have Galston translate his autobiogra-
phy. But he was more disturbed by the publishers inclusion of an essay on
Mahler by Ernst Krenek that, at sixty-five pages, was half as long as Walters.
Walter had apparently been told that Krenek was to write a preface, and now
here was a lengthy piece of writing that, instead of introducing Walters
book, actually followed it. Even worse, Walter felt that Kreneks view of
Mahler flatly contradicted his own. Certain statements of Kreneksfor ex-
ample, that Mahlers Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh symphonies acted as a cata-
lyst in the critical stage of the musical language at that time, helping to open
the door of atonalitydirectly conflicted with Walters deepest beliefs.51
For his part, Krenek heard only second-hand (from Artur Schnabel) that
Walter was annoyed and wrote him a very apologetic letter, stressing that the
publisher had led him to understand that Walter had been fully consulted on
the matter, and that although he accepted Walters disagreement with his
view of Mahler, certainly his sincere admiration of Mahler was evident in
every word of the essay. Walter replied testily that he, in Kreneks position,
would have made certain that the two essays did not contradict each other,
that he was upset with Krenek for agreeing to write it and upset with the pub-
lisher for putting it at the end. I believe it is a first in publishing, Walter
wrote, obviously seething with indignation, that a publisher, without the
knowledge of an author, asks another author for a foreword to the book.52
Walter respected Kreneks compositions enough to program them from time
to time; nevertheless, he had a strong aversion to the younger musicians
use of jazz in Jonny spielt auf and disapproved of his work on Mahlers
Tenth Symphonyfactors that might well have made the coupling of their
two essays even more distressing.
For the country of the United States as a whole, the beginning of
must have seemed the opening of an entirely new and frighteningeven ex-
hilaratingchapter, for with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on De-
cember , , America had finally entered the war. But for Walter, at least
outwardly, began very much as had ended, with his time divided
between the two coasts. Aside from another early January concert in Min-
nesota and a Metropolitan Opera performance of Don Giovanni in Cleve-
land in April, the middle of the country saw little of Walter that spring. At the
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end of January Walter was scheduled to conduct in Boston but was forced to
cancel, owing to a regulation that no union conductor should conduct the
non-union Boston Symphony. (Walter had been made an honorary member
of the union after signing the Boston contract.) One of the pieces was to have
been Mahlers First Symphony, and Walter was particularly disappointed at
not being able to share his interpretation of the symphony with Boston audi-
ences. But as it happened, Koussevitzky, because of his wifes recent death,
had canceled three concerts with the New York Philharmonic, and Walter,
still in New York, promptly agreed to take them on, conducting Mahlers
Second instead of the First. Then in February it was back to California for a
month-long stint of concerts, one of which included Smiths Credo, with a
return to New York in March and April for more performances of Don Gio-
vanni and Die Zauberflte and four concerts with the New York Philhar-
monic. Again, standard repertoire was the order of the day, though his last
concert included Samuel Barbers Second Essay. In May he returned once
more to California, where he joined Lotte Lehmann in San Francisco for a
lieder recital, and in July he came back for one concert at the Hollywood
Bowl (with a second concert in Pasadena), where he was hailed as South-
ern Californias choice of orchestra conductor.53 This was not merely jour-
nalistic hyperbole; in his sixteen concerts Walter drew the highest atten-
dance for concerts without soloists.54
With this respite from the arduousness of interpreting new works or
working out the details of new productions, Walter was able to concentrate
on straightening out his domestic affairs. In April he rented another house
on Chevy Chase Drive in Beverly Hills and, with Lottes help, hired a chauf-
feur and a secretary. In September he also took an apartment in New York at
Fifth Avenue. More and more he felt himself attracted to the lovely
weather and relaxed life-style that southern California offered; yet, as he
wrote to Stresemann a few years later, he would not be untrue to the East,
where so many conducting possibilities awaited him.55 Also, beautiful as
California beaches might be, the hot California sun did not agree with Elsa,
so the Walters decided to take a vacation in cooler Bar Harbor, Maine, before
taking up residence in New York.56
As Walter prepared for the season ahead, walking through the Maine
woods that were just beginning to show the colors of autumn, he was
pretty much convinced that Edward Johnson and the rest of the Metropoli-
tan Opera administration were not very interested in having him back. The
best they had offered him were repeats of his Mozart operas and a revival of
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Humperdincks Hnsel und Gretel to take the place of Fidelio, which had
fallen through because of casting difficulties, and The Bartered Bride, which
somehow didnt fit into the periods during which Walter was available.
Needless to say, these suggestions did not sit well with Walter, who had un-
successfully asked for Tristan and had seen his younger colleague Erich
Leinsdorf conducting the bulk of the Wagner operas. I cannot help feeling
that the Management has no real interest in my activity, they have not offered
me any work of interest to me, he wrote to Flagler from Maine; they have
not accepted one of my suggestions and of course I cannot accept to be
treated as an old Routinier who always repeats what he has done and does
not participate in the vital important artistic efforts of the Institute.57 Walter
planned to meet with Johnson the following week andso he told Flagler
anticipated that they would go their separate ways. But evidently they came
to an agreement, for Walter was engaged for several performances scattered
throughout the season, including a new production of La forza del destino.
In the meantime he returned to conduct the New York Philharmonic,
where he felt far more welcomeperhaps even too much so. At the end of
, as John Barbirollis star waned, the management invited Walter to be-
come the orchestras new permanent director. After some agonizing, Walter
decided that, for reasons of age,he must refuse.Let me tell you, he wrote to
Judson, that my first inner reaction to your offer was a spontaneous yes
the acceptance of that position seemed to me only a natural consequence of
years of occasional connections with the Philharmonic in an atmosphere of
ever growing understanding and friendship. But with a twenty-eight-week
season and about ninety-odd concerts, Walter didnt feel able to cope
even with half of it; but if I conduct perhaps ten of those weeks, how can I
find ways and forms of responsibility for the whole season?58 Next year he
would be celebrating his fiftieth anniversary as a conductor, and he felt him-
self irretrievably mired in the fatigues of old age. Little did he know that Ar-
tur Rodzinski, hired in his stead, would leave the orchestra less than four
years later and that this time Walter, far from being on the brink of retire-
ment, would feel compelled to accept the same invitation.
Assured of his role as regular guest conductor, Walter began his
season in October with programs that once again consisted mainly of
standard fare, though on October he premiered John Alden Carpenters
Second Symphony. He had performed Carpenters First Symphony with
the Los Angeles Philharmonic in December and wrote to the American
composer that the new work seemed to him as interesting as the First
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Symphony, and perhaps even more so, though the critics disagreed, with
both Olin Downes and John Briggs thinking the Carpenter Symphony less
original than his previous compositions.59 One more somewhat novel (if not
actually new) work during this run of concerts was Sibeliuss Seventh Sym-
phony. Walter performed Sibelius rarely and, despite his choice to perform
this symphony, may have had mixed feelings about the Finnish composer.
Somewhat later, in , when Walter was awarded an honorary member-
ship in the International Mark Twain Society, Cyril Clemens wrote to him
that he might be interested to know that Sibelius, who held Walter in high es-
teem, was chairman of the societys music committee. Walter wrote back that
he greatly appreciated the honor but made no mention of Sibelius.60
Having patched up his relationship with Johnson and the rest of the
management at the Met, Walter began conducting there in November, with
repeat performances of Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflte. In December,
however, he conducted Figaro for the first time in New York, with a splendid
cast that included John Brownlee, Ezio Pinza, Jarmila Novotn, and Bid
Sayo, as well as a young American soprano singing her first Countess at the
Met, Eleanor Steber. Herbert Graf did the staging, and, according to
Howard Taubman, his direction was an improvement on that of previous
productions. The Marriage of Figaro is not played for easy laughs only,
he wrote. As a result, its warmth, loveliness and enduring humanity shine
through to cheer a grim world. Robert Lawrence of the Herald Tribune, by
contrast, carped that passages of great charm and pathos . . . alternated
with pages that courted the sentimental. In sum, Mr. Walters approach was
too highly personalized.61
No such criticisms attended Walters interpretation of Forza, which
opened on January , , and featured Zinka Milanov as Leonora,
Lawrence Tibbett as Carlos, the relatively new tenor Kurt Baum as Alvaro,
and Ezio Pinza in a somewhat different guise as Padre Guardino, a religious
leader. Though Walter had conducted Verdi most of his life, New York audi-
ences had yet to hear him interpret this great master, and it seems they were
hardly disappointed. (Curiously enough, this seems to have been the first
time Walter ever conducted Forza.62) The opera attracted a huge audi-
ence, wrote Noel Straus, which was roused to unusual enthusiasm by the
general excellence of the interpretation.63 The production followed an or-
dering of scenes devised by Franz Werfel that, among other changes, turned
the first scene into a prologue and placed the overture before the second
scene, where it received a reading so remarkable for play of color and so
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brilliantly performed that it brought the first prolonged ovation of the
evening. Baum apparently received the next ovation, and Straus was un-
stinting in his praise of Baums voice of beautiful timbre, clear quality, and
warmth. Regrettably, both he and Milanov were replaced for the broadcast
by Frederick Jagel and Stella Roman respectively, both of whom sang capa-
bly enough but neither of whom quite lived up to the praise lavished on their
predecessors. The recorded broadcast does, however, enable us to hear
Pinzas noble portrayal of the serene though consoling Abbot,as well as Wal-
ters riveting overtureremarkable for its virtuoso runs of breathtaking flex-
ibility, its tidal-wave crescendi, and its agonized stretching-out of the princi-
pal themes toward the conclusion.
Aside from a return trip to Minnesota at the beginning of January and a
Metropolitan Opera performance of Figaro in Chicago in March, Walter
spent the first half of in New York, alternating between the Metropoli-
tan and the New York Philharmonic. His Philharmonic concerts began reg-
ularly enough with the usual mixture of Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, and
Bruckner, to which was added the English composer Stanley Bates Concer-
tante for Piano and String Orchestra, with Bate himself performing the pi-
ano part. Then on February , as part of a Saturday night Popular Concert
intended for students, Walter conducted Daniel Gregory Masons Lin-
coln Symphony, a work he had considered performing for over two years.
Having asked Mason in to send a score, Walter initially reacted to the
work without enthusiasm: It certainly is a strange being, he wrote to Ma-
son in September; the first movement seems a Finale, the fourth has a sec-
ond movement appearance. The opening movement was absolutely un-
symphonic, to an exceptional degreeand that from your hand, which has
been so essentially symphonic. Then Walter attempted to mollify his judg-
ment, only to end up making matters worse. He believed he understood the
problem: Lincoln and his sublime soul and great life and tragic end stood
between you and your musical imagining and forming and molding. Maybe
the Symphony would be the right work for a Lincoln-Celebration; but with-
out such emphasis on its human and personal meaning, purely as a Sym-
phony I as a musician feel embarrassed by it.64 We can imagine Masons
shock at receiving this letter from Walter, who up to this point had been such
a stalwart supporter of his compositions. On the envelope that enclosed
Walters comments, Mason jotted: Bruno Walters distressing letter about
Lincoln Symphony.
By August , however, Walter was considering the work again. This
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time his reservations ostensibly had more to do with his fear that there
wouldnt be enough rehearsal time, though one cant help wondering
whether he had really changed his mind about the work or was attempting to
put Mason off gently. Given that Walter seemed worried about finding suffi-
cient rehearsal time in the orchestras schedule, his decision to perform the
work only once and at a special student concert looks suspiciously as if he
had finally agreed to conduct it not because he had become convinced of its
worth but because he wished to please his old friend and thought that its
programmatic nature would make it succeed with younger people.
In the midst of operas and symphonies Walter also took time out to ac-
company Lotte Lehmann in a concert at Town Hall in mid-March to an au-
dience so large that the stage was filled with seats. It was New York in March
rather than Salzburg in August, yet some audience members may have felt a
touch of prewar nostalgia as they listened to an all-German program remi-
niscent of those given in happier times, as Walter himself often referred to
them. During these years, Walter began more and more to restrict his ac-
companying activities, even declining, in , to record Mozart with Desi
Halban because he was afraid of offending other singers whose invitations
hed refused.65 But he would continue to accompany Lotte Lehmann on
several occasions until the end of her performing career.
The main event for the spring of was, without question, Walters
first New York performances of Bachs Matthus-Passion. Having con-
ducted the work several times in Munich with numerous cuts, Walter had
long dreamed of presenting Bachs greatest oratorio in its entirety. Some
twenty years after his Munich performances, he was finally granted the op-
portunity, though since a complete performance could run over three hours,
special permission had to be obtained from the union, and the orchestra
would have to be paid overtime for every fifteen minutes beyond three
hours, either for intermission or actual playing purposes.66 There was
also the little matter of translation; Walter had decided, as he related in Of
Music and Music-Making,that the work should be performed in English,so
that the words in conjunction with the music should make an immediate
emotional impression on the listeners.67 John Finley Williamson came to
the rescue, sending Walter a copy of a translation he had used by Dr. Henry
S. Drinker, a lawyer by profession but an amateur choral singer and an in-
dustrious translatorin addition to the Matthus-Passion, he rendered into
English nearly all of Bachs vocal works, as well as those of Brahms and
Mozart, along with songs by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, and Mussorgsky.
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 Walter thought the translation was excellent but naturally wished to
make a few changes, mostly having to do with his preference for keeping as
much of Bachs original rhythm in the vocal lines as possible. All through the
long, hot month of July, Walter and Drinker exchanged letters, hammering
out various phrases and respectfully disagreeing over certain matters, such
as whether it was more important to preserve Bachs sixteenth notes and oc-
casional word painting or maintain fidelity to familiar translations of biblical
passages.68 Drinker felt strongly that with direct quotations from the Bible
the King James version should be used, since it would be recognizable to the
audience, even if it meant changing Bachs rhythm to a small degree. Walter,
on the other hand, felt not only that Bachs rhythms should be adhered to
but also that words in expressive places in the original should have their
counterparts in the translation as much as possible, to the point where
Drinker thought he used English words in an unusual sense and in a word
order that was German, not English. For Jesuss line denn wer das Schwert
nimmt, der soll durchs Schwert umkommen, for instance, Walter wanted
For all that take the sword, shall by the sword stroke perish, an ingenious
translation that allowed the operative words sword and perish to oc-
cupy roughly the same places in the recitative as Schwert and umkommen.
Drinker suggested the more elegant They that take the sword, shall perish
by the sword, easier to grasp at first hearing and nearly identical to the King
James reading. And Walter also felt that Bachs touches of word painting
should be retained as much as possible, such as in the Evangelists words
Und als bald krhe der Hahn, where Drinkers immediately crew the
cock would not allow the singer to imitate the crowing of a rooster. Walter
made several suggestions for this particular passage, finally writing to
Drinker in mock despair that he was very much upset that you do not like
these rooster places. I worked over and thought over them literally for hours
and thought I could hear him crow. Eventually, however, they arrived at a
fluent translation that pleased them both, and Walter, who was often merci-
less with translators, could not have praised Drinkers work more highly,
writing that his rendering showed great linguistic aptitude and a real un-
derstanding of the music; it was an essential contribution to the profound
impression made by this and subsequent performances of the work.69
There were, of course, also some questions of performance practice that
Walter now finally had the time to study more fully. Already in April he
had begun what he described to his brother and sister as a musical and styl-
istic and historical study of the Matthus-Passion.70 Walter eventually in-
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cluded an entire chapter on Bachs oratorio in Of Music and Music-Making,
where he detailed the decisions he made, and to historical-performance
purists, his conclusions might seem dated or anachronistic. He did not feel,
for instance, that we should employ small forces such as Bach had at his dis-
posal at the Thomas-Kirche; we must make allowances for the musical and
emotional requirements of the work and the acoustic properties of our large
concert-halls or churches.71 With regard to orchestral size, we may feel
quite independent of Bachs Leipzig orchestra, for the same reason.72
Whether or not to take the entire da capo in the arias, which would probably
not even come into question today, also weighed on [his] conscience, and
in the end he resolved to the repeat just the ritornello, attempting to take ac-
count of the difference between our form of listening and that of Bachs
time.73 But although he felt that in performances of Bach we should follow
our hearts, and put into our performances . . . the same intensity and truth-
fulness of feeling that we meet on its every page, such intensity of expres-
sion should be compatible with a reverence not only for the spirit but also
for the letter of the work.74
Walters three performances of the Matthus-Passion were intended to
close out the Philharmonics season with a flourish, and they apparently had
that effect, for the last performance drew the largest audience they had seen
all season. What Olin Downes called a noble experiment proved such a
success that the Passion was repeated for the next three years running with,
as Walter requested, essentially the same soloists. Even if there could be
found one or two better ones, the tradition into which my soloists have
grown by all those past performances of the Passion makes up for any im-
provement in a single case, he wrote to Bruno Zirato when it came time
to plan his Passion for , his final performance of the work.75 (In March
Zirato mentioned casually that Bachs oratorio was an expenditure of
high order for the Societyno doubt the main reason that the perfor-
mances ended.76) Thanks to Walters desire to maintain an ensemble, the
recorded broadcast of Part I from can give us an idea of how Walters
other performances would have sounded. To listeners accustomed to
Harnoncourt, Gardiner, Leonhardt, or Herreweghe, some of Walters
tempi, particularly in the first and last choruses of Part I, as well as in the
chorales, might sound ponderous. That his oboes and flutes play appoggiat-
uras quickly, instead of turning them into sighing figures half the length of
the main notes, might also strike us as controversial, though Walter was fully
aware of the debate raging even then over the duration of grace notes and
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had come to the decision that these little notes were not a rhythmically ex-
act subdivision of the melodic structure, but rather an indefinite and inde-
finable time-value which was to carry an element of unrest or indecision into
the rhythmic plan.77 In fact, some scholars have recently doubted that the
long appoggiaturas advocated by C. P. E. Bach should be applied to J. S.
Bachs music, and Gustav Leonhardts recording of the Matthus-
Passion has short appoggiaturas in this duet, very similar to Walters.
Aside from these issues, there is throughout Walters interpretation a
sensitivity of phrasing and clarity of affect from one piece to the next that dis-
tinguishes his performance from most others of its day. His soloists, particu-
larly William Hain as the Evangelist, Mack Harrell as Jesus, the soprano Na-
dine Conner, and the contralto Jean Watson, have light, flexible voices and
seem almost as comfortable with Bachs chromatic, expressive phrases as
many recent oratorio singers, Conner perhaps less so than the others. In
contrast to Walters Munich critics, Olin Downes considered Walters inter-
pretation to be in a more classical vein, writing that we have heard the score
treated in a more intense and romantic spirit, and that he expected rather
more of the dramatic and climactic . . . and more emotional intensity in var-
ious expressive figures of the accompaniments, which were cooler in color
and sensation than one had conceived.78 And many of Walters tempi, es-
pecially in the arias, seemed faster than usual to Downes, when in fact they
are comparable to what has since become the stylistic norm.
Walters interpretation of the Passion may have struck Downes as less
intense than others he had heard, but Walters own feelings about the story
of Christs crucifixion certainly lacked no intensity. The cellist Leonard
Rose recalled how Walters unconcealed emotion during rehearsals was of-
ten embarrassing, even distasteful, to the orchestra members, especially
those with a Jewish background, at a time when Jews were being slain in Eu-
rope. It always galled me that Bruno Walter, who was born a Jew, found it
necessary to be so moved that when the text of the St. Matthew Passion got
the roughestfor example, in the text when they sing, They put a crown of
thorns upon his headBruno Walter used to cry the hardest.79 Roses re-
sponse was natural enough; but it is surely possible that Walter, at that mo-
ment, was inwardly drawing parallels between the humiliating crucifixion of
Christ and the current plight of millions of Jews, victims of sadism and
slaughter on a vast scale.
The Matthus-Passion performance was one of the crowning moments
of Walters season, yet it did not completely dispel a weariness that Walter
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couldnt seem to shake. Already back in September of the previous year he
had written to Flagler that his performance of the Matthus-Passion would be
the culmination of my activity and perhaps may be my farewell.80 By April,
Walters inner weariness was accompanied by a real physical ailment, the flu,
and he feared making a trip to Philadelphia (where he was scheduled to con-
duct the New York Philharmonic) without the company of family or a close
friend.But by this time Elsa too was suffering from what would eventually de-
velop into more serious health problems than those of her husband and was
unable to go, so Bruno Zirato wrote to the U.S. District Attorneys office to
ask that Wolfgang Stresemannpresumably restricted in his movements be-
cause he was Germanbe granted permission to accompany Walter.81 At the
beginning of May,Walter and Elsa took a trip to Buck Hill Falls,Pennsylvania,
which they doubtless hoped would prove relaxing and refreshing, though it
seemed to have quite the opposite effect. The weather is atrociouscold
and stormy, the hotel very big with lovely lounges but impersonal and bland,
he wrote to Stresemann.My wife feels very weak and each day has taken only
a couple of steps outside. As for himself, as a coda to his flu, he now had a
chronic headache for which he continued to take medication.82
Despite Walters apparent difficulty in regaining his health and his
worry over Elsas continued malaise, he agreed to return to New York and
conduct the Philharmonics first two summer broadcasts. Then he and Elsa
were at last able to retreat to California, where Walter had the month of June
to recover before beginning a series of three Hollywood Bowl concerts in
July. Evidently that was not enough, for Elsa wrote to Stresemann in July that
her husband was still taking medications that didnt seem to be working, and
that while her shattered nerves were calming somewhat, physical problems
remained. She added, however, that they were enjoying their beautiful house
and pleasant weather, so the southern California clime was apparently work-
ing at least a small bit of its magic for them.83 But we can only speculate how
Walter must have felt when, after his last concert, his emotional goodbye to
the Bowl audience was followed by the announcement that a sensational
young singer named Frank Sinatra had been engaged as a Bowl soloist, and
there was a noticeable gasp from the audience and then shocked silence.84
Isabel Morse Jones, for one, pulled no punches as to what she thought about
the approaching clash of musical styles, headlining her article on the subject
with the words, Cash to Be Crooned Into Coffers of Bowl.85
But if Walter gave any thought to what Jones considered the Bowls van-
ishing ideals, it was probably fleeting at best, for he would soon have to rally
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his forces for the start of a new concert season. So he and Elsa took a three-
week vacation in the Rocky Mountains, returning to New York near the end
of September. In March, Walter would be marking the fiftieth anniversary of
his conducting debut, and the New York Philharmonics management was
already making plans to commemorate the eventthough I have naturally
asked [the management] to refrain from a Festivity, he wrote to his brother
and sister from Colorado Springs, during a time where decisions in the
course of world history must seem to put such personal matters in a vain
light.86 Nevertheless, if his health allowed it, he would at least celebrate by
conducting a performance of Beethovens Ninth Symphony, which he
hoped his siblings would be able to hear when it was broadcast, along with
the many other planned transmissions. I hope I can manage it, he reflect-
ed; fifty years of such work is a lot, and already I have the need for rest
which shows itself in certain complaints of age and symptoms of fatigue.
Despite his worries over his and Elsas health, a more optimistic mood was
overtaking him, perhaps because, with Italys surrender on September , it
looked as though the tides of war were turning in the Allies favor. In looking
back over his fifty years of music, Walter had a feeling of sunset and was
glad that his old age coincided with the rejuvenation of the world after the
defeat of the powers of evil, almost as if he were happy to turn his baton over
to the next generation of conductors if he could do it with the sense that the
world was becoming a good place once more.87 He seems to have had no
idea that he had nearly twenty more years of conducting still ahead of him.
For the moment, however, Walter was looking forward to at least one
more busy season, so the course of events in November must have been a
source of disappointment, or at least frustration. He began his season ably
enough with a very well-received concert in Montreal near the end of Octo-
ber. But after little more than a week of conducting in New York, Walter
again fell ill with the flu and was unable to conduct the November broad-
cast. This in itself was not a tragedy and in fact led to a tremendous break for
the recently hired assistant conductor, Leonard Bernstein. Some thirty years
later Bernstein recalled it as the climax of a rather stimulating and startling
week or even month, because I had just been engaged the preceding Sep-
tember as assistant conductor of the Philharmonic. I just turned twenty-five
years old and had never conducted a professional orchestra in public be-
fore. The young Bernstein had spent the week sitting enthralled as he
watched Walter work, little suspecting what was to come. He was so kind,
so gentle and so authoritative at the same timeI couldnt believe that a
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conductor could combine those qualities of warmth, tenderness, and ab-
solute authority to this degree, and I was rather in love with him, an ardent
admirer, he reminisced. Then on Saturday night he was informed that Wal-
ter was feeling ill and that he himself might have to conduct the next day, but
Bernstein, doubting that this would come to pass, went to a song recital, then
came home and spent some time looking over the scores before going to
sleep in the early hours of the morning. He was awakened just a few hours
later to hear that Walter couldnt leave his apartment, that Bernstein would
have to go on, and that, since it was already nine in the morning, there was no
time for any rehearsal.
After some pleas for help on Bernsteins part, it was arranged to have the
young conductor visit Walter at his home and go over the music with him.
He was very, very gracious, Bernstein recalled; he was sitting huddled up
in a blanket, poor man, sweating and shivering and what not. And in the
midst of all that misery of his, he was so kind and so helpful to me. I was there
an hour, in the course of which he showed me various places where he cut off
first and made a Luftpause and then gave an extra upbeat here, and therefore
I could be helped and in front of the orchestra wouldnt be ragged. He was
very helpful; I dont know what I would have done without that hour with
him and he gave it to me under great duress.88 The tremendous energy
Bernstein created that night helped make his career, though William Lincer,
the solo violist in Don Quixote (one of the evenings offerings), recalled that
the fledgling conductor certainly didnt know Strausss tone poem. He
jigged up and down for the whole piece and made a great spectacle, yet in
the end he did a marvelous job and was very successful.89
If Bernstein didnt know Don Quixote, Walter had a conception of the
piece completely at odds with that of Lincer, who had recently joined the
New York Philharmonic after having been principal violist with the Cleve-
land Orchestra. Lincer recalled that when he had initially come to a re-
hearsal at Walters apartment, Walter objected to the violists refined play-
ing. Mr. Lincer, he said, you know, Sancho Panza was an idiotthe
implication being that the viola should play more roughly.
Lincer returned: Have you read Cervantes, Maestro? The rhetorical
question affronted Walter, who had indeed read Cervantes and who long en-
tertained fond memories of Mahlers reading aloud from Don Quixote.
Yes, I have, Walter replied brusquely.
Well, if youve read Cervantes, you know that it wasnt Sancho Panza
that was an idiot; it was Don Quixote who was the idiot. Because Sancho
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Panza was leading him around all the time, trying to get him out of trouble.
He was a poor, sane man.
Walter refused to take the literary discussion any further: Either we
play this my way, or we dont play it at all.
Lincer later received some advice from Artur Rodzinski, who had
brought the violist with him from Cleveland and was agitated to learn about
the difference of opinion that had developed between Lincer and Walter:
You jackass! he burst out. Dont you understand? When a conductor
asks you to play something a certain way, you make your head go up and
downyes, yes. Comes the performance, you play it any damned way you
please. Whos going to stop you?90
For the Sunday broadcast, of course, Bernstein conducted and became
an overnight success. It is doubtful that Walter begrudged his young col-
league his sudden fame or was particularly disappointed at missing a concert
of works that, for the most part, he had conducted several times before
(Roszas Theme, Variations, and Finale was the only nonstandard piece of
the evening). That he was unable to conduct Tristan at the Met the following
week was a much a heavier blow, since it had taken him several years to con-
vince the Mets management to give him a Wagner work at all, and now
Beecham had to be engaged to replace him.
Deprived of Tristan, Walter at least had the opportunity of conducting
Verdis Un ballo in maschera at the end of December, with a cast that in-
cluded Jan Peerce, Zinka Milanov, Kerstin Thorborg, and Leonard Warren.
Downes commented that Walter transformed the opera from an old-fash-
ioned Italian piece to a lusty and full-blooded music-drama, and a recorded
broadcast from later in the season with essentially the same cast certainly
lends credence to Downess opinion; the orchestra sizzles with dramatic
tension from beginning to end, and the excellent singers all rise to the occa-
sion.91 Yet Walters general dissatisfaction with his treatment at the hands of
the Mets management would not be assuaged. Near the end of January he
met with Edward Johnson over lunch to discuss his grievances. As he told
Johnson,he felt he was being pegged as a Mozart conductor and insisted that
he was capable of more varied things. Certainly he couldnt blame the man-
agement for the loss of Tristan, but he still longed to show his ability to con-
duct Wagner in an interesting and exciting manner; apparently he had
been offered Parsifal at the last possible moment, when it was too late to
reschedule his concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadel-
phia Orchestra. My impression is that Mr. Walter is not well and very
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tired, Edward Johnson noted after the meeting, adding that Walter was re-
sentful of the success and importance given to another conductor, whose
identity we can only guess.92
Whatever Walters conflicts with Johnson, the Met directors descrip-
tion of Walter as not well and very tired seems more than apt. Earlier in the
month Walter had announced his decision to retire for a year at the close of
the season and, as he put it to the press, enjoy the privileges of a private per-
son, by which he doubtless meant getting lots of sleep, enjoying his peace-
ful home in sunny California, and not having to travel back and forth be-
tween the two coasts.93 But for now he still had a busy spring ahead of him,
which was to include, in addition to his usual activities in New York, his first
appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Returning to New York in March, Walter pressed on, accompanying
Lotte Lehmann in Winterreise at Town Hall, giving the New York premiere
of Barbers revised Symphony in One Movement, and conducting his first
Verdi Requiem in New York, for a concert to benefit the American Red
Cross. And despite Walters best efforts, the celebration of his fiftieth an-
niversary as a conductor that month did somewhat resemble a festival. After
his performance of Beethovens Ninth, Walter received what the New York
Times described as one of the greatest ovations in the memory of old pa-
trons of Carnegie Hall and was then presented with several gifts: the Cam-
bridge edition of Shakespeare from the Philharmonics board; an album
with more than a hundred letters of congratulation; an illuminated testimo-
nial signed by numerous colleagues, including Toscanini and Beecham; and
a scroll signed by the entire New York Philharmonic.94 That very day a trib-
ute by Thomas Mann appeared in the New York Times Magazine entitled
The Mission of Music, in which the author reflected on Walters career,
their similar fates at the hands of the Nazis, and, most of all, mankinds at-
tempt to harness demoniac powers in the service of culture and the dual na-
ture of musics power: moral code and seduction, sobriety and drunken-
ness, a summons to the highest alertness and a lure to the sweetest sleep of
enchantment, reason and anti-reason.95 It may have been a mark of Manns
deep esteem for his friend that, while he privately believed that music tended
perhaps more toward seduction, in this article at least he left his readers with
the impression that, with the assistance of great conductors like Bruno Wal-
ter, music could instead be an ethical force.
Naturally Walter also received numerous private letters and telegrams
of congratulation, perhaps the most poignant of which was a three-page
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memoir by Erika Mann, in which she recalled how Walter used to make up
stories for her and his daughters involving a fairy godmother named Minna
Schusterbeisl. Like her brother Klaus, Erika remembered Walter as enor-
mously amusing. After fifty years of conducting, Walter might have felt
drained and tired, but for Erika he still retained his youthful enthusiasm; go-
ing to the movies with him, she wrote, was like going to the movies with a
brilliant child. And she rather doubted that he would actually get the rest he
so deserved and said that even Minna Schusterbeisl could not grant him
such a wish.96 If Erika Mann had known how sadly prophetic her words
would turn out to be, she might never have written them.
But meanwhile Walter finished out the season, returned to California to
conduct one concert in San Francisco in July, and launched into the writing
of his autobiography. Soon he was happily pestering family and friends alike
with numerous queries, some factual and some more colorful, turning to his
brother and sister for help in remembering their childhood. All this was
probably restful compared with conducting endless concerts, and certainly
compared with what was about to befall him. The Walters had gone back to
Bar Harbor in June for their usual vacation when Elsa, who had never fully
recovered from the blow of Gretels death, suffered a stroke that left her
hanging for months in semi-consciousness.
Walter could do nothing but bring her back to New York, see that she
was cared for, and, as he wrote to Thomas Mann, hope that her suffering
would come to a peaceful end. Although this year of rest, which I had been
looking forward to, has now become such a year of unrestto put it
mildlyI am content to have no professional obligations to fulfillI could
under no circumstances leave the house very often and could not concen-
trate on making music.97 So he stayed at home and worked on his memoirs,
which at least gave him something to think about besides the slow death of
the woman who had been his companion for more than forty years. He in-
terrupted his enforced sabbatical only twiceonce in October, to conduct
the New York Philharmonic in a concert for Czechoslovak Independence
Day with Jarmila Novotn, and again in January, to record Samuel Barbers
First Symphony.
All the while, he was receiving repeated requests from both the Philhar-
monic and the Metropolitan Opera boards to return, and by January he had
decided that he would end his sabbatical with a Pension Fund concert at the
beginning of March and then with performances of Fidelio (in English, with
the young Regina Resnik delivering a white-hot performance as Leonore),
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Don Giovanni, and the Matthus-Passion He also found time to give Mann
some musical advice for his new novel, Doktor Faustus. Walter in fact re-
sumed his conducting activities at the end of February, in the countrys geo-
graphic center, conducting the Kansas City Philharmonic (at the invitation
of the orchestras conductor, Efrem Kurtz) in two concerts. The local critics
probably had no idea what personal tragedy Walter had left behind in New
York,but they were quick to acknowledge that Walters appearance in Kansas
City was an important item in the citys musical history,and that the effects
of his association with the orchestra will be lasting and cumulative.98
After eight months of suffering, Elsa at last died on March , just before
Walters first Matthus-Passion performance that spring. She who had
fought bravely and indefatigably on behalf of one who was not born to be a
fighter was now for long and painful months engaged in the last fighta
fight we all must lose, Walter reflected near the end of his autobiography.
After almost forty-four years of an all too exciting life at my side she left me
and my daughter, to find in eternal life the peace she so richly deserved.99
Condolences came pouring in from Walters friends and colleagues, yet
as usual he found his strongest consolation in simply returning to work.
Along with the resumption of his usual New York and Philadelphia activi-
ties, he made two landmark recordings. One was of Mahlers Fourth Sym-
phony with Desi Halban (the daughter of the soprano Selma Kurz, with
whom Walter had often worked in his early Vienna years), which was techni-
cally the first uncut recording of the piece, since a previous album had
trimmed a few measures. The other milestone was Mendelssohns Violin
Concerto with Nathan Milstein, an incomparable performance that auspi-
ciously ventured forth as Columbias first twelve-inch LP.100
A few days before entering the studio to commit Mahlers Fourth to
disk, Walter attended the world premiere of Artur Schnabels Sonata for Vi-
olin and Piano, performed by Alexander Schneider and Bruno Eisner in
Dalcrose Auditorium at New Yorks City Center.101 Schnabel admired Wal-
ters conducting enough to dash off a note to the conductor in , directly
after hearing the Matthus-Passion: Your accomplishment last night re-
mains a pinnacle, a model, a blessing, and a goal. Everyone who could go
must have loved you, and must remain more joyous, clear-sighted, and mod-
est. And that is the way that the meaning of music is truly fulfilled.102 In
turn, Walter often expressed his admiration for the pianists artistry, though
he could discover no path to Schnabels music. When Walters old journal-
istic champion Csar Saerchinger approached Walter in , asking him to
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sponsor a memorial committee for the purpose of organizing a concert of
Schnabels works, Walter wrote back frankly: Let me say that I would cer-
tainly b[e] very happy to prove my lasting friendship and love for Artur
Schnabel. But I could not do it by sponsoring a concert of Arturs works
which have remained inaccessible to my comprehension. Much as I admired
and loved Arturs personality, musicianship, and, of course, his greatness as
a pianist, as a composer he has remained a stranger to me.103 One imagines
Walter squirming in his seat as he politely listened to a work composed by an
old friend and colleague, an abrasively dissonant piece that could not have
been to his taste. Perhaps he went not only out of a sense of loyalty to the pi-
anist but also out of a determination to return to an active life after Elsas
death. I have found my way back to work and music and to the completion
of my book (which is near at hand), he wrote to Flagler in May, just a few
days after the recital, and also after V-E Day, but nobody will understand
better than you how hard it is to adapt myself to my present way of life.104
Now more than ever Walter relied on his one remaining daughter, and
even after her marriage to Karl Ludwig Lindt in she remained her fa-
thers close companion, accompanying him on most of his trips to Europe
after the war. In an interview some years after Walters death, Lotte reflected
that caring for her father was not a great hardship; in fact it was easy. I dont
think there can be a better relationship between father and daughter than
ours was, she declared. People sometimes asked me whether I found that
this was a sacrifice that I was making, giving up very much of my own life.
Well, it was no sacrifice whatsoever, mostly because he was so completely
tolerant a human being. He always put himself in the place of the other per-
son.105 Certainly Walter and his eldest daughter had always been on close
terms, and that summer they began making plans to buy a house together in
Beverly Hills.
Walter was as relieved and overjoyed as anyone else that the long-
awaited end to the European catastrophe had finally come. The anti-Christ
is already in hellI feel it, he wrote to a professor of religion who had ad-
mired Walters Matthus-Passion and with whom he had struck up a corre-
spondence.106 But the year was not a time for unmitigated joy, for in addi-
tion to recovering from Elsas death, Walter was also faced with the loss of
Franz Werfel, who died in August. To make matters worse, by December ru-
mors began to fly that Walter and Alma Mahler Werfel, two displaced Euro-
peans in California, both widowed, were intending to marry. That Walter
had recently purchased the house next to Almas on North Bedford Drive
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did nothing to rein in such rampant gossip, and Alma described how one
morning, as she lay sick in bed, she heard Hedda Hopper, the film columnist
for the Los Angeles Times, announce the impending marriage. I was boiling
with rage at the ghouls who could think of nothing better than to marry me
off while I lay heartbroken over the loss of Franz Werfel, Alma snarled. Wal-
ter, for his part, merely asked her mildly, But would that be so terrible?
though eventually his management sent out a press release to quash the ru-
mor once and for all.107
At the same time, the translation of Walters autobiography was not pro-
ceeding as smoothly as he could have wished, though in this Walter was
partly to blame. With every chapter that James Galston translated, Walter
sent him numerous suggestions, until Galston finally pleaded with him to
stop sending corrections, for he had already spent a great deal of time work-
ing on the book and had to move on to other projects.108 Walter was also not
pleased when Herbert Weinstock, his editor at Knopf, called his writing
style flowery and oratorical and suggested cutting some , words,
which in Walters estimation represented roughly a fifth of the entire book.
It may perhaps help to tell him, Walter complained indignantly to his
agent, Franz Horch, that Thomas Mann, as well as Franz Werfel, both of
whom very carefully had read my book, spoke with particular satisfaction
about the simplicity and seriousness of my tale.109 In the end Walter agreed
to cut the occasional sentence, mostly in passages containing references
to works of German literature that Knopf deemed unfamiliar to American
readers.
Perhaps with an eye toward finishing his autobiography, Walter kept his
fall schedule fairly light in , though he did make his first trip to Chicago,
conducting several performances of Forza at the Civic Opera House. Zinka
Milanov was to have been his Leonora but was suddenly taken ill, and Stella
Roman made an overnight trip from San Francisco to take on the part, earn-
ing the appellation heroine of the evening. She and Walter received the
greatest plaudits. As all good operas should have, last nights La Forza del
Destino had both a hero and a heroine, Albert Goldberg reported, but the
hero of the occasion was not the tenor but the conductor.110 During his
stay in Chicago Walter also conducted Figaro with Pinza and one concert
with the Chicago Symphony to benefit the orchestras pension fund.
With the end of the war came numerous invitations for Walter to return
to Europe to conduct, and some of his friends even wondered if he might
come back there to live. I dont wish to leave America anymore, except for
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short trips to Europe, he wrote to Leo and Emma. I am too old to uproot
myself once again.111 Nevertheless, he was more than willing to accept as
many invitations as his schedule would allow, and by the end of he had
already planned a trip for the following fall that would include concerts in
Stockholm, where he would be reunited with his brother and sister, and also
in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. Then he and Lotte planned to
go to Lugano, to bury Elsas ashes where Gretels urn rests, he told Leo
and Emma, and where we will also want to rest someday.112
But first he had a busy season ahead of him in New York and Philadel-
phia (with one concert in Montreal in October), finishing out the year with
the New York Philharmonic premiere of Mahlers Ninth Symphony in De-
cember. As might be predicted, Walter received superlative reviews and
Mahler somewhat mixed ones, especially from Olin Downes, who, never at
the top of his critical powers when reviewing Mahler, wrote of this towering
masterpiece that there is a degree of ostentation in this music which would
be funny if it were not so vulgar.113 Other critics responded more positively
to the work and appreciated the opportunity to hear it played under the di-
rection of the conductor who had given its world premiere. (One member of
the audience, Henry-Louis de La Grange, then hearing Mahler for the first
time,114 has since devoted more than four decades to researching and
chronicling the composers life.) No one, however, seemed very enthusiastic
about another composer whose music Walter also championedHans
Pfitzner. In fact, Walters decision to program his Three Preludes from
Palestrina in March struck many as more than questionable. Virgil
Thomson reported that he had received a letter protesting the performance
of Pfitzners music on political grounds, though he remarked dryly that this
citizen has no objection to hearing any music he has not heard before, even
though it were written by Hitler himself ; nevertheless, he didnt find the
preludes to have much life in them.115
Walter himself received some anti-Pfitzner letters, one from a man who
wrote that Pfitzner had supported the Nazi regime during the occupation of
Poland. Upon hearing this, Walter was adamant in his refusal to believe that
Pfitzner could have been anything but a victim of the Nazis: I indeed would
be horrified to think that I perform music of a composer who has identified
himself in such a way as you indicate with the cause of Nazism. Pfitzner had
fallen into disgrace with the Nazis, Walter wrote to his correspondent, and
the terrible things reported of him seemed incredible to me after the long
years of my connection with Pfitzner.116 His correspondent assured him
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that he had personally witnessed the events he described and could produce
other Polish witnesses. Despite public and private condemnations of
Pfitzner, Walter sent him food and went so far as to write to the United States
Armys Munich Detachment to see what could be done to help his friend,
who, as he learned from a fellow acquaintance, had lost all his belongings
and was living in deplorable conditions in a sanatorium in Garmisch.
Without any doubt Pfitzner is besides Richard Strauss the most important
German composer of our time, he maintained, telling the authorities that
after the long years of my personal connection with Pfitzner I felt sure that
there could not be an understanding between the Nazis and a man of such
value.117
Walters pleas appeared to have little immediate effect, though Pfitzner
wrote to him soon afterward, thanking him for performing his preludes and
for the letter Walter had written on his behalf. It did his heart good, he said,
that Walter still esteemed him and that they had remained faithful to each
other.118 About what he might or might not have done during the war,
Pfitzner was unrepentant, writing to Walter later in the year that he thought
that making all Germans accountable for Hitlers deeds, as he claimed that
some Germans like Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse were not too
ashamed to do, was as intellectually shallow and false as [it was] morally
disgraceful. Showing little sensitivity to what Walter himself had endured,
he wallowed in self-pity, complaining that at the end of his life he sat ignored,
an undesirable living in a welfare home, and he claimed to be delighted
that Walter, in contrast, rode in triumph through a Europe purged of Ger-
mans, practicing his art to his hearts content.119 This egocentricity
proved too much even for Walter, who tersely wrote back: There is a chasm
between your way of thinking and mine that I would probably only increase
through a response. . . . Concerning my triumphal march, I would say to
you only that my trip was undertaken for the purpose of laying my wifes
ashes next to Gretes grave in Lugano, and since I was already going to Eu-
rope, I decided to conduct along the way, to accept in gratitude the most
pressing and cordial invitations that had come from countries that had been
kindly disposed to me and have remained so.120 This was his last letter to
Pfitzner, yet he continued to defend him until the composers death in ,
arguing in an unsuccessful attempt to de-Nazify Pfitzner that his unworldly
idealism and patriotism inspired by great German culture had caused
him to be deceived by Nazi propaganda.121 All this earned him at least one
scathing letter in which the writer asked why he couldnt recall having seen a
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statement from Walter on behalf of Palestine or Greece or any other decent
cause; was his schedule too demanding to allow him to defend anyone
other than Nazis?122
As the year proceeded, Walters thoughts turned more and more toward
his upcoming trip to Europe. In April he and Lotte applied for U.S. citizen-
ship, since in order to travel they had to obtain U.S. passports; Harry Hark-
ness Flagler and Arthur Judson stood as Walters witnesses. Then Walter
and Lotte returned to the West Coast, where they began setting up their new
house, and in September Walter conducted three concerts in San Francisco
as part of a Bruno Walter Festival. In the meantime Theme and Variations
had finally appeared, with a German edition to be published shortly after-
ward by Bermann-Fischer. If Walter read Howard Taubmans mixed review
in the New York Times, he would probably have been irked that Taubman
spent the last two paragraphs discussing Walters confessed failure to see the
Nazi danger until it was nearly too late. In Mr. Walters case the reason for
the failure was the tyranny of art, not indolence, Taubman concluded.
But it wasnt a good enough excuse. One hopes the ivory-tower boys and
girls are listening.123
While Taubman was busy casting aspersions on Walter for having left
Europe at the last possible moment, Walter was in the midst of preparing to
return.On September , just six days after his seventieth birthday,he left on
the Drottningholm for Gothenburg, where he was at last reunited with his
brother Leo and his sister Emma. Shortly afterward Walter repaired to
Stockholm to conduct four concerts with the Stockholm Philharmonic
Orchestra, then went on to London to conduct the London Philharmonic
after long absence, as the London Times reported with its wonted re-
straint.124 There followed visits to Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and finally
Zurich, where he conducted a pension fund benefit with an enlarged Ton-
halle-Orchester. For the most part his programs consisted of standard reper-
toire, which was probably just as well, for Walter was so overwhelmed by
the wealth of impressions that he must have found it difficult to concen-
trate his energies on conducting. Ive had a time of work, of private obliga-
tions, of excitement behind me such as Ive hardly ever lived through in my
violently shifting existence, he wrote to the Manns in the middle of Decem-
ber from Lugano, as his trip was nearing its end. There was so much to tell
that he hardly knew where to begin, such as the striking contrast between ail-
ing France (in spite of Pariss radiant beauty) and the unshakable nature of
Switzerland, where he had a sense of the earlier Europe even more strongly
G C T C

than in Sweden. Having arrived in Lugano the day before and placed Elsas
ashes in the grave with Gretels, Walter and Lotte were now sorting through
the possessions that had remained behind in their former house, deciding
what to send on to America.125 Walter then returned to London for one
more concert, flying back to New York on January .
Walters months of traveling around Europe recalled his wanderings of
the previous decade, and no sooner had he arrived in New York than he was
off to Boston, where he had not conducted since his first trip to the United
States in . That Walter had recently been to the old country for the first
time since the war was not lost on the Boston journalists, one of whom asked
Walter how he had found Europe. A very simple question for a complex an-
swer, Walter replied, then went on to describe how, throughout the war,
music had been of vital importance to peoples daily lives. Dutch and En-
glish orchestras, he maintained, were even better than before the war. As for
Central Europe, which he did not visit, it would take much time and wis-
dom for it to come back.126
Instead of tiring him out, Walters trip to Europe provided him with a
fresh burst of energy. That spring, he traveled around more than he had in
the previous years; in addition to conducting in New York (where his con-
erts featured Vaughan Williamss Fifth Symphony) and Philadelphia, he
made a trip to Montreal and returned to Boston in March. He also made a
number of recordings, including the world premiere release of Mahlers
Fifth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic,which a few years later he
said deserved a place among his best records.127 His letters during this
time have lost the constant undercurrent of fatigue and are full of future
plans. But soon he would have to curtail his wanderings once again, because
he had given in to repeated requests to become the New York Philhar-
monics musical adviser.

G C T C

 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and Arturo Toscanini, on the occasion of Toscaninis European tour with the
New York Philharmonic (Leipzig, ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife, Clara (Mark Twains daughter), both of whom
were close friends of Walter ().
Courtesy of Musical America Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Ezio Pinza as Don Giovanni, Metropolitan Opera production (New York,

early s).
Courtesy of Metropolitan Opera Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Gretel Walter, who became romantically involved with Pinza (ca. ).

Courtesy of New York Public Library, Bruno Walter Papers.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Thomas Mann and Walter (ca. ).

Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and his wife (left), joined by Walters frequent recital partner, Lotte
Lehmann (ca. ).
Courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter in Sweden after the war, reunited with his sister Emma and brother Leo
(ca. ).
Courtesy of New York Public Library, Bruno Walter Papers.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic (s).

Courtesy of New York Philharmonic Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter surrounded by the members of the New York Philharmonic ().

From left to right, standing: Willi Feder, Leonard Rose, Bruno Zirato, and Walter
Hendl; seated: Imre Pogany, Saul Goodman, Anselme Fortier, Simeon Bellison,
William Lincer, Walter, Harold Gomberg, John Corigliano, William Vacchiano,
John Wummer, Gordon Pulis, William Polisi, and James Chambers.
Courtesy of New York Philharmonic Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter with string principals of the New York Philharmonic: John Corigliano,
violin; Leonard Rose, cello; and William Lincer, viola ().
Courtesy of New York Philharmonic Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and Kathleen Ferrier around the time of her United States debut in .
Courtesy of Musical America Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Bruno Walter and Delia Reinhardt, at the time of her attempted return to the
concert stage (ca. ).
Courtesy of New York Public Library, Bruno Walter Papers.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and Wilhelm Furtwngler (Berlin, ).

Courtesy of New York Public Library, Bruno Walter Papers.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and Eleanor Steber (New York, ca. ).

Courtesy of Yale University, Fred Plaut Collection.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter at a rehearsal for Die Zauberflte, with Theodor Uppman (holding the
pan-pipes) as Papageno (New York, ).
Courtesy of Metropolitan Opera Archives.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

William Warfield, Jennie Tourel, Irmgard Seefried, and Walter, listening to a

playback of the Mozart Requiem (New York, ).
Don Hunstein, courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Walter and his daughter Lotte, on their way to Italy (s).

Courtesy of New York Philharmonic Archives.
 [To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Foreground: Walter, Leonard Bernstein, and producer John McClure, after a

recording session for Das Lied von der Erde. Bernstein, who listened to the session
in the control booth, reportedly asked McClure: Why does he do that?
(New York, ).
Don Hunstein, courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

You have to sing about wine, not about beer. Ernst Haefliger and Walter, during
the playback session for Das Lied. In his last letter, dated February , , Walter
praised the excellent Swiss tenor Ernst Haefliger.
Don Hunstein, courtesy of Sony Music Photo Archives.


Musical Adviser
New York,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

One of the main questions is how to handle persons,

how to handle men, how to influence these musicians . . .
Bruno Walter to Albert Goldberg in

It must have come as a shock. At the beginning of February ,

Artur Rodzinski resigned his position as musical director of the
New York Philharmonic, citing irreconcilable differences be-
tween himself and the management, especially Arthur Judson.1 A
week later the papers would announce that Walter was assuming
the reins at the Philharmonic, but even before that news became
public, Rodzinski, happening upon some positive words that
Walter had offered about the orchestras administration, fired off a
letter to his successor. He wrote that hed always had tremen-
dous respect for Walter but considered his colleague ill informed
about the inside aspects of the Philharmonic. Many times he
had recommended Walter as a guest conductor for at least six or
eight weeks, yet his proposals were always turned down be-
cause, in the opinion of those in power, you were not a large
enough box-office attraction to warrant a longer engagement than
the period you now have.2
If Walter was shaken by the news, his response didnt show it.
Three days after the papers ran the story of Walters becoming

musical adviser, he wrote back to Rodzinski: Let me state that in all these
years the management of the Philharmonic Symphony Society offered me
longer periods for guest appearances than I could accept, and in they
offered me the position of their Musical Director. I do not see how these facts
can be reconciled with the statements you sent me.3 Of course, there may
have been some truth to Rodzinskis charge against the Philharmonic man-
agement, yet in citing the earlier offer of the position of musical director,
Walter laid down a strong hand, since it was only after he had turned down
the appointment for the season that Rodzinski was offered the
position.
Its only natural to wonder why Walter chose to take on more responsi-
bility now, when earlier hed said that his advanced years had prevented him
from accepting the post. No doubt a number of factors came into play: he
had finished his autobiography, his wife had died, and the Philharmonic
desperately needed his help. It was a moral obligation, in his words, to as-
sist the organization in its hour of need.4 Nevertheless, he wanted to avoid
being worked beyond his strength, and experience had taught him to know
his limitations. His title would be not musical director but only musical
adviser, and he didnt wish even that label to appear on the concert pro-
grams.5 Furthermore, he would need adequate time to rest during the
course of the season. But for all that, his work for the New York Philhar-
monic made plenty of demands on him, and engagements outside New York
continued to keep him fully occupied.
One of the first tasks Walter tackled after being named musical adviser
was to begin mapping out conductors and programs for the season.
In this he was helped immeasurably by his friend Wolfgang Stresemann, a
cultivated man from an esteemed family; his father, Gustav Stresemann, had
served as Chancellor of Germany and as Foreign Ministerthe last great
European political figure, as Walter characterized him in .6 Walter
patently respected and admired the statesmans son. As a composer, Wolf-
gang Stresemann could read scores intelligently, and as an aspiring conduc-
tor,he took a personal and professional interest in newly written music.Over
the course of several years Walter recommended Stresemann for a number of
conducting posts. It was clear that Walter felt free to speak his mind to his
younger friend, and few of Walters correspondents could elicit such per-
sonal utterances as Stresemann drew from the usually guarded Walter. In his
letters to Stresemann, Walter even went as far as to comment freely on his
colleagues. For instance, on hearing thirdhand, by way of Stresemann, that
M A

Fritz Reiner had said hed reached the point where he bored even himself at
the podium, Walter confided to his friend: Thats how he looks, and thats
how it sounds.7
For his first season as musical adviser Walter made a conscious effort to
find new American pieces. During the spring of Stresemann sifted
through numerous scores in New York, sending his reports (and sometimes
sheet music) to Walter in Beverly Hills. Walter also did some digging, reject-
ing certain composers out of hand. Works that were too dissonant stood lit-
tle chance of winning him over, and the music of one contemporary com-
poser ranked somewhat lower than construction noise, as he half-jokingly
wrote to Stresemann in April : Were very happy in our new house, al-
though a great deal of work remains to be done, and the air resounds with the
noise of the workerswhich, however, I prefer in any case to the composi-
tions of Roger Sessions.8 Music in which jazz elements played too vigorous
a part was also taboo, though Walter would allow the occasional jazz-evok-
ing harmony or syncopation.The neoclassicists and neoromantics appealed
most strongly to Walter, who sought another gem from Samuel Barber. As it
turned out, Barber did have something to offer. His Second Symphony had
been performed in under Koussevitzky,in a version that contained elec-
tronic noises to conjure up an atmosphere of airborne maneuvers (the work
was commissioned by, and dedicated to, the United States Air Force). Bar-
ber was at work on a revision of the symphony, deleting the electronic ef-
fects, and Walter hoped very much that this would supply him with a sub-
stantial American novelty. When he finally received the score, however, he
was utterly repelled by it.9 Though the revised symphony was eventually
picked up by Eugene Ormandy (who performed it with the Philadelphia Or-
chestra in ), Barber himself later repudiated the piece, destroying the
score and most of the parts, though recordings of the piece show the sym-
phony to be an impressive composition, worthy of a place in Barbers
canon.10 It is a pity and a disappointment that Walter should have rejected it
so vehemently.
My novelty-headaches are being increased by a stream of unsolicited
new works, not worth discussing, that wend their way into my house, Wal-
ter confessed to Stresemann in May. Growing desperate, Walter wondered
whether it would be permissible to play the Barber Adagio for Strings again,
though Stresemann retorted that, since the work was so well known, per-
forming it could scarcely be seen as promoting American music.11 Among
the other compositions that the two of them considered (mostly in reports
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from Stresemann to Walter) were works by Felix Borowski, Anthony Do-
nato, Howard Hanson, Harrison Kerr, Walter Piston, Randall Thompson,
David Van Vactor, and John Vewall. Some of the composers, like Thompson
and Piston, had nothing new to suit the conductors immediate needs. Nev-
ertheless, Walter seriously considered Pistons Prelude for Organ and
Strings and admired Borowskis Requiem for a Child, though he feared that
the audience would not regard it as substantial.12
Finally, in the middle of May, Stresemann exclaimed in Latinate jubila-
tion: Habemus Sinfoniam! (We have a symphony!). He had just heard a
new work by Douglas Mooretoday best remembered for his opera The
Ballad of Baby Doeperformed at Columbia University. The symphony,
Stresemann wrote, though not a masterpiece, was a light, unproblematic
composition with many attractions. An alternative possibility, Stresemann
added, was Howard Hansons Fourth Symphony (Requiem), though its
third movement, the Dies irae, struck him as weak.13 After examining the
scores, Walter voiced his doubts about both symphonies. He deemed Han-
sons Dies irae dreadful, though that short movement (under four minutes
long) is far from contemptible, and the symphony as a whole offers much
that should have appealed to Waltera distinct gravitas, skillful construc-
tion, moderate use of dissonance. As for Moores piece, Walter allowed that
it had a certain musical quality, but the outer movements were troubling.
I cant get used to the last movement at all, Walter wrote. And the first
movement is simply too playful for me.14 Walters objections to both move-
ments were certainly justified. The first movement sounds too much like a
film score for a breezy American comedy, while the finale is disappointingly
shortunder four minutes in Walters performance. But Stresemann, hav-
ing heard it again, found the piece superior to its competitors. Since Barber,
Thompson, and Piston had nothing satisfactory to offer, and Copland,
Schuman, Harris and company are not under consideration, Moore still
seems the best to me, he wrote to Walter.15 Why Copland, Schuman, and
Harris were not in the running is puzzling; a few years later Stresemann him-
self would be programming Coplands Appalachian Spring for one of his
concerts.16 Meanwhile Walter had examined a new work by David Stanley
Smith, The Passing of Oedipus, but wrote respectfully to the composer that
he could not gain a positive impression. Maybe, it is the enormous tragedy
which your music tries to convey, so enormous that it defies an adequate mu-
sical expression. He suggested that Smith play the work for him in New
York.17 In any event, Moores Symphony no. was selected as the major
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American novelty for Walters first season as musical adviser to the New
York Philharmonic, curiously beating out Barbers Second Symphony and
Hansons Fourth (both richer, deeper pieces). It would not, however, repre-
sent the only American piece on his programs, nor the only novelty.
One of his better choices for the coming season was a work he had con-
ducted in , his first year with the Philharmonic-Symphony Society:
Daniel Gregory Masons Symphony no. . This brooding workconjuring
up at times the more volatile qualities of Brahms and Elgarhad been re-
vised since its first performances, and Walter planned to schedule it as one of
his Sunday broadcasts. Mason proudly devoted two single-spaced pages in
his journal to a meeting he had with Walter at the conductors hotel on April
,during which the two discussed the piece in great detail.18 Walters plan to
schedule the work for a broadcast, however, was endangered by the possibil-
ity that the soloist for the evening, Vladimir Horowitz, might choose to play
Brahmss Second Piano Concerto for the broadcast (as he did for the Thurs-
day and Friday performances), in which case there would not be enough
time to broadcast the symphony as well. Walter gingerly suggested substitut-
ing Masons Suite after English Folksongs, a shorter and lighter work. Hear-
ing the proposal, Mason was palpably shaken. Walters letter threatened a
grievous disappointment to him. Ever since that red-letter day in my life
when we went over the score of my Second Symphony at your apartment,
Mason wrote, and you promised to play it in one of your broadcasts which
you convinced me were of greatest importance to knowledge of any Ameri-
can music, I have been convinced that you were giving me one of the
supreme, and perhaps latest, opportunities of my career as a composer.19
The suite was already well known, and the symphony had been heavily re-
vised. Mason believed that his symphony might be more seriously re-
garded now than it was fifteen years ago, even though I am now one of the
older men, and out of the picture focussed on Copland, Schuman, Harris,
Barber, Moore, Morton Gould, and the rest. I think people in general are
more anxious to have an indigenous American music now than they were
then. Walter apologized for giving his friend a seemingly unnecessary
shock and reassured him that the piece would be performed on the Sun-
day broadcast.20
In addition to fixing his own programs for the coming season, Walter
oversaw and commented on the programs of his colleaguesLeopold
Stokowski,Charles Munch (his old concertmaster from the Leipzig Gewand-
haus Orchestra), Dimitri Mitropoulos, and the assistant conductor Walter
M A

Hendl, who had joined the organization in and whom Walter had rec-
ommended retaining for the season. In most cases there was little to
say about the choices his colleagues had made, though some juggling with
everybodys favorite symphonic works was inevitable. But with Dimitri
Mitropoulos Walter had several differences of opinion that led to outwardly
polite but obviously disturbing clashes, often mediated by Bruno Zirato, as-
sociate manager of the Philharmonic in the season and joint man-
ager (with Arthur Judson) the following season. Zirato, who had managed
Caruso and had acted as a liaison between Toscanini and the New York
Philharmonic, was also vice-president in charge of conductors at Columbia
Artists Management, where he had handled Walter since the early s. He
and Walter were friends as well as colleagues, and Walter was a sometime
dinner guest at the Zirato residence.21 There is a refreshing frankness in the
correspondence between these two professionals; Zirato, however, seems
sometimes to have accepted his role as intermediary between Walter and
Mitropoulos with a sigh of resignation.
The emotionally ambivalent relationship between the two conductors
was akin, in some ways, to that between Furtwngler and Walter. Furtwng-
ler, Mitropoulos, and Walter were all composer-conductors as well as pi-
anists. The two younger conductors had admired the elder statesman, as he
admired them. Yet, with such strong personalities in play, its no wonder that
friction eventually developed. During his student days in Berlin, in the early
s, Mitropoulos had heard Walter conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, and
the experience had left a deep impression on him. His words of praise for
Walter could be effusive; in , on learning that he would be on the Phil-
harmonic roster again, he oozed praise for his superior: I almost tremble
before that chance to be associated with an artist of your caliber.22 Walter
responded in kind, though with a cooler, northern choice of words: I only
can thank you and beg you to be assured that I feel very happy to have you
again and for an even longer period with our orchestra. Your activity is, by its
great artistic and moral meaning, a necessity in the musical life of New
York.23
Like Walter, Mitropoulos was one of the great champions of Mahler in
the first half of the twentieth century. Both conductors continued to program
Mahlers symphonies in New York and other territories whose local critics
had made their hostility to the composer abundantly clear over a period of
decades. That being so, the men established what was at once a close bond
and a potential source of conflict, since they offered markedly different inter-
M A

pretations of the works and had differing ideas about their presentation to
the public. One symphony that Walter had avoided through the years was
Mahlers Sixth. The deepest reasons for his avoidance of this powerful
worknotwithstanding his statement that the symphony is bleakly pes-
simistic and ends in hopelessnessare ultimately shrouded in mystery,
yet he claimed to be delighted that Mitropoulos was scheduling the work for
the season.24 Surprisingly, given the forty-odd years that had
elapsed since its very first performance, this was the United States premiere
of Mahlers Tragic Symphony. One aspect of Mitropouloss proposed
project, however, rubbed Walter the wrong way. The companion piece for
the concert was to be Gershwins Piano concerto, with Oscar Levant as
soloist. The choice was not entirely frivolous. When listening to the two
works in succession, one can hear a number of similarities in orchestral color
and inventive boldness. But Gershwins concerto characteristically made
use of jazz idioms, and jazz-influenced classical music almost always made
Walter shudder in disgust. To combine Gershwin with Mahler, a composer
Walter revered as the greatest he had ever known, must have seemed tanta-
mount to blasphemy. On June , , he wrote a letter to Bruno Zirato on
the proposed programs of his colleagues and duly noted his dissatisfaction
with Mitropouloss combination of pieces: Interesting as I find his pro-
grams, I see one point about which I must express my most serious doubts. I
know that Mr. Oscar Levant has been engaged to play the Gershwin Piano
Concerto. But I strongly must plead against the combination of this work
with Mahlers Sixth Symphony in one program. On the list of the works
which Mr. Mitropoulos has chosen, I see many pieces which go far better
with Gershwin than just Mahlers most tragic opus, and I would be very
grateful for a shift.25 Despite Walters reservations, Levant did play the
Gershwin Concerto on the same program as Mahlers Sixth; indeed, the
Gershwin Concerto eventually edged Mahlers Sixth out of the broadcast
slot, much to Mitropouloss bitter disappointment. It was not to be the last
time the two conductors would quarrel over Mahler.
Though most of Walters contact with the media revolved around radio
broadcasts and newspaper reviews, one episode with the New York Philhar-
monic extended his activities into the movie theater. Walter was no stranger
to celluloid; he had already been shot conducting in the s, but now he
was in what purported to be a genuine feature film. At the beginning of May
the movie Carnegie Hall had its New York premiere. Built on the flim-
siest of plots, it tells the story of a young man, Tony Salerno, who is raised by
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a loving but overprotective mother. She works in the hall and wants him to
become a concert pianist, with his musical education being enriched by the
superb artists who grace the stage there every night. The plot conveniently
allows the audience to hear performances by Walter, Stokowski, Reiner,
Heifetz, Piatigorsky, Pinza, Pons, Rodzinski, Rubinstein, and other masters
of the day. Tony eventually turns to jazz, much to his mothers dismay, but
makes good at the end of the film by conducting and playing the piano in a
piece of his own composition, which features Harry James as trumpet
soloista fusion of jazz and classical music that must have sickened Walter.
The performance takes place, inescapably, at Carnegie Hall, with Tonys
proud mother seated in the same box as a congratulatory Olin Downes, who
in real life would have despised the piece.
Assigned a single, far-from-challenging line in the movie (Here you
are, Tony), Walter delivers his words with avuncular warmth as he presents
his autograph to the aspiring pianist. The conductor had no delusions about
his future as a potential legend of the silver screen. Lotte Lehmann, by con-
trast, did envision the possibility of a new career after being invited to act in
the feature film Big City, which was released the following year. When she
wrote to Walter about it in , he replied with a self-deprecating sense of
humor that he reserved for her and a few other intimate friends: I certainly
dont expect that youll achieve the profound effect of my speaking scene in
Carnegie Hall, in which the camera men, in horror, dropped their equip-
ment.26
Hollywood also demanded Walters presence in , though not for
film work. On July he opened the twenty-sixth season of Hollywood Bowl
concerts with an all-Wagner program, followed by an all-Brahms concert
two days later. A third concert was a mixed bag of Dvork, Debussy, and oth-
ers. Acetates of the Wagner and Brahms concerts have circulated, one of the
highlights being the Prelude and Liebestod of Tristan and the Immola-
tion Scene from Gtterdmmerung, featuring the American soprano Helen
Traubel as soloist.27 The Hollywood Bowl Liebestod has a special value
in that it preserves a rare performance of Walter conducting this famous set
piece with a first-rate vocalist. (A couple of strictly instrumental arrange-
ments survive, as well as another sung version at the Bowl with the less satis-
fying Margaret Harshaw.28) Traubel was one of the great Wagnerian sopra-
nos of her day, an American in the Leider and Flagstad mold, and she gave
Walter a place of honor in her memoirs when listing the conductors with
whom she had workedwho included Szell, Beecham, Reiner, and Busch.
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Towering among them all is Bruno Walter, a conductor who stands out in
my mind not only for his clean-cut musicianship but for the fact that he
begged me on a dozen occasions to learn the leading part in Fidelio. It was
an offer the weighty Wagnerian refused for cosmetic reasons; the heroine,
she noted, wore a short coat. I admit that her boots were long, but there was
that certain interval in between which, in my case, nothing could dis-
guise.29 At the Bowl in the combined forces of Walter and Traubel
made for a performance rich in grandeur and power, despite patches of
scrappy playing from the orchestra.
In an interview during the intermission of the Wagner program, Walter
announced that in September he would be conducting the Vienna Philhar-
monic for the first time after the tragic happenings of the last decade, at the
music festival at Edinburgh, Scotland. The idea of establishing a summer
music festival in Edinburgh that could compete with those in Munich,
Bayreuth, and Salzburg was the brainchild of the Austrian-born Rudolf
Bing, then manager of the Glyndebourne Festival and future manager of the
Metropolitan Opera House, a man who had known Walter already in Vienna
and Germany. According to Bing, Walters willingness to participate in the
still-conjectural festival marked the turning point in his efforts to bring it to
life. Whenever anyone asked me what all this was about, I had merely to say
that Bruno Walter was coming, and no further questions were asked.30 In
Walter, Bing, and a young English contralto (or mezzo-soprano, as she
was sometimes then billed), Kathleen Ferrier, met in the apartment of the
publisher Hamish Hamilton to discuss preparations for the festival. Walter
remembered the event clearly eight years later, by which time Ferrier had
succumbed to cancer at the age of forty-one: She came in, not shy and not
bold, but in modest self-confidence, dressed in a kind of Salzburg costume,
a so-called dirndl, looking young and lovely, pure and earnest, simple and
noble, and the room seemed to become brighter from the charm of her pres-
ence.31 With Walter at the piano, she sang some lieder and then, at the con-
ductors request, some passages from Das Lied, a work she didnt know.
She overcame their great difficulties with the ease of the born musician, he
recalled, and I recognized with delight that here was potentially one of the
great singers of our time: a voice of a rare beauty, a natural production of
tone, a genuine warmth of expression. Das Lied was in fact one of the works
they performed at the first Edinburgh Festival (with Peter Pears singing the
tenor part), and during piano rehearsals in London, as Walter tells the story,
We always had to interrupt the last part of the Farewellshe could not
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continue because her emotions overwhelmed her. Tears streamed down her
cheeks; with all her will-power and vigour she could not help it, and only by
and by did she learn to control her feelings. But nothing could be further
from her than sentimentalityin those tears spoke strength of feeling, not
weakness, and a deep comprehension for another great heart.32 The con-
ductor was clearly taken with the lovely, svelte Ferrier, and doubtful rumors
have circulated that their friendship was not simply platonic.
Another artist scheduled to sing at the inaugural season in Edinburgh
was Lotte Lehmann, who told Walter over the telephone in August that she
would not be able to participate because of a throat irritation. She feared that
Walter would be angry with her, and although he replied that they had been
friends for too long for him to be truly angry with her, he rebuked her for
what he considered her selfish behavior: Precisely because of our friend-
ship . . . I must tell you how unfair I find the harm and disappointment you
caused the people over there, without being able to justify it by a real ill-
ness. . . . This isforgive me for my franknessthe behavior of an incon-
siderate egocentricity, which allows you simply to cancel your obligations
with a doctors notice, without feeling the burden of the heavy damage done
to the people in Edinburgh.33 In an attempt to remedy the problem of
Lehmanns absence, Bing suggested that Walter accompany either Elisabeth
Schumann or Marian Anderson. Walter, who rarely accompanied at this
point in his career (and who refused to play a Mozart piano concerto at the
festival), wanted a singer with whom he had worked on many occasions.
Having collaborated with Anderson only once, in Vienna, and having never
accompanied her at the piano in more intimate repertoire, he favored Schu-
mann, though he asked that his decision be kept []
.34
Naturally this reunion with the Vienna Philharmonic engendered
powerful feelings on both sides. Although Arnold Ros, an exile from Aus-
tria, had died in London the previous year, another member of the Ros
Quartet, Friedrich Buxbaum, came to Edinburgh for this historic occasion.
Buxbaum, Walters old chamber music companion and former solo cellist of
the Vienna Philharmonic, had also been ousted from his country in . In
what must have been a deeply touching moment, the orchestra asked him to
resume his old place in the cello section, an offer he gladly accepted, while
Walter, who didnt take the opportunity to grumble about his having been
ejected from Austria, seemed to the orchestra the embodiment of reconcilia-
tion.35 Beginning September Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic per-
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formed several sold-out concerts, including in its programs Vaughan
Williamss Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, Beethovens Sixth and
Seventh symphonies, Schuberts Unfinished, Mahlers Das Lied von der
Erde, and a program of Haydn, Mozart, and Johann Strauss Jr.
Walter concertized throughout the summer in Europe and also took
time out to ruminate on his personal past, returning in the latter half of Sep-
tember to Lugano, a place he would revisit several times more to pay his re-
spects at the resting place of his daughter and wife. Though his concerts
were rarely controversial in their choice of repertoire, Walter was surprised
to find that one work, long part of the standard repertoire, had now become
offensive to some listeners. The incident took place in October, when Walter
was reunited with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the work in question
was Richard Strausss Don Juana favorite of both Mahler and Walter, and
usually a surefire crowd-pleaser. Some members of the audience, however,
left in protest before Walter even gave the downbeat for the piece.He later re-
ceived two letters from affronted listeners, explaining that they had left be-
cause they felt Strausss music should not be played in the Concertgebouw,
since a couple of weeks before Walters concert, Strausss new work, the
Metamorphosen, had been played there, a piece bearing the inscription In
memoriam, which some interpreted as an unpardonable tribute to Hitler.
Though not fond of Strauss as a man, Walter responded that, after
studying the Metamorphosen, he could discover nothing more in it than a
musical masterpiece. The words In memoriam surely referred to Strausss
own glorious past, he wrote, calling attention to the allusions to Der
Rosenkavalier and Ein Heldenleben and its closing musical quotation from
the funeral march of the Eroica.36 It was therefore puzzling to him how
they could conclude that the work was a memorial to Hitler. Where was their
proof ?
Apparently none was forthcoming, for on January , , Walter him-
self gave the New York Philharmonic premiere of Strausss Metamorphosen.
Curiously enough, later that year Walter received a letter from Cyril Clarke
asking for permission to quote a mixed judgment on Strauss, attributed to
Walter, for an anthology: I dislike Strauss as a person, and I abhor every-
thing for which he has stood in recent years. But Strauss is a genius and some
of his works are masterpieces. I cannot in all honesty boycott masterpieces
because I detest their composer.37 Walter couldnt remember having said
these words and assumed that they had been translated from German. Yet
he did not argue with their sentiment, giving other reasons for withholding
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permission: As you ask for my permission to quote them, I regret to declare
that it would be very much against my feelings to grant it, for the simple rea-
son that Richard Strauss is today a very old man, without a home, in bad
health and living in pathetic circumstances and so I feel one should not add
unnecessary grief to the distress in which he finds himself.38
Walter returned to London for several more concerts, including a blis-
tering account of Beethovens Ninth with the London Philharmonic Or-
chestra.39 While abroad he kept up his correspondence regarding the Phil-
harmonic programming and again found himself in disagreement with
Mitropoulos. He had read in the New York Times that Mitropoulos was plan-
ning to project several titles on the front of the grand drape in Carnegie
Hall to explain the programmatic elements of Strausss Alpensymphonie.
After verifying that the story was accurate, Walter, then in London, wrote a
long, gentle but firm letter of advice to his colleague in Minneapolis: You
know my warm sympathy with your whole personality as an artist, with your
thought and practice and I have not newly to assure you of my high appreci-
ation for your gifts and the way you use them. In this instance, however,
Mitropoulos seemed to have gone astray; his plan struck Walter as ex-
tremely unfortunate and absolutely in contrast to the very sense of concerts
like ours. He continued to elaborate his point in detail, as he would have
done only for someone who he thought would understand and sympathize
with his reasoning:
I am sure you will agree with my opinion that the emotional
power of Music is limitless and in this field she is sovereign,whereas
her descriptive capacities areto say the leastdoubtful. . . .
When Strauss wrote his Alpen-Symphonie his purpose was,
as the title proves, to write a symphony and if he could not resist the
temptation to paint glaziers [sic] and cascades etc., seduced by
his uncanny descriptive talent, he trespasses the noble limits of
Symphonic Music and transfers methods of his dramatic works to a
basically different field,but shall we emphasize his weakness,
or worsethe weakness of Absolute Music by explaining in letters
to the Public descriptive intentions, confessing their impotence
to make themselves understood without such non-musical sup-
port?40
Ultimately, Walter left the decision up to Mitropoulos, reiterating that he
found his colleagues programs excellent and assuring him that he would
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not interfere with the final choice, despite his responsibility for the overall
character of our Season.
A telegram records Mitropouloss reponse to Walter:
[;]
.41 In a letter to Zirato, Mitropoulos explained his
feelings in more detail: Thank you for sending me the letter of Mr. Bruno
Walter. . . . There is no doubt that we have to please that great master. I have
such an admiration and respect for him that the last thing I would want to do
would be to make him unhappy. . . . I feel unhappy that my idea turned out
to be inartistic and I feel mortified that I had the idea in the first place. Cer-
tainly I have my arguments and it will take a long discussion and explanation
to make my apology understood or accepted.42
Though the issue of the titles was quickly resolved, tensions remained
between the two conductors. One of the pieces Mitropoulos chose to pro-
gram was Ernst Kreneks Fourth Symphony, a difficult work employing a
tone row and offering a generous helping of dissonance. By this time Wal-
ters views on such compositional techniques were well known from his own
public statements and writings, and Walter apparently objected to his col-
leagues choice, for Mitropoulos wrote in December: My dear and beloved
master. . . . I must confess that I was a little bewildered and shocked by what
you said about the Krenek Symphony. The objection was all the more
painful to Mitropoulos because, as he wrote, You have been always for me
an exemplary man and artist, whom I always admired, and I tried hard to fol-
low to the best of my abilities your wonderful principles and conceptions.
This last incident of controversial ideas does not take away at all my worship
of your mind.43 Thanking him for the compliment, Walter returned that
their disagreement could in no way affect Walters high and unalterable
opinion of Mitropoulos. I respect the strength of your convictions and ad-
mire the virtuose [i.e., virtuosic] interpretive power which enables you to
transform it into performances of such perfection.44 A broadcast recording
of the performance testifies to the passion Mitropoulos brought to Kreneks
work, though it predictably elicited indifference or hostility from the press
(a very poor and labored piece of music: artificial in method, lacking in in-
vention, ugly and tedious, to quote Downes45).
Whatever reservations Walter might have had about Mitropoulos, he re-
spected his younger colleagues devotion to his art, as well as his devotion to
Mahler. An even younger conductorwho would eventually be more
closely associated with Mahler than any other conductor of the latter part of
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the twentieth centuryalso earned Walters gratitude for championing the
music of his old mentor. In a letter to Stresemann he wrote of his great joy
that Mitropoulos was performing Mahlers Sixth and Leonard Bernstein
Mahlers Second.46 This was in fact Bernsteins debut as a performer of
Mahlers works, and his orchestra was the short-lived New York City Sym-
phony Orchestra, of which Bernstein was then music director. Although the
New York press for the most part received both symphonies with as little en-
thusiasm as they had shown Mahler in the past, for Walter, the perfor-
mances, along with other encouraging news, were good signs and hearten-
ing counter-symptoms in view of Toscaninis friendliness to jazz! That final
snipe was probably aimed at the compositions by Gershwin that the Italian
maestro was performing in the s.

Throughout much of Walters later career, especially after World War II,
Walter received letters from needy musicians with whom he had once
worked, most of them either German or Austrian. In August, for example,
Berta Morena, one of the leading Wagnerian sopranos from his Munich
years (she had also sung under Mahler), wrote to tell him of her financial
burdens and health problems. Walter sympathized. For a long time, he
wrote, Ive felt that theres no situation so tragic as that of innocent Ger-
mans who now, after all they had to suffer during the Nazi era, are exposed to
the same affliction and defamation as the criminals are. He later sent a care
package, which delighted her.47 Many others approached Walter for help,
and he almost always sent money to help his old friends, though he made no
show of his contributions and certainly did not ask for reimbursement.48 He
also did what he could to help unemployedor unhappily employedmu-
sicians find work, such as Heinz Unger, Klaus Pringsheim (Thomas Manns
brother-in-law), and Maria Olszewska.
Musicians were not the only people to seek Walters aid. In one of the
more poignant episodes of , the author Heinrich Eduard Jacob, who
had known Walter in Berlin, Vienna, Strasbourg, and Paris, approached
Walter in New York and asked him for a recommendation to help him secure
a teaching position. Jacobs story is painfully familiar. After a promising ca-
reer as a journalist and an author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, he was
carted off to the concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald in the late
s, and the new regime tried to extinguish his lifes work by burning his
books. He eventually made his way to New York and, like so many others,
had to begin his life anew. Walter agreed to help Jacob, wrote a sterling rec-
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ommendation, and then, for some odd reason, wired a message to Thomas
Mann, whom he believed Jacob had also approached: Heinrich Eduard Ja-
cob asked me for a testimony in order to get teaching position at a University
and told me that you gave him such recommendation stop please wire if this
is true and if your statement included recognition of his ethical qualities.49
After learning that Mann couldnt recall having written a recommendation
for Jacob,Walter himself withheld his own recommendation,much to the as-
tonishment of Jacob, who reminded him of Manns early support for his
novels; Mann, he wrote, would never have found it necessary to ask for an-
other persons opinion of his merits. He had tried to convey the idea that he
hoped Mann would also write him a letter of recommendation, not that the
author had already done so. Perhaps Walter had gotten the wrong idea, be-
cause Jacob had deliberately kept the interview short, knowing how busy the
conductor was. Nevertheless, Jacob asserted, there was no excuse for such
suspicions, since Walter knew him personally.50 It was not Walters finest
hour.
Other claims on Walters attention came his way in . The contralto
Louise Bernhardt, a rising Mahler interpreter in the late s (she would be
one of the soloists in Stokowskis famous performance of Mahlers Eighth
with the New York Philharmonic in ), was singing in Das Lied von der
Erde, and an invitation was naturally sent to Walter. The performance, how-
ever, was to be choreographed as a ballet, and Walter bristled at the very
thought: I beg you not to send me any tickets for a performance of Mahlers
Lied von der Erde in the form of a ballet, an enterprise of which I most fer-
vently disapprove.51 When invited to the same performance by another
party, he telegraphed back an even more vehement response:

.
[] ?52
The sublime work of art in questionpresented as it should bewas in
fact Walters first offering in with the New York Philharmonic, where
his conducting duties kept him very busy from January to April. His soloists
for Das Lied were the contralto Kathleen Ferrier and the Swedish helden-
tenor Set Svanholm. Though Ferrier suffered from a cold on the first night,
by the weekend she seems to have recovered, and a recently issued recording
of the Sunday broadcast shows both vocalists to have been in splendid
voice.53 Even after the first performance, however, Walter expressed his en-
thusiasm over Ferriers rendition of her orchestral songs. Well, Ferrier
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wrote to her sister the day after her New York debut, Bruno Walter was
thrilledIve never known him to open out sohe said I was making musi-
cal history (honest)!54 The performance, however, drew mixed reviews
(owing partly to Ferriers cold), but one discriminating listener found the
broadcast stirring. On a drive up to Boston, Leonard Bernstein tuned in to
the performance on his car radio and wrote to Walter afterward: It was cer-
tainly one of the great musical experiences I have had. You are a very, very
great master.55 For his part, Walter found it a real joy to be able to strike
such a sympathetic chord in his colleagues heart with the performance of
Mahlers work.56
Throughout this first season as musical adviser, Walter presented a re-
markably varied set of works, including the novelties he had prepared so
carefully at the beginning of the year. The week after conducting Das Lied he
offered the New York premiere of Strausss Metamorphosen coupled with
Bruckners Eighth. Two weeks later he gave the New York Philharmonic
premiere of Paul Hindemiths Symphonia serena; the following week, the
Philharmonic premiere of Douglas Moores Second Symphony. After a brief
stint with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the end of February and guest ap-
pearances in Cuba with the Patronato Pro-Musica Sinfonica of Havana at
the beginning of March, he returned to conduct Daniel Gregory Masons
Second Symphony (only once, for the broadcast), and his contribution
to the season ended midway through April with three performances of
Beethovens Missa solemnis.
Perhaps the most unexpected piece on Walters programs for the
season was Hindemiths Sinfonia serena. Although the two men had trav-
eled in similar circles for decades, Walter had performed almost no music by
Hindemith.57 He wrote to the composer in New Haven late in January,
telling him it would be highly desirable to go through the symphony with
him before the concert; Walter didnt want to lose this rare opportunity to
receive authentic information from a composer about his work, and they
scheduled a meeting in New York for February .58 Judged by the yardstick
of, say, Schoenbergs Fnf Orchester-Stcke or Kreneks Fourth Symphony
(two other pieces that would be performed during Walters years as musical
adviser), Hindemiths new work was fairly accessible. Nevertheless, much in
the outer movementsespecially the finalewas far more abrasive than
Walters standard fare. Yet in some regards the piece shows a continuity with
other modernist works that Walter performed; the trumpet fanfares at the
beginning and end of the finale, in particular, are strikingly reminiscent of
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the conclusion to Shostakovichs First Symphony, another uncharacteristic
work that Walter had once promoted. The complex counterpoint and syn-
copations of Hindemiths piece caused the conductor no difficulty whatso-
ever, to judge by the transcription disks, which show Walter not only fully in
control of the score but brimming with personal insights.59 He had
already made the piece his own, and, as the reviewers noted, he conducted
the challenging score from memory.
Despite the presence of a few novelties on his programs, most of Wal-
ters selections were drawn, as usual, from the standard repertoire, and his
run of New York Philharmonic concerts that season ended with Beethoven.
Though Walter had written extensively about Beethovens Missa solemnis
and had conducted it in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, and Florence, this was the
first and only occasion on which he performed it in the United States. It was
also the last time he would conduct that choral masterpiece. Transcription
disks of the broadcast in good sound have survived; unfortunately, recent
compact-disc issues, made from grotesquely distorted sources, do a grave
injustice to the sublime performances that listeners heard in Carnegie Hall
midway through April . The soloists were Eleanor Steber, Nan Merri-
man, William Hain, and Lorenzo Alvary, while the choral parts were sung by
the Westminster Choir, directed by John Finley Williamson. Some rough
spots aside, the reading stands as one of Walters great triumphs, with ten-
derness exuding from the Kyrie, exuberant bursts of joy in the jaw-dropping
Gloria, a forceful statement of convictions in the Credo, a cradle-rocking
benediction in the Sanctus, and a solemn meditation on lifes burdens and
an imploring wish for peace in the Agnus Dei. Steber and Merriman are par-
ticularly spectacular, not so much for sweetness of tone as for the drama they
instill into their parts, sounding utterly carried away by divine frenzy, but the
orchestra and chorus also do their part in making this rapturously joyful
noise unto the Lord. Walters ability to communicate his tremendous vision
to his large forces and his skill at changing tempo and drawing varied inflec-
tions from the singers and instrumentalists are at times breathtaking.
The burden that his position at the New York Philharmonic had placed
on Walter made him hesitant to accept another season of similar demands.
He had already attempted to resign his position as musical adviser when
Bruno Zirato lured him back by suggesting that he conduct a Beethoven
cycle with the orchestra; the idea won him over, and he agreed to resume his
activity as musical adviser for another season.60 Being in charge of the Bee-
thoven cycle, he was under less of an obligation to seek out new American
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music. Nevertheless, as musical adviser, he felt it only right to include at least
one new piece by an American composer in his programs. That piece,
brought to his attention by Wolfgang Stresemann, was Norman Dello Joios
Variations, Chaconne and Finale, a work that Stresemann himself would
later champion both in America and in Germany. When Noel Straus of the
New York Times wrote a highly complimentary assessment of Walters pro-
posed programs for the season but erroneously stated that the con-
ductor himself would not provide novelties, Walter was patently disturbed
and wanted to set the record straight, to stress that he was performing the
New York premiere of Dello Joios work. What would American composers
and their promoters think if, during his eight weeks of conducting at the
Philharmonic, he did not include one work of American origin on his pro-
grams?61
As it turns out, Dello Joio had approached Walter as early as , and
the two had discussed the orchestration in one of Dello Joios other compo-
sitions.62 In the end Walter regretfully rejected the piece, claiming that he
had no access to the composers musical language. It remains interest-
ing to me, he wrote, but strange like a landscape on the moon.63 Its curi-
ous that he should have found ready access to the Variations, Chaconne and
Finale, the last movement of which is patently influenced by jazz, as the
composer himself has admitted, adding, I did play jazz for a living for quite
a while.64 According to Wolfgang Stresemann, Walter played the entire
work for Dello Joio at the piano, after which the composer reportedly said,
You know, you could have become a very good jazz pianist, provoking a
laugh from the jazz-hating conductor.65 On the whole, though, Walter liked
the work, calling it very interesting and, in a certain sense, even powerful.
An occasional rawness in the orchestration perhaps moved him to suggest
revisions, as he had done with Daniel Gregory Mason.66 Dello Joio, how-
ever, stood his ground. There was one percussion passage, he recalled, in
which he wanted me to use a cowbell or something. He got me confused
with Mahler.67
One other modern composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, had written a
new piecethe Sixth Symphonythat Walter wished to perform in the
season. Again, Walters interest in the work is somewhat surpris-
ing, especially given the jazzlike touches introduced by the saxophone in the
first movement. Yet in June Walter wrote to Zirato: Some days ago I re-
ceived the score of Vaughan Williams Sixth Symphony and began to study
it at once. It is a very important work, but very difficult at the same time, and
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I really do not know if I can put it on in a week when I have not the full re-
hearsing time at my disposal.68 When Stokowski expressed an interest in
giving the New York premiere, Walter, convinced that he himself would not
have adequate rehearsal time to do the piece justice, reluctantly turned it
over to his colleague.69
The need to build balanced programs forced Walter to allow certain
works onto the Philharmonics programs that he would almost certainly
never choose to conduct himself. He gave his wholehearted approval when
Mitropoulos chose to program Schoenbergs Fnf Orchester-Stcke (hardly a
Walterian piece) and suggested calling attention to the work as the Philhar-
monics contribution to the celebration of Arnold Schoenbergs th birth-
day, either on the program itself or by a preceding note in our announce-
ments.70 A more delicate situation arose when a new symphony composed
by the pianist Artur Schnabel was rejected, apparently by Mitropoulos.
Schnabel, a longtime friend of Walters, regarded the rejection of his sym-
phony as a sign of the reactionary tendencies at the Philharmonic, and
Mitropoulos gave Walter reason to believe that Schnabel was planning to dis-
cuss the decision publicly.To avoid unpleasant publicity, Mitropoulos sug-
gested replacing the fifty-minute symphony with a twelve-minute Rhap-
sody by Schnabel. Walter liked the solution. This would absolutely not fall
under the category of appeasement, he wrote forcefully (if not quite con-
vincingly), adding that he thought the performance of a short ultra-modern
work belongs to the obligations of the Philharmonic Symphony Society and
can be made digestible by an appropriate surrounding of familiar works.71

During these months Walters thoughts turned very frequently to the

woman who had once played a leading role in his emotional life, Delia Rein-
hardt. The war was over, and Elsa had died, so in theory there was little to
keep Walter separate from Reinhardt. He tried to find a way to transplant her
to America, and his friends pulled strings for her. Reinhardt, living in
Switzerland, was seriously contemplating a move back to Germany because
she stood to lose her meager pension if she did not return. Walter made in-
quiries about a possible position for her at the Carnegie Institute of Tech-
nology in Pittsburgh.72 That he was trying to get work for Reinhardt in
Pittsburghhardly next door to Beverly Hillsand that he was concerned
about her shaky financial situation complicate the tempting view of their
relationship as one hinging mainly on passion.
All the same, when Lotte Lehmann heard in April that Walter was
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planning to stop in Switzerland, she asked him to send her greetings to
Delia, adding archly, whom you will indeed probably see (now, now,
now!!!!).73 We can almost see the sly wink. By March Reinhardt had
moved to California and had been living there long enough to comment on
the beautiful colors that the early spring had recently ushered in.74 Profes-
sionally, however, Walters reason for flying to Europe in the spring was to at-
tend the reinstatement of Rodins bust of Mahler in the Vienna Staatsoper,
the bust having been removed by the Nazis. But the great opera house was in
wretched shape, still in ruins after having taken a direct hit near the end of
the war. Walter wistfully noticed that the window to his old office was
boarded up. There wasnt any point examining further, he reportedly
said. My old office was the same one Mahler had. It was nice to sit there.75
During his time in the city that continued to create such profound emo-
tional resonance within him, Walter led the Vienna Philharmonic in two
programs in mid-May, one of Bruckners Te Deum and Beethovens Ninth,
the other of Mahlers Resurrection Symphony (with Maria Cebotari and
Rosette Anday as soloists).76 A broadcast recording of the Mahler program
has circulated and shows the conductor vigorous and still able to draw sub-
tleties from the orchestra.77 For his part, Walter was pleased with the sounds
he heard at the rehearsal. The Vienna Philharmonic hasnt lost the tone in-
troduced by Mahler. It produces the same good music as when I heard the
orchestra for the first time when I was twenty-one.78
On his return home, an absurd situation arose, showing the confusion
that now reigned in Austria, divided as it was among the Americans, British,
French, and Soviets. A Soviet guard stationed at the airport in Tullin, near
Vienna, detained Walter, insisting that he was a famous mathematician
(who was no doubt trying to abscond to the West). The truth was that the
guard had confused Bruno Walter with Otto Bruna, a well-known German
nuclear physicist, and the mix-up was eventually disentangled.79 The po-
litical intrigue and ham-fisted bureaucratic fumbling could have come
straight out of Graham Greenes The Third Man.
The strain of conducting and traveling proved debilitating to Walter,
and the depressing sights he witnessed in Vienna did nothing to lift his spir-
its. In September he wrote to the Viennese journalist Alfred Polgar (then liv-
ing in Zurich) that his condition could be called bittersweet. He had by
this time developed diabetes, and on his return home, he wrote to Polgar, the
disease progressed rapidly at first, then slowed down thanks to insulin treat-
ment. Guest engagements in Europe had to be canceled on doctors orders.
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Nothing, incidentally, is preventing me from continuing to breathe happily
in this world, even if breathing itself is less perfect than it once was. Please
dont consider this emphasis on my lust for life as a compliment to the pre-
sent condition of the world, he added. Every day unfortunately brings new
gloomy clouds. Yet Walter would not quite give in to despair, arguing that
one could only follow the teaching of the nineteenth-century author Hiero-
nymous Lorm (born Heinrich Landesmann), who taught optimism with-
out cause.80 The optimist in Walter, however, never turned a blind eye to
lifes cruel strokes, and eight years later his daughter would remark that, for
relaxation, he would turn to the writings not only of the insouciant P. G.
Wodehouse but also of that arch-pessimist Thomas Hardy.81
With his health ailing and his spirits drooping, it is little wonder that
Walter decided to cut down on his responsibilities. By October he had offi-
cially announced to the New York Philharmonic that he would not be re-
turning for another season as musical adviser. He wrote to Arthur Judson,
quoting from a letter he had sent the previous year before being convinced to
remain at the helm for another season: What the Philharmonic-Symphony
Society needs is not a Musical Adviser, but a real Musical Director: A con-
ductor who, besides taking the general responsibility for the Societys con-
tribution to the cultural life of the country, conducts a considerable part of
the Philharmonic concerts himself. Such a position should be entrusted to
younger hands, he wrote, assuring the administration, however, that he
would remain the Philharmonics faithful friend, happy to return to a
purely musical activity within the limits appropriate to [his] age.82
Even after canceling his European engagements for the sea-
son, Walter had a remarkably busy schedule. The Chicago Symphony Or-
chestra enjoyed a visit from him in mid-November, and he would return to
Chicago every year but one () until . The repertoire he chose for all
these concerts was entirely mainstream, with Schoenbergs Verklrte Nacht
and Haydns Symphony no. oddly enough, a first for the orchestra
perhaps being the least familiar items among his offerings. In Chicago his
broadcasts were not limited to radio transmissions but, beginning in Febru-
ary , included the new medium of television on several occasions.83
Chicago demanded an ethical as well as a musical contribution to the
season. A large number of musiciansincluding Vladimir Horowitz,
Arthur Rubinstein, Fritz Busch, Jascha Heifetz, and Nathan Milsteinhad
drawn up a petition to protest the presence of Wilhelm Furtwngler on the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra programs scheduled for the season.
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The controversial musician had performed in Nazi Germany and had, at one
time or another, entertained Nazi leaders, but he was never sympathetic to
Nazism and had put himself at risk on a number of occasions to protest Nazi
policies. Earlier in the year Walter had tried to help de-Nazify his friend
Hans Pfitzner, which understandably struck some as a curious gesture. Now,
in December, Walter was being put under considerable pressure, as he
wrote to Eric Oldberg, to join his colleagues in canceling his appearances
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a show of solidarity against
Furtwngler. Though asserting that Furtwngler was never his friend, Wal-
ter insisted that his former rival, whose career he had once followed almost
with a mentors interest, was only weak enough to remain in Germany and
give in to the demands of the Nazis but was himself certainly no Nazi.84
Walters position on Furtwngler seemed to have changed from what it
had been in , when he made it clear to Rudolf Bing that he would not at-
tend the Edinburgh Festival if Furtwngler appeared as well.85 Some of this
change in attitude may have come from his contact with persecuted Jews
who had directly profited from Furtwnglers intervention during the Nazi
years. In July , for example, Walter worked with the chorus master Hugo
Strelitzer at the Hollywood Bowl in a performance of Brahmss Schicksals-
lied. Strelitzers story was yet another variant on a familiar theme. Trying to
eke out a living in a Berlin that made it nearly impossible for Jews to find
work, he was seized by storm troopers in August and tossed into
prison, where he was savagely beaten. The only thing that was against me,
he wrote, was the fact that I was a Jew. In desperation his friends appealed
to Furtwngler, who, though personally unacquainted with Strelitzer, man-
aged to arrange his release from prison, probably saving his life in the
process.86 Exactly when Walter learned of the story is unclear, but Furt-
wnglers intervention in the Strelitzer affair was very much on Walters
mind in January , as his statement to Bruno Zirato on the controversy
surrounding Furtwngler makes clear: The world would be condemned to
a sterile condition of deadlock, if we all should perpetuate the feelings of
condemnation and the attitude of collective treatment of each and everyone,
who ever was connected with the Nazis. Condemnation of the real Nazi is an
expression of elementary decency and of a human heart but we should try to
be just and differentiate. Furtwngler never has been my friend, he is a weak
person, ambitious, jealous, egocentricbut he is no Nazi, tried his best to
help Jews in their need, saved one (Dr. Strelitzer) from the concentration

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camp and he certainly cannot be considered a moral leper.87 But to
Furtwngler himself, who seemed puzzled that so many American musi-
cians should object to his presence in Chicago, Walter wrote that he should
consider the following:
that for years your art was used as an extremely effective means of
foreign propaganda for the Regime of the Devil, that you per-
formed valuable services for that regime through your prominent
personality and great talent, that the presence and activity of an
artist of your stature, even in Germany itself, helped give cultural
and moral credit to vile criminals, or at least helped them consider-
ably in acquiring it.
. . . These people [Furtwnglers detractors] know nothing
about your inner conflicts, problems, or depressions and little
about your opposition and protests; over here, people remain skep-
tical about de-Nazifications. The world judges, and can only judge,
by what a person seems, not by what a person is.88
Walters response was an attempt to lay out a no-nonsense explanation for
Furtwngler, whose mystification at the hostility he encountered will seem
hopelessly naive to anyone who has witnessed footage of the German con-
ductor performing (willingly or not) before Goebbels, with huge swastikas
flanking the stage, then shaking the propaganda ministers hand.89 In an ef-
fort to put Walter in the same camp as those enemies of Furtwngler who
made threats against his proposed engagements in Chicago, Fred Prieberg
has cited part of the letter quoted aboveomitting the crucial last com-
ments, which show that Walter did know of Furtwnglers opposition to the
Nazis and was trying to judge him not by how he seemed but by how he
was.90 It took courage for Walter not to band together with others in a cause
that, to the outside world, must have appeared fully justified. Yehudi
Menuhin recalled that when he interceded on behalf of Furtwngler, the
one conductor who never, never said a word against Furtwngler . . . was
Bruno Walter.91

Thanks to the Beethoven cycle, Walters activity with the New York Philhar-
monic kept him busier than usual with that orchestra. His concerts com-
menced in December and ended at the beginning of May . His first
concert with the orchestra, however, had no Beethoven at all on the pro-

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gram; instead,it was a powerful reading of Mahlers Resurrection,with the
vocal parts sung in English. Always concerned about translation from Ger-
man to English, Walter himself contributed to the English rendering of
Urlicht, though his tinkering did not result in a wholly idiomatic text. His
soloists were Nadine Conner, a popular soprano at the Met and a regular
soloist in Walters performances of the Matthus-Passion, and the Canadian
contralto Jean Watson, whose vocal expression Walter admired for its
solemnity.92 As transcription disks reveal, this was one of Walters most
driving accounts of the score, wholly different in mood from the more lyrical
reading offered just a few months before in Vienna, and from his weightier
commercial recording of the Resurrection with the New York Philhar-
monic from about a decade later. As was often the case at important perfor-
mances of Mahlers works, the composers widow, Alma, was present to en-
joy the concert.
Walters Beethoven cyclehis last outside the recording studiobe-
gan in earnest on February , . By this time Walter was one of the grand
old men of the podium, recognized as one of the greatest exponents of the
Austro-German repertoire, and the reviews were predictably celebratory.
Not only the nine symphonies but most of the other orchestral works were
presented (excepting the concertos for solo piano): the major overtures; the
Violin Concerto, with Erica Morini; and the Triple Concerto, featuring the
principal cellist Leonard Rose, the concertmaster John Corigliano, and at
the piano the assistant conductor Walter Hendl. A recording was made of
the Triple Concerto, and Hendl recalled his eager anticipation when Walter
announced the project: I had never made a record. So, when Bruno Walter
announced that he planned on conducting and recording the Triple, I was
all for it, and Lenny Rose, the cellist, was worried about it, because its one of
the most difficult cello parts in the entire repertoire.(He played it beautifully,
of course.) And Corigliano, the concertmaster, didnt care; he was the eter-
nal pro. So we had quite a struggle with that before we got down to business.
And then we recorded it, and Walter was extremely pleased.93 The record-
ing, made on March , three days after its last public performance, shows all
three soloists in fine form, playing with grace and tender passion.
But another recording session did not fare so well. Widely regarded as
the pinnacle of the symphonic repertoire, Beethovens Ninth Symphony
had thus far never been recorded by either Walter or the New York Philhar-
monic, though off-the-air recordings of Walters interpretations of the

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Choral Symphony with that ensemble exist from as early as . By
the new recording medium of tape had made it easier to capture the fullness
of works that employed huge forces, of which the Ninth is certainly a prime
example. With a superb band of soloistsEleanor Steber, Nan Merriman,
Raoul Jobin, and Mack HarrellWalter conducted the Ninth during the
Beethoven cycle in mid-April. When it came time to preserve the perfor-
mance on tape, however, Stebers manager set what Walter later called pro-
hibitive conditions.94 When Walter first caught wind of the potential prob-
lem, he sent a telegram to Steber, appealing to her sense of artistic
idealism:
-
. . . .
-
.95 Steber cabled Walter back the following day,
telling him that, despite her own desire to participate in the recording, her
manager and Columbia Records could not reach an agreement, and that she
had to leave all financial matters in her managers hands.96 As a result,
Walter was compelled to choose another soprano, Irma Gonzalez, at the last
moment, while Nan Merriman was replaced by Walters contralto from the
Vienna Staatsoper, Elena Nikolaidi. The two male parts were sung, as in the
concert, by Raoul Jobin and Mack Harrell. Although some aspects of the
finale are distinctly attractivelike Mack Harrells beautifully comfort-
ing entrance at O Freunde and a number of exhilarating string passages
the overall effect is anticlimactic. The recorded sound is muddy, and while
Irma Gonzalez turns in a perfectly respectable performance, it has little of
the ecstatic quality that Steber brought to the soprano line in concert. Walter
himself felt that the final result was disastrous, owing partly to obstacles
presented by the hall. The chorus was placed in such a manner as to give
the male voices superiority over the female ones, he wrote to Goddard
Lieberson at Columbia Records. The placement of the microphones must
have been most unfavorable to all the voices, those of the soloists as well as of
the chorus, and, to shoulder my own responsibility, I was not ableperhaps
I was too tiredto find out all these shortcomings by the playback at the end
of our session.97 In Walter convinced Columbia to record it again
(with Frances Yeend, Martha Lipton, David Lloyd, and Mack Harrell as his
quartet), offering the new version free to anyone who had bought the older
setprovided that the offending disk was returned to Columbia and taken

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out of circulation. Yet for all Walters concerns and anxieties, the recording
as a whole, especially when heard with the later final movement, stands as an
impressive monument to Walters art.
When his second term as musical adviser drew to a close, Walter had by
no means reached the end of his performing career,but he would never again
have a regular position as director of a musical organization that performed
before the public. Some years later he would regularly lead a recording en-
semble in Los Angeles; but before beginning his work with the Columbia
Symphony Orchestra, he would be kept busy answering calls from the many
organizations clamoring for his presence as a guest conductor.

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Gains and Losses

Los Angeles, New York, Europe,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Reign in my thoughts, fair hand, sweet eye, rare voice . . .

Samuel Daniel, Delia

As Walters Beethoven cycle in New York was transmitted across

the country on the Sunday broadcasts, Delia Reinhardt, her eyes
closed, listened to the concerts on a small radio in Hollywood,
California, feeling she was present at the actual events.1 By April
she had found an apartment in Santa Monica, a city near
Beverly Hills where she would reside until Walters death. Soon
after moving to California, she began to give private singing
lessons for five dollars an houra bargain rate, though a former
pupil found Reinhardts pedagogic style less than ideal: She
could teach one to be a superb masochist. Going there was a terri-
fying experience, because she was the sort of teacher who would
say nothing if you did something well or adequately and offered
shrivelingly cold disapproval if she deemed the students per-
formance unsatisfactory.2
What had happened to Reinhardt during the war? Its diffi-
cult to piece her life together, and much of the following account is
based on the memories of her friends and acquaintances rather
than on documented evidence. It must therefore be approached

with caution. From to she was a much-admired leading soprano at
the Berlin State Opera, but when Nazi politics intruded into her career, it
foundered. According to her friend Irma Geering, Hermann Gring offered
her a medallion, which she shunned. Another source states that she refused
to give the Nazi salute and, when called to account for her actions by Gring,
she simply left the room in silence.3 Apparently as a result of her having of-
fended Gring, she was compelled to leave the Berlin Staatsoper, and there-
after she gave only lieder recitals.4 One eyewitness reported that at some
point in she was critically ill and required medical care for three
months.5 In her house was bombed, and all her possessions destroyed;
she traveled to Garmisch, where she met Irma Geerings childhood friend
Hanni Christ, a sculptor from Basel.It was at this point that Reinhardt began
to develop an interest in the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, though her curios-
ity had already been piqued during her early years in Munich. Directly after
the war, she and Hanni Christ traveled to Basel, where she met the anthro-
posophist Wilhelm Lewerenz, who secured a pleasant apartment for Rein-
hardt in Dornach, a suburb of Basel and the home of the Goetheanum, the
central institute for Steiner studies. This extraordinary edificeresembling
a huge, living, concrete mushroomsits atop a hill commanding a beautiful
view of the pine-filled valley below. Encompassed by organic architecture
and natural splendor, Reinhardt spent a year delving into anthroposophy at
the Goetheanum.
Many readers today will not have heard of anthroposophy, though the
name of its founder, Rudolf Steiner, still has widespread currency because of
the institutions around the world that follow his principles and bear his
name. Part philosophy, part religion, part way of life, anthroposophy seeks
knowledge and enlightenment from the spiritual world while viewing mate-
rialism as a deleterious characteristic of modern times. It draws freely on
Eastern and Western thought, ancient and modern, in an attempt to synthe-
size a coherent system of intellectual and spiritual belief. A man of great
learning,Steiner wrote a staggering number of lectures and books on the ma-
terial and spiritual worlds, often offering observations of striking beauty and
insight, as when he recommends the following step as preparation for
knowing higher worlds:
The first step is to direct the souls attention toward certain pro-
cesses in the world around us. These processes are life, as it buds,
grows, and flourishes; and, on the other hand, all phenomena con-

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 nected with withering, fading, and dying away. Wherever we turn
our eyes, these two processes are present together. By their nature,
they always evoke feelings and thoughts in us. Normally, however,
we do not give ourselves sufficiently to these feelings and thoughts.
We rush from one sense impression to the next. Now, however, we
must consciously and intensively focus our full attention on them.
Whenever we perceive a quite definite form of blossoming and
flourishing, we must banish all else from our souls and, for a short
time, dwell on this one impression alone.6
While similar ideas have been expressed before, Steiner finds the right
words and images to breathe new life into advice that bears repeating, and its
general trendnot to let the details and the essence of life slip through our
fingerswould have appealed to Walter, who later recommended the book
to others. Yet other statements in Steiners writings (for example, that one
can literally see colored auras hovering around living beings) will strike
some readers as eccentric and too forcefully argued.
Delia Reinhardt was the person who kindled Walters interest in
Steiners teachings. She and Walter seem to have corresponded during the
war, and Walter had tried to arrange her passage to America as early as .7
After the war, probably during Walters visit to Europe in the spring of ,
the two met, and Reinhardt brought him some of Steiners books on reincar-
nation and karma. He reportedly said absolutely nothing in response, but on
his return to California he wrote that he would indeed be willing to learn
more about anthroposophy. Assured of his open-mindedness toward
Steiners ideas, Reinhardt accepted Walters invitation to come to Califor-
nia.8 There they regularly studied a large number of books by anthropo-
sophical authors, and Walter evidently discovered a true kindred spirit in
Rudolf Steiner. The conductors numerous letters to other anthroposo-
phists as well as to colleagues and potential sympathizersincluding Albert
Schweitzer, Van Cliburn, Paul Badura-Skoda, and Jerome Hinesleave lit-
tle room for doubt that Walter was genuinely swayed by Steiners world
view, which became his chief source of spiritual nourishment until his death
in : Unending light poured forth from Rudolf Steiners thoughts on
the cosmos, earth, and mankind, on the physical and the spiritual world,
Walter wrote in his last substantial essay. In our epoch of dark materialism,
it signified an invaluable enriching to my old age: finally a solid foundation
under my feet in the certainty that everything material was the revelation of

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something spiritualfor in this I recognized a fundamental principle of an-
throposophy.9 These were teachings that corresponded to his longest-held
beliefs; he had already written in : all phenomena of this world are
merely individualizations of the spirituality that is veiled in the world.10 He
had always approached the physical as a conduit to the spiritual and meta-
physical, always tried to know higher worlds. Even anthroposophic con-
cepts such as the auras that encircle living creatures were hardly foreign to
Walters way of thinking. In , well before he had read Steiners works,
Walter wrote to Daniel Gregory Mason that it was one of the miracles of this
world, thatlike the halo emanating from the head of the Saintmen and
even words can be surrounded by an emanationwe may call it their atmo-
sphere[]and only men and words with this kind of surrounding seem to
me worth while.11
Largely as a result of his close study of Rudolf Steiners world view, as
well as the general development of his spiritual life, Walters own views on
Christianity would alter over the years. In the Metropolitan Operas
Jerome Hines visited Walter at his house in California and was overjoyed to
know the conductor as a brother in Christ, as he wrote afterward. Walter
responded in an unusually long letter in which he artfully tried to clarify his
position without spelling out his own beliefs too clearly: Dear friend, if you
call me a brother in Christ I gratefully can accept and reciprocate it . . . but
sincerity compels me to add that the course of my life and my spiritual devel-
opment have led me [on] a different path to Christianity which to describe
to you in words neither a letter like this nor a verbal explanation could suf-
fice.12 Instead of offering a brief explanation of his views, Walter recom-
mended that Hines read his forthcoming book (Of Music and Music-
Making) to learn more about his feelings on the subject of Christianity, obvi-
ously alluding to the anthroposophical epilogue.
Though Delia was now the central woman in Walters life, his daughter
Lotte also played a key role as he worked his way through his seventh
decade, and it was apparently Lotte who prevented Walter from marrying
Delia. A story circulates that Walter announced one morning that he wanted
to marry Delia, and, upon hearing this, Lotte fainted at breakfast. And
therefore Walter didnt marry Delia Reinhardt.13 Lotte herself, however, re-
married in February . Her husband was Karl Ludwig Lindt, a child-
hood friend, and, unlike her short-lived first marriage to Arthur Maria
Rabenalt, this union would endure until her death in .14 Lindt was a
minor movie actor, and his roles included parts in film adaptations of two
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novels by Thomas Mann, Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull and
Buddenbrooks. Lotte and her husband lived with Walter in his home in Bev-
erly Hillsmodest in comparison with the surrounding homes, though it
still had the obligatory swimming poolfor the duration of the conductors
final years.
Later in , balancing out the happy event of Lottes wedding, sad tid-
ings reached Walter. First, on May , , Klaus Mannone of Thomas
Manns talented brood,whose birth in nearly coincided with that of the
ill-fated Gretel Walterdied from an overdose of sleeping pills in Cannes,
France. As a child Klaus had played with Walters daughters, and during the
war he had defended Walter in the press and enlisted his aid in the fight
against Nazism. The day after Manns death, a man with a different set of po-
litical allegiances passed away, one of Walters closest friends. The irascible
Hans Pfitzner had fallen on hard times after the war, and the brief exchange
of letters between the two musicians in shows that Walter wanted to
keep the friendship intact, while Pfitznerthough welcoming the renewed
communication between themremained as difficult and egocentric as
ever. Walter, despite his admiration and affection for the author of Palest-
rina, eventually chose to keep a safe distance from him. In it reached
the point where Walter, when informed of the composers destitution and
asked to provide some relief, curtly and coolly responded with reports that
Pfitzner was now out of the poorhouse and that his conditions had im-
proved.15 Yet Walter showed himself more responsive in March . The
ailing Pfitzner, it transpired, had expressed the wish to die in Salzburg,
Mozarts birthplace, and some of his friends were trying to make his wish a
reality. The Austrian government was willing to help, but no apartments
were immediately available. Walter wrote several letters to try to assist his es-
tranged friend, and Pfitzner, with aid from the Vienna Philharmonic and the
Austrian authorities, indeed spent his final weeks in Salzburg, dying there,
shortly after celebrating his eightieth birthday, on May , appropri-
ately enough, on Wagners birthday.16 The news of his death struck Walter
hard.On May he wrote a letter of condolence to Pfitzners widow from his
second marriage, Mali, whom Walter had not met but with whom he would
correspond to the last day of his life. He also sent a letter to his friend Max
Brockhaus, with whom he could discuss his feelings more openly. The im-
portance of Pfitzners work to Walter, as well as their personal relationship,
was well known to Brockhaus. And you can equally well judge how deeply
troubled I was by the difficulties in my personal relations with him, Walter
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added, which had reached an intolerable level during the brief period of
our postwar correspondence.17
The century was approaching its halfway mark,and Walter,who had sus-
tained so many losses, was aware that his world was changing. Some of the
changes, such as the increasing trend toward materialism that he perceived
around him, sounded a warning bell, while others seemed part of the natural
evolution of society. Addressing one change in the order of things, Olin
Downes, in connection with an article he was then writing, approached Wal-
ter with a series of questions about women in orchestraswhether there was
a shortage of good men players in the string sections, whether Walter ap-
proved of women in orchestras, whether they were as good as men, and
whether (if men and women played together) sex complicated the situation.
Walter, who over the decades had conducted several orchestras that included
women in their ranks, cabled back a refreshingly nonsexist response: There
is no doubt that we are in danger of gradually getting short of string players in
our orchestras.My experiences with women players in orchestras have nearly
always been very satisfactory. They certainly are no less good musicians and
instrumentalists than men. But so far I have had no experience with women
players in the heavy brass sections and percussion. I [have] not found that in
playing or rehearsing sex affects the work of the conductor.18
During the summer Walters conducting in America included a rare col-
laboration with Leon Fleisher,then a twenty-year-old pupil of Artur Schnabel.
On June ,,Fleisher played the solo part in Mozarts Piano Concerto no.
in A Major over the airwaves, supported by the Standard Symphony Or-
chestra under Walter. Fleishers playing was admirably light, elegant, and
probing. Impressed with his performance, Walter wrote to Schnabel after-
ward: Your pupil Fleisher gave me great joy, both pianistically and musically.
I found he had an unusually deep understanding of Mozart, especially in the
indescribable second movement of the concerto, and the serious bearing of
his nature also brought me satisfaction.19 The promising young American
would go on to make classic recordings of the five Beethoven and two Brahms
piano concertos, all with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell, though
physical problems eventually developed in his right hand, and he is best
known today for his performances of the left-hand repertoiresome of the
finest examples of which were composed for another acquaintance and col-
league of Walters, the one-armed Paul Wittgenstein.
Later in the summer Walter returned to Europe, and in August he
made his first appearance at the Salzburg Festival since ; among the
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other participants were Wilhelm Furtwngler and Herbert von Karajan,
both tainted by their activities during the Nazi years. The organizers deci-
sion to have Walter present at the event was a wise move for political as well
as aesthetic reasons, thanks to his status as an artist officially persecuted by
the Nazis. In Salzburg Walter conducted Das Lied von der Erde, with Kath-
leen Ferrier and Julius Patzak. (The admirable forces of Walter, Ferrier,
Patzak, and the Vienna Philharmonic would reconvene in to produce
one of the most splendid readings of Das Lied ever recorded.) Walter also
made an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in September , where he
accompanied Ferrier at the piano in a now famous recital of Schubert,
Brahms, and Schumann lieder.20 The conductor rarely served as piano ac-
companist at this point in his career, and most of the exceptions he made
were for colleagues he had worked with for many years, such as Lotte
Lehmann and Elisabeth Schumann. It is a testimony to his respect (and per-
haps affection) for Ferrier that he did so on this occasion. Ferriers regular
accompanist, Gerald Moore, unhappily ousted from his usual position at the
keyboard, recalled Walters idiosyncratic accompaniment with something
less than affection: Throughout the concert his habitelementary and am-
ateurof playing one hand after the other in all his chording (did Kathleen
know with which hand she should synchronize?) had old ladies in ecstasy,
they sighed that It reminded them of old Vienna.21 There is, of course,
some truth in Moores criticism, though the recording of the recital captures a
tender rapport between soloist and accompanist that is sometimes lacking in
more conventional performances. The recital was repeated in London a few
weeks later, and in March the two gave another recital together at Hunter
College in New York. The first commercial disk that paired Walter and Ferrier
was recorded in London in October , a touchingly eerie rendering of
Mahlers Kindertotenlieder accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic.22
Another singer for whom Walter was willing to make a rare appearance
as piano accompanist was, as might be expected, Delia Reinhardt. A flier for
the concert series at UCLA announced with special pride a recital
by the two artists that was to take place late in November . The conduc-
tor had taken such an interest in Madame Reinhardts re-establishment,
the announcement noted, that he had consented to appear as her accompa-
nist in her new debut recital. It was awaited with great anticipation, and
many of the venerable (and imposing) musical personages of Los Angeles
came to hear, and no doubt to judge, Reinhardt. A student of hers who at-
tended the recital said she looked and sounded scared, and scared she
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must have been.23 Her heart was fluttering so rapidly that the concert had to
be canceled at the intermission. Lotte Lehmann, one of those present, wrote
to Walter the following day that Delia ought to have continued with the pro-
gram, except for the songs that were particularly demanding.24 Irritated,
Walter retorted that Lehmann was wrong to say that Delia should have
pressed on. With effort, one might be able to do something to counter a
steadily deteriorating larynx. But when your heart is beating times in a
minute, your breath fails, as does your power of resistance in general.
Delias heart was weak after the horrors she had endured, Walter main-
tained; her throat was infected, and she was taking penicillin: anyone in her
place would have had to break off the recital.25 Not surprisingly, a recital
scheduled at the Wilshire Ebell Theater a few days later vanished from the
concert listings.
But the two made another attempt to give a recital at the Ojai Festival,
near Los Angeles. Scheduled as the opening concert of the festival, the
recital was to take place on Friday, May , , and to include some un-
usual items. Along with Schumanns Frauenliebe und -Leben and some
lieder by Richard Strauss and Brahms, they were to perform five English
songs from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by such composers as
Henry Purcell, John Dowland, Thomas Morley, and Thomas Campion.26
The English selections were anything but standard fare for Walter, who de-
scribed them, with less than historical precision, as medieval songs, and
added quite properly that they were not only very beautiful, but have also
won great popularity.27
Some of the strategy behind the programming was surely to allow Rein-
hardt to end with pieces that were beautiful but not too physically demand-
ing, but the plan didnt help. Two hours before the concert was to begin for a
capacity audience, Reinhardt announced that she had laryngitis and would
not be able to perform. So, wrote Patterson Greene in the Los Angeles Ex-
aminer, for the second time this season, a last minute cancellation kept
Southern Californians from hearing an artist known to most of us only
through her impressive European reputation.28 This was apparently the
last time Walter and Reinhardt attempted a recital together. She soon chan-
neled her artistic impulses into the visual arts, which she had practiced in
her youth along with music.
Walter, of course, kept busy at the podium, both before and after the un-
successful attempts at recitals with Delia, though he made few appearances
with the New York Philharmonic during the season, no doubt en-
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joying his freedom from the administrative and performing duties that his of-
ficial position had imposed on him over the previous two years. Midway
through October he returned to Carnegie Hall for one night, conduct-
ing the Egmont Overture and the Eroica, despite acute pain in his
arm, which he had been suffering all week.29 In mid-December he again
conducted the Eroica, this time with the San Francisco Symphony Or-
chestra. Later, for the first two weeks in February, he conducted the New
York Philharmonic in some of his favorite works, including Mozarts Piano
Concerto no. in D Minor (with Rudolf Firkusny as soloist), Bruckners
Ninth Symphony, and Mahlers First. All were thoroughly Walterian selec-
tions, and the programming should not have created any ripples within the
Philharmonic organization. But an ugly incident developed around his
choice of Mahlers First, for Mitropoulos also wanted to perform the work
that season. On discovering this, Walter turned livid. I cannot help ex-
pressing my great astonishment at Mr. Mitropoulos intention to perform
Mahlers First [S]ymphony in the same season as I am going to do it, he
wrote to Bruno Zirato: I want you to be sure that I would not have dreamed
of preceding any work on Mr. Mitropoulos program with a performance of
the same one in one of my concerts during the time of my activity as musical
adviser. . . . I cannot easily change my program because the st is the only
one of the purely instrumental symphonies of Mahlers which I have not yet
performed in New York, and Mr. Mitropoulos will understand my attitude
with regard to Mahler and that it is important for me to play this work.30 He
added, as an afterthought, that he had also not conducted the Sixth, but he
still seems to have been too enraged to think clearly. His statement that
Mahlers First was the only one of the purely instrumental symphonies of
Mahlers that he had not performed yet in New York is demonstrably un-
true: he had in fact conducted the First Symphony with the New York Sym-
phony Society in and with the New York Philharmonic in and
, whereas he had never conducted the purely instrumental Seventh in
New York, a work he does not mention. And the First Symphony was cer-
tainly important to Mitropoulos, who had made the world premiere record-
ing of it in . The letter was accompanied by a short, unpleasant note in
which Walter confided to Zirato: I am very much disappointed in Mr.
Mitropoulos attitude and I beg you not only not to conceal my feelings
toward him but to show him the enclosed letter. His oblique method of ex-
pressing anger at Mitropoulos serves as a reminder that Walters temper was
capable of flaring up, that his gentleness could give way to fierce jealousy,
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and also that there was, on occasion, almost palpable hostility between these
two great conductors.
It was not only with the worlds foremost interpreters that Walter dis-
cussed repertoire. In Wolfgang Stresemann, Walters friend and him-
self an aspiring conductor, finally acquired an orchestra after years of search-
ing for a post in a profession where the number of candidates far outweighed
the number of vacant positions. The organization was a community orches-
tra in Toledo, Ohioby no means a first-rate band, but a genuine sym-
phonic ensemble nonetheless. Walter had traveled to Toledo to recommend
his friend and even gave a concert there as part of his effort. Much as Walter,
during his two seasons as musical adviser to the New York Philharmonic,
had consulted Stresemann on his repertoire, so Stresemann in the s
consulted Walter. As was typical of their correspondence, Walter gave thor-
ough answers to the questions put to him, often revealing his thoughts both
on pieces he had often conducted and would conduct again (the overture
to Fidelio depends on the horn player) and on works outside his usual
repertoire (The Tombeau de Couperin is quite a difficult piece, and how-
ever simple it looks, its success is nevertheless very much contingent upon
an orchestras virtuosity).31
While Stresemann now had a regular post, Walters own conducting
was confined to guest appearances with various symphonic orchestras, and
his days in the opera house seemed a finished chapter in his life. But the Met-
ropolitan Opera, now under new management, was determined to recall him
to the podium. In Rudolf Bing, whose company Walter had enjoyed in
Edinburgh, was offered the position of general manager beginning in the
season. When he excitedly announced this to Walter, the conductor
reportedly replied: My dear Bing, dont touch it.32 Certainly when Bing
wrote to Walter that he had definitely been appointed Edward Johnsons
successor at the Met, Walter was more admonishing than congratulatory in
his response: Without doubt you are aware that not one, but whole hordes
of dragons spitting fire and belching fumes are waiting for you. But my own
experience is that optimism and courage attracts the good graces of For-
tuna.33
Through persistence and diplomacy Bing would manage to convince
Walter to return to the Met for a performance of Fidelio in the spring of .
For the present, however, it was symphonic concerts in European ex-
hausting number of themthat drew Walters attention and energy. From
mid-August to mid-October he conducted in Lucerne, Salzburg,
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Frankfurt, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Berlin, Munich, and Zurich. At the
Salzburg Festival on August and he offered a superb traversal of
Mahlers Fourth with Irmgard Seefried; with the Stockholm Philharmonic
in September he treated his audience to a reading of Schuberts Ninth re-
plete with Old World rubato; he was feted in Berlin when he conducted the
Philharmonic in September in performances of Beethovens Egmont
Overture, Mozarts Fortieth, Strausss Don Juan, and Brahmss Second. His
return to Berlin, the city of his birth (he noted sadly that his birthplace had
been destroyed), was clearly a bittersweet experience. His reunion with the
Berlin Philharmonic, after an absence of seventeen years, brought him into
contact with a substantial number of musiciansperhaps as many as
twenty-fivewith whom he had worked before his expulsion in . Con-
fronting those men, which might have provoked anger in another, had an al-
most heartening effect on Walter, who reportedly came away from the en-
counter saying: Those men, and the many others with whom I have been in
correspondence during the past few years, convince me that large numbers
of the German people were anti-Hitler from the very beginning.34
Walters return to the Berlin Philharmonic was preserved in part
through the movie Botschafter der Musik ().35 The film, a quirky history
of the Berlin Philharmonic, shows in one of its first scenes Walter conduct-
ing the finale of Mozarts Fortieth. Since part of the message of the film is the
regeneration of Berlin after the devastation of World War II, the opening clip
purportedly shows the Philharmonie before the war, before Walters exile.In
fact, clips of the marvelous old hall (a casualty of bombing) are interspersed
throughout the sequence, but the footage of Walter was surely taken from his
visit of , when he conducted in the Titania Palast, a large movie theater.
While in Berlin, Walter gave a lecture for the students of the Municipal Con-
servatoryformerly his old school, the Stern Conservatoryat the stu-
dents request. He read from Myself and Others, a section of his forthcom-
ing book Of Music and Music-Making, and then held a discussion with the
students, answering questions on the topic of performance practice in ear-
lier music, especially Bach. The students themselves wrote to Walter after-
ward that he had brought them into contact with a different, freer, better
world, one that they had longed for during and after the war, and that they
had more confidence in him than in the city fathers, their director, or any of
their teachers, all of whom should have been closest to them.36
A little more than a week later Walter was in Munich, leading the
Musikalische Akademie for its first concert of the season in a program
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consisting of Webers Euryanthe Overture, Schuberts Unfinished, and
Mahlers First. It was an organization that had once been closely associated
with Walter, and his return to war-ravaged Munich, the city where he had
spent what he regarded as the most important phase of his career, awakened
deep feelings. The music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper at the time
was the Hungarian-born Georg Solti, who recalled that when Walter was in-
troduced to the orchestra for the rehearsal in that familiar theater, now
largely in ruins, he was really touched. He felt nearly in tears. Indeed, he
seemed so stirred that he plunged directly into the rehearsal to avoid being
overcome by emotion.37
Such images of destruction as Walter witnessed were troubling to all
who visited the hardest-hit centers of Europe, and along with the physical
devastation of the immediate past there were other harsh realitiesthe poli-
tics of the cold warthat, on both sides of the Atlantic, inevitably created
profound anxiety about the future. Wolfgang Stresemann worried about the
political instability of Germany, and most intelligent thinkers knew that the
atomic bomb posed a terrible threat to the entire world. Walter at this time
reluctantly admitted that the atomic bomb could act as a deterrent, as he
wrote to his friend on Christmas Day: I fully share your concern over the
political situation but,in an almost fatalistic way, I can scarcely feel otherwise
than with Churchill, who says: If the Russians fear the atomic bomb, they
wont wage a war; if they think theyre prepared for it, then there will be
war.38 But his half-hearted acceptance of the atomic bomb would turn to
wariness, no doubt influenced by his long-term correspondence with Albert
Schweitzer, an ardent opponent of such doomsday devices. In Walter
lent his name to the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.39

After the success of the Beethoven cycle with the New York Philharmonic,
Bruno Zirato suggested that Walter present a Brahms cycle for the
season, an idea that proved irresistible to the conductor. The Tragic Over-
ture ushered in the cycle on January , . In addition to the symphonies,
Walter offered the Violin Concerto with Zino Francescatti, the Double Con-
certo with John Corigliano and Leonard Rose, the two piano concertos
(with Clifford Curzon and Myra Hess as soloists), and shorter orchestral
works.40 One work absent from the program was Ein deutsches Requiem,
which Walter wanted to include but which, because of the extra costs con-
nected with the soloists and chorus, would have proved prohibitively ex-

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pensive. The cycle concluded on February , with Walter having conducted
the orchestra fifteen times in twenty-five days.
Then,on February ,after an absence of more than a decade, Walter re-
turned to conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a concert that featured
Joseph Szigeti in Mozarts Violin Concerto no. in G Major. By this time the
orchestra was associated almost exclusively with Walters friend and rival,
Arturo Toscanini, then suffering from a knee injury.41 It was Walters last
performance with the orchestra, though he would conduct what was essen-
tially the same ensemble, renamed the Symphony of the Air, on one sad oc-
casion, a memorial concert for Toscanini.
A couple of weeks after the NBC concert, Walter returned to the Metro-
politan Opera to conduct Fidelio for Bings first season as manager; as in
Walters first Fidelio at the Met, Kirsten Flagstad was the Leonore. While
Flagstad was one of the great Leonores of the day, her presence on the Met-
ropolitan stage sparked controversy, for during the war she had returned to a
Nazi-occupied Norway to live with her husband. Although she herself had
steadfastly declined invitations to sing in Nazi-occupied countries, for some
New Yorkers her decision to reside in a country under Nazi rule was unfor-
givable.42 As early as December Rudolf Bing was predicting a row at
her reappearance, even though, as he wrote to Walter, other singers on the
Met roster had hardly behaved in exemplary fashion during the Nazi years
but had not been ostracized. Why should Flagstad, who was a far superior
artist, be prevented from singing in the house?43 While accepting her inclu-
sion in the cast, Walter clearly wanted to keep his distance from the in-
evitable row that Bing had predicted and asked him in confidence to an-
nounce both his own engagement and Flagstads as utterly separate
transactions.44 Yet a few months later, having received a letter in which
Flagstad was criticized on political grounds, Walter refused to condemn her
and rather urged reconciliation: I cannot see any sense in retrospective
moral inexorability (if not in cases of murder, atrocities, etc.) But I most fer-
vently believe in our moral obligation to give an example of good will, to
work for reconciliation, and to fight even the remnants of hostile feelings in
ourselves. Otherwise, I am afraid we just belong to the destructive forces in
our time which impede progress instead of promoting peace.45
The controversies and rows did nothing to prevent the performances of
Fidelio from going forward as scheduled, beginning March . Walters Flo-
restan was Set Svanholm (except for opening night, when the part was taken

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by Gnther Treptow), and other members of the cast included Dezs Ern-
ster, Paul Schffler, Jerome Hines, Nadine Conner, and Peter Klein. For this
production the cast sang and spoke in German,and Walter,as usual,inserted
the Leonore Overture no. before the chorus Heil sei dem Tag. Tapes
of the broadcast show that this was again a performance of great energy and
intensity, with Flagstad delivering an aptly dramatic performance. When
Lotte Lehmannanother celebrated Leonore, and the polar opposite of
Flagstad in temperamentheard the broadcast in Santa Barbara, she was
deeply moved and wrote to Walter directly afterward: I dont know quite
what to say. You were beautiful beyond all measure today in FidelioGod,
how it sounded! . . . I saw you clearly standing at the podium and was con-
sumed with envy and with burning desire to be two decades younger and to
chase all the other Leonores off the stage!46 The powerful emotion she felt
was no doubt intensified by her recent decision to withdraw from perform-
ing in public. Though inundated with rehearsals and performances, Walter
wrote back to his friend and colleague of many years to tell her how touched
he had been by her words. Your letter was so thoroughly and entirely you
yourself that I wonder whether the true secret of your very successful career
isnt this particular directness of your nature.47
Before leaving the Met (for good, as he then thought), Walter gave two
performances of Verdis Requiem, the first on March , with Zinka Mi-
lanov, Elena Nikolaidi, Jan Peerce, and Cesare Siepi as his soloists; Milanov
and Siepi also sang the Convent Scene from La forza del destino. Of
course, both Fidelio and the Verdi Requiem were very old friends of Wal-
ters, and familiar repertoire would pretty much monopolize his programs
from now on; his days of giving premieres were nearly at an end. Neverthe-
less, he continued to take an interest in modern compositions, and the music
of one now-forgotten composerHarilaos Perpessa, whose Christus
Symphony was performed by the New York Philharmonic under Mitropou-
los in clearly won Walters admiration. He heard a recording of the
Christus Symphony and recommended it to Furtwngler and others,
though Furtwngler (like others) complained that Perpessas manuscript
was difficult to decipher.48 In July Walter sent a letter of recommendation for
Perpessa to the Huntington Hartford Foundation in which he wrote: With-
out any doubt, Mr. Perpessa is a composer of musical talent, dominating the
technique of his work, and from the latter emanates a strong emotional
power.49 He was still writing such letters in , by which time the com-
poser had fallen on hard times. Appealing to Perpessas compatriot Dimitri
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Mitropoulos, Walter suggested that perhaps a Greek charitable institution
could help out the needy composer. But Mitropoulos, whose experiences
with Perpessa over the years had proved infuriating, justifiably felt he had to
protect himself by not devoting any more time to a man determined to thwart
all attempts to assist him.50
During the spring and summer Walter gave concerts in California, and
then in August he and Dimitri Mitropoulos took the New York Philhar-
monic to Edinburgh, where the orchestra under Walter played several con-
certs of standard repertoire from August to September .Martin Ormandy,
brother of the conductor Eugene Ormandy and longtime cellist with the
New York Philharmonic, commented that Walter wanted slower tempi in
Europe and, when rehearsing the orchestra for the concerts in Edinburgh,
told them: Now, Im going to do it a little bit different over there.51 The
principal trumpet player William Vacchiano, who joined the Philharmonic
in , recalled much the same concern about tempo: I remember once
Bruno Walter, when we were crossing the ocean (the first time we went to
Edinburgh), called me into his room. He said: Remember, we have to play
things a little slower in Europe than we do in America. Here, some people
have to worry about making the subway, they have to get home, whereas over
there they dont have to worry about time. All the compositions were about
five minutes longer there.52 While in the capital of Scotland Walter again
played piano accompaniment for Kathleen Ferrier, and he received an hon-
orary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. He then made his yearly
pilgrimage to Lugano and later visited France, going back to the United
States in late September.
Though his schedule was lighter on his return home, Walter did not
simply halt his activity or his traveling. One of Walters rare appearances in
Texas took place late in November , when he served as guest conductor
for his former assistant Walter Hendl, now musical director of the Dallas
Symphony Orchestra. At the time, the orchestra was in dire financial straits,
so the board decided to invite five prominent guest conductors to drum up
business: I was being shut out of five concerts, as I saw it, Hendl recalled,
so I decided to be the soloist with each one of those conductors. As the
work to be performed under Walter, he had chosen Mozarts Piano Con-
certo no. in E-flat Major, but Walter did not consider this Mozarts best
work and recommended instead the Concerto no. in B-flat Major, a piece
with which Hendl was less familiar. In fact, at one point in the last move-
ment, Hendl lost track of one of his shorter solo passages:
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 Im sitting there, playing with him, and we get to this spot, and Ive
been watching him very closely, of course, to learn more about his
technique and everything, when suddenly theres a dead silence,
because I forgot those four measures.
This is in the concert.
So finally (which must have been only a second or two or
three), Bruno Walter looks over to me and says the equivalent in
German of: So, what are you going to do? All he said was one
word, Nu? And I immediately realized what was up and played
the passage.53
Texas played host to Walter again the following month, when he conducted
the Houston Symphony Orchestra, which since had been under the
guidance of another conductor with a history at the New York Philhar-
monic, the Russian-born Efrem Kurtz, whose leadership had evidently been
beneficial for the Houston ensemble. It was indeed a pleasure to make mu-
sic with this astonishingly young and enthusiastic body of musicians, Wal-
ter noted afterward, and . . . I highly appreciate what Efrem Kurtz has
achieved in the few years of his activity in Houston.54
Other musicians from the Old World continued to come into Walters
ambit, some seeking help or, better yet, employment. Carl Schuricht wrote
from Montreux, Switzerland, midway through December , to inquire
whether Walter would be able to find him work as a guest conductor in New
York.55 Walter responded that he would be happy to help out, though he
cautioned that if Schuricht had ever been a member of the Nazi Party, the
McCarran Law would prevent him from obtaining a visa.56 Following up on
his offer, Walter wrote a letter of recommendation to Bruno Zirato, arguing
that Schuricht was a very different kind of conductor than Mr. [Hermann]
Scherchen. Schuricht is absolutely no modernist, he has roots in the classics
and represents in a very good way, the best German tradition.57 Though his
recommendation proved futile, Walter continued to express his admiration
for Schuricht later in the decade; in he contributed an appreciation of
his friend for a record set of the Beethoven symphonies under Schu-
richt.58 It was a magnanimous gesture, since Walter himself was working on
his own new Beethoven set in stereo for Columbia Records.
Relations between Columbia Records and Walter would continue till
Walters death, but the partnership was sometimes uneasy. It is up to the
Columbia Records Inc. people to improve our relations, Walter fumed at

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Arthur Judson in December , complaining that there had been a cer-
tain lack of interest on the part of Columbia in his activities and that his
earlier grievances had been treated with flippancy by Goddard Lieber-
sona man with whom Walter had previously enjoyed several years of
happy collaboration. Walter was on the point of dissolving his relations with
Columbia Records on July , , when his current contract would ex-
pire.59 The matter had been simmering for some time, and Judson had re-
cently expressed his concern to Walter that, if he broke away from Columbia
Records, he would necessarily put an end to his recordings with the New
York Philharmonic.60 Five of Walters recordings were ranked as bestsellers
in Columbias classical department between and , and the com-
pany must have realized how important it was to keep Walter satisfied with
his working conditions.61
One step toward improving relations came in the form of a new pro-
ducer, David Oppenheim. A performing clarinetist who had become a close
friend of Leonard Bernstein and who would play under Stravinsky as well as
with the Budapest String Quartet, Oppenheim worked with Walter on a
large number of New York Philharmonic recordings in the first half of the
s. He had become director of the Masterworks division around
and made a point of supervising the music for Walters recording sessions
and of arranging with him what repertoire he would do and with whom he
would do it.62 The two men evidently enjoyed a satisfying work relation-
ship. Walter, of course, had already achieved the status of a living legend, so
for Oppenheim, as for many of his colleagues at Columbia, the recording
sessions were really something quite special. . . . Bruno Waltermy God!
I heard about him; I never dreamed Id ever meet him. For his part, Walter
was quite cooperative if you wanted to experiment, even with the seating of
the orchestra. And I remember recording Beethovens Second Symphony
with the Philharmonic, with the winds in the front and the strings behind,
and that was quite radical, I think,for a man of his age and his experience. In
the studio, however, Walter sometimes lapsed into tempi that were notice-
ably slower than those he had taken in his live performances, so Oppenheim
developed a strategy to deal with this: I would say to him that things on
recordings always sounded slower than they would in a concert hall, which I
think is true. And he accepted that, and would speed the next take up, in or-
der to compensate, so it would sound the way he wanted to do it. Certainly
the New York Philharmonic recordings from the s have a driving power

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that is often lacking from the recordings of Walters last years, which glow
with their own ripe and sensuous luster.
Early in Walter visited the East Coast and the MidwestChicago,
Washington, D.C., Detroit, and Minneapolisbefore returning to New
York in March for two programs with the Philharmonic. The first offering
there was Brahmss Deutsches Requiem, which had been absent from Wal-
ters Brahms cycle the previous season, an omission the conductor regret-
ted. Sung in English, this performance featured two singers who had regu-
larly worked with Walter in sacred works: Mack Harrell and Nadine Conner.
The following week offered an all-Wagner program; after conducting the fa-
miliar excerpts from Parsifal and Tannhuser, Walter stepped down from
the podium and took his seat at the piano to accompany Kirsten Flagstad in
a performance of the Wesendonk-Lieder. Although Flagstad was apparently
not fully warmed up in the songs, she stole the show in the finale to the con-
cert, a stupendous rendition of the Immolation Scene from Gtterdm-
merung, which drew from the frenzied audience an ovation lasting more
than twenty minutes. Among the unofficial recordings of Walters live per-
formances, this is one of the most ear-opening, for it affords a new insight
into his approach to Wagnerian opera, so important in his career and so
poorly represented in his commercial recordings. The conducting is extra-
ordinarily flexible, dramatic, and dynamic; at a little under seventeen min-
utes, it moves with fleet urgency while still bearing an epic weight.63
As Walters interpretations continued to be disseminated throughout
the world by way of live broadcasts and studio recordings,fan mail poured in
unabated, and Walter was increasingly viewed as a living heirloom from the
romantic era. A particularly revealing correspondence began in April
and lasted until Walters death. The letters addressed to the conductor came
from a young music student in Japan, Isao Uno. Perhaps more than any
other exchange of letters between Walter and his fans, this correspondence
reveals how seriously he responded to questions from total strangers who
seemed sincerely interested in music. Uno, who has since become a noted
conductor in Japan with many recordings to his credit (under the name
Koho Uno), asked intelligent questionsoften touching matters that many
must have wished to explore but few dared broachand had enough confi-
dence in himself to persist when Walters answers seemed incomplete or
evasive. Noting that Walter was now taking brisker tempi on records made in
America than he had taken in Europe, Uno asked whether the conductor
was deliberately speeding up for recording sessions. Walter responded that
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usually the tempo on the record differs in some way from the original, but
the difference is a very small one. It may very well be that the records made in
America impress you with a greater brilliancy than those of former years in
Europe. The reason may be the advanced methods of recording of the pre-
sent time in comparison to the older technique. I do not think that those dif-
ferences of which you speak can be caused by any other reasons.64
Yet Uno remained unsatisfied, calling attention to Walters different ap-
proaches to the Vienna Philharmonic (pure, elegant, and graceful), En-
glish orchestras (quiet), French ones (light and colourful), and Ameri-
can ones (brilliant and powerful and sharp). Moreover, the older
recordings were marked by a clear rubato . . . and a sweet brilliancy in the
form of melody, while the more recent ones were more classic. Regard-
less of your letter, Uno wrote boldly, I cant help thinking this difference is
due to the transition of your artistry.65 Walter was pleased to hear Unos
earnest questions and, instead of ignoring them, proceeded to give a more
elaborate explanation of his attitude to tempo: I myself do not know why at
one time I take a tempo faster, another time slower; why my expression may
change from one performance to another; and so on. I do not approach mu-
sic with reason. I never understood to rationalize what I did. My only way of
making music is to come as near as possible to the intentions of the com-
poser each time I perform his works and the spontaneity which is an indis-
pensable quality of each musical performance may very well account for dif-
ferences. Your sensitivity may be perfectly reliable in feeling such differences
but I am sure they cannot be very drastic as the fundamental intention and
knowledge of the work could not permit it.66
In Uno sent a tape of two Japanese songs sung by his teacher,
which Walter heard and responded to with enthusiasm: It was with a very
profound emotion that I listened to a voice and to music which spoke to me
over a distance of many thousand miles and created a human message whose
sincerity and kindness made [me] forget distances as well as differences of
environment. Let me assure you that I highly cherish this beautiful experi-
ence. He later sent Uno a tape that he himself had recorded especially for
his fan on the opposite hemisphere, in which he described his house in Bev-
erly Hills and his daily routine.67
Though Walter had found a kindred spirit in Uno, there were requests
that the young student made that Walter could not grant. When, for exam-
ple, Uno hoped to visit America as Walters apprentice, Walter had to disap-
point him. Yet he did so in a way that encouraged the talented musician to
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pursue his own artistic ideals: I hope you will understand that it is to the high-
est degree in your interest to develop your own personal potentialitiesthe
moral and the intellectual ones, to open your thirsty soul to the innumerable
resources which abound in the spiritual heritage left to mankind by the many
great creative minds in the fields of art, of thought, of poetry, and so on.68

From the end of March to the middle of June,Walter was again in Europe,vis-
iting Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands. Midway
through April he delivered a powerful performance of Brahmss Deutsches
Requiemsung in Italianwith the RAI Symphony Orchestra and the Coro
di Roma in Turin. The performance featured a towering Boris Christoff and
an affecting Rosanna Carteri in the solo parts.69 Before coming to Paris Wal-
ter had communicated with his old colleague Georges Sbastian, Delia Rein-
hardts former husband. Its clear from Sbastians letter to Walter that the
younger conductor had lost none of his affection for the older one and that he
was fully aware of Walters relationship with Delia. Walter would be coming
to Paris in April and May, and Sbastian, who had reserved a sleeping com-
partment on the ParisRome train to help his friend travel to his next engage-
ment,wrote that he and his wife looked forward like childrento Walters ar-
rival. He also regretted that he would probably not be in Paris for Walters
second visit and that his regret was all the greater because it was possible that
Delia would be accompanying Walter.70 Delia would indeed be with him for
his second stay in Paris, Walter informed Sbastian, and it would naturally
be a terrible pity if Sbastian were not in Paris at that time.71
In the second half of May Walter traveled to Vienna to make his first
studio recording of Das Lied von der Erde (the release derived from a
live performance), with Kathleen Ferrier and Julius Patzak as his soloists and
the Vienna Philharmonic as his orchestra. Ferrier had originally been sched-
uled to sing in Das Lied with Walter in Paris early in May but was replaced at
the last minute by Elsa Cavelti, perhaps because of Ferriers declining
health.72 By this time she was already suffering from the cancer that would
end her life the following year, and her moving rendition of Der Abschied
had a pathos that was lost on no one, least of all Walter: She stood at my side
in all her beauty and vitalityand yet I remember to have felt in her singing
of this farewell an ominous meaning. . . . [T]here was an overtone of finality
in voice and emotion, there was a strange radiance in her eyes that made her
performancewithin the ideal rendering of Mahlers worka poignant,
personal message.73 The combination of Ferriers haunting contralto,
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tremulous yet secure; Patzaks nasal, almost sardonic tenor; and the Vienna
Philharmonics characteristic inflections and sweet timbres helped to make
this one of Walters most admired recordings.74
Before taking leave of Europe, Walter made his final guest appearances
with the Concertgebouw, beginning on June . The program consisted of
Mozarts Fortieth, Strausss Don Juan, and Mahlers Fourth with Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf as the soprano soloist.75 This was apparently Schwarzkopf s
first appearance with Walter, and although the conductor often praised her
singing, for logistical reasons the two had to wait until Walters farewell to
Vienna in before they were to work with each other againonce more
in a concert that placed Mahlers Fourth at the heart of the program.
When Walter returned to America midway through June , a presi-
dential election was in the offing. As always before an election, much talk was
in the air about the two candidatesthe liberal intellectual Adlai Stevenson
and the war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower. Though Walter had once admired
Eisenhower, his admiration had gradually turned to disappointment. Per-
haps some of the reason behind Walters change of heart had to do with
Eisenhowers running mate, Richard Nixon, the future vice-president (and
later president) of the United States. The outspokenly anti-Communist
Nixon had already allied himself with the demagogic Joe McCarthy, whose
alarmist rhetoric against alleged Communists in the United States govern-
ment carried a repulsive whiff of megalomania. Walter, though no friend of
the Communist Party, did not like the tactics he witnessed among the Re-
publicans. In a lengthy letter to Eric Oldberg, an Eisenhower supporter,
Walter explained his doubts and concerns:
I still believe in him [Eisenhower] as a man of pure character, of
deep earnestness of purpose and idealism, but I cannot wish to see
the men coming to power with whom he is associated, whom he has
endorsed, whom I cannot respect, and to whom he has made con-
cessions which seem to me ill forebodings of happenings we might
have to expect. I cannot help seeing in Adlai Stevenson the power
of a great personality, the makings of a statesman and a man at home
in world affairs. You certainly must know that nobody could be
more opposed to the ideas of a totalitarian state than I . . . , and I am
fully convinced by everything I know and have heard from Steven-
son that he will be strong enough to oppose any such trends in this
country.76

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Eisenhowers easy victory over Stevenson and the brief but ominous rise of
Joe McCarthy, with his ever expanding witch-hunts, could not have com-
forted Walter.
The political naivet of his youth had given place to a healthy skepti-
cism. Yet like many of his contemporaries who had witnessed the ascent and
decline of politicians great and small, good and evil, he pressed on with his
work, which was making music, not political campaigning; the concerts con-
tinued, on both coasts of the United States as well as in Europe. But Walter
by no means accepted every offer extended to him to conduct, and among
the frustrations one encounters when combing through his voluminous cor-
respondence are the exciting projects that got away, especially those pro-
posed late in his life, when advanced years and declining health forced him
to turn them down. In November, for example, Fritz Rieger of the Munich
Philharmonic invited Walter to conduct Mahlers Eighth in celebration of
the orchestras sixtieth anniversary. Walter replied that he would love to con-
duct the symphony in Munichthe more so because hed heard Mahler
himself conduct it there at the unforgettable world premierebut his brief
stay in Europe, if indeed he were to travel there in , would not allow him
adequate time to undertake such an important work.77 The concert would
almost certainly have been recorded, and we would now have a document in
good sound of a major piece by Mahler that inevitably brought Walter ecsta-
tic reviews. Another near miss was a recording of three symphonic works by
Daniel Gregory Mason, a project that the composer himself had suggested
(I really do not want to have anyone but you make permanent commercial
recordings of them! Mason wrote to Walter78). Walter was only too glad to
comply,but the decision was up to Columbia Records.Encouraged by Wal-
ters enthusiasm, Mason pursued the matter with Columbia, which chose,
however, not to add a program of his orchestral works to its catalogue.79
A long-term project that Walter did finish in was his first complete
recording of the Beethoven symphonies, all but one played by the New York
Philharmonic (for the Pastoral, Walters ensemble was the Philadelphia
Orchestra), with two of the symphoniesthe Third and Fifthactually
recorded twice. Nevertheless, he would not be satisfied with the set until the
following year, when the finale to the Ninth Symphony was re-recorded
under better circumstances. While one is bombarded today with myriad
Beethoven cycles on compact disc, in a complete set of the symphonies
under one conductor was still a rarity. Unfortunately for Walter, recording
technology had changed a great deal since hed begun recording the sym-
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phonies with the New York Philharmonic in ; the old s had already
given way to LPs, masters were taped rather than cut, and soon enough
stereo would replace mono, making the set commercially obsolete. This
would have its own advantages, however, since it motivated Columbia just a
few years later to record the symphonies again, this time in stereo and in ex-
cellent sound.
Beginning on Christmas Day, , Walter made several guest appear-
ances with the New York Philharmonicoffering mostly his standard fare,
with some selections by Bach and Corelli, as well as Vaughan Williamss
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, as the least characteristic works. His
stint in New York concluded on March , when he gave a performance of
Beethovens Ninth with Frances Yeend, Martha Lipton, David Lloyd, and
Mack Harrell as soloists. The orchestra and soloists went on to record the
last movement, and Walters piano rehearsals with the vocal quartet were
characteristically thoroughso thorough that Yeend, renowned for her free
high notes, remembered having said, If you dont get a take in pretty soon, I
wont have anything left!80 The tenor, David Lloyd (who in had sung
in the Ninth under Walter at the Edinburgh Festival), recalled Walters ad-
vice to Mack Harrell when it came time to sing the notoriously difficult bari-
tone entrance in the last movement. After the melisma on the word freuden-
vollere, the orchestra comes crashing in with a loud chord. At that point,
Walter advised Harrell to sneak a breath. That way he could sing the re-
maining notes with a lot of voice left. Walter called it a Schwindel (a
cheat or, to use the obvious cognate, a swindle).81 The story rings true,
since at least one example of Walters suggesting a Schwindel has been
recorded for posterity. In a rehearsal of the finale of Brahmss Second Sym-
phony, filmed in Vancouver in , Walter tells the trumpets to leave out a
note before their final flourish in order to have enough breath to play it effec-
tively.
Along with concerts in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, San
Francisco, and Los Angeles, Walter also participated in a number of record-
ing sessions in the earlier part of , both with the New York Philharmonic
and with an ensemble called the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. There
were any number of Columbia Symphony Orchestras, according to Loren
Glickman, the regular bassoonist and also the contractor for the group in
New York. They were all pick-up orchestras. There was no such thing as
the Columbia Symphony. So every time I got a call from Columbia Records,
it was a new orchestra. If the conductor happened to know people, then
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those people were used. If he didnt, then my people were used.82 Why did
Columbia Records offer Walter an orchestra other than the Philharmonic?
Economizing was surely the main goal. It was always cheaper, Glickman
pointed out, to record with the Columbia Symphony, which was less than
half the size of the Philharmonic. And when the New York Philharmonic
recorded, every memberwhether on the recording or nothad to be
paid. Clearly for the symphonies of Mozart and Schubert, which did not re-
quire an orchestra of more than one hundred players, it was financially wise
to use a separate ensemble, even if that ensemble sometimes made use of the
Philharmonics own members.
One of the notable projects that Walter and the Columbia Symphony
Orchestra undertook was a Mozart recital, with Eleanor Steber as soloist. In
the s Walter had already conducted on two recordings of Mozart vocal
recitals, one sung by Lily Pons, the other by Ezio Pinza.83 In February
Walter, Steber, and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra recorded another
recital in the same genre. There were still tensions to resolve, however, be-
tween the conductor and the soloist, dating from the recording session
of Beethovens Ninth, when Steber was prevented from participating by her
former manager. After shifting to Arthur Judsons management, she wrote to
Walter in to explain her predicament, telling him how grieved and sick
at heart she was about the terrible situation that developed over the op-
portunity to record the Ninth Symphony with him, and assuring him that
he had been and would always be one of the beloved inspirations and influ-
ences in [her] personal life as well as [her] musical life.84 Walter put her at
ease: I am very happy to learn from your letter that you were not the perpe-
trator of the crime, but the victim, and as a fellow-victim, let me shake your
hand and suggest that we unite, not only again in making music, but also in
forgetting the past unpleasant incident.85 Although the collaboration of
Steber and Walter on the Mozart arias produced an affecting program, an
unmistakable strain mars some of passages in the upper register. Stebers vo-
cal chords were horribly inflamed that day, she later wrote, and her doctor
had even advised her not to sing.86
Another Mozart recital was committed to disk in early May . Splen-
didly sung by the bass-baritone George London in his prime, the program
included five excerpts from Le nozze di Figaro and three concert arias.
Though the orchestra is again billed as the Columbia Symphony, the musi-
cians were this time West Coasters, including members of the Hollywood
Quartet.87 Walter was featured at the harpsichord in the recitative Tutto
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disposto from Figaro, a novelty capitalized on by Columbia, which duly
noted the conductors support at the Cembalo on the album cover and in
its promotional literature.Walters continuo playing is discretion itself,with-
out a trace of flamboyance, and the recording may well provide a key to his
earlier approach to recitative accompaniment in eighteenth-century works.
Along with these very practical projects, Walter continued to devote
time to contemplating the spiritual content and value of his art. His growing
interest in anthroposophy would have strengthened any misgivings he had
about the rise of materialism, and clearly that issue was among those upper-
most in his mind in the s. When interviewed for Elinn Hoffmanns col-
umn Food for Thought, Walter emphasized the spiritual importance of music
and the dangers of materialism. Hoffmann sent him a typescript copy of her
proposed column that quoted him as saying: Materialism has fascinated
mankind, (but) it is not the materialistic which makes life worth-while. Any-
thing beyond the material things of life brings us to the sense of life. Music
the most sublimeis in this category. . . . Music . . . is a bridge to God.
Perhaps Walter felt that he was laying out his anthroposophical cards too
openly by speaking so directly of materialism; in any case, he proposed an al-
ternative statement: You ask me for the deeper meaning of music.Let me re-
ply metaphorically. Imagine someone living in the midst of factories, their
noises interfering with his thinking, their fumes with his breathing, their
smoke with his seeing, and there is a magic power at his command to lift him
to a high mountain top where he can fill his lungs with pure fresh air . . . this
about describes the deeper meaning of music.88 In a draft of the revision,he
had asked the question Do you believe that man has a soul? The question,
however, was struck from the draft. Perhaps he felt that too many readers
would be made uncomfortable if he mentioned that nebulous concept, the
soul. A metaphorical answer might be a more practical way of expressing the
same ideas about the soul and God. In any case, only a year later, when asked
to submit a brief statement for the radio program This I Believe, Walter ex-
pressed a strong reluctance against a public confession of my innermost
feeling and thinking.89
In mid-July Walter opened another season at the Hollywood Bowl.
Then August and September found him once more in Europe, traveling to
the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain, giving
concerts in Salzburg and Edinburgh. The concerts in Edinburgh, with the
Vienna Philharmonic, included a performance of Brahmss Deutsches Re-
quiem in September, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Irmgard Seefried as
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soloists. It was the first time Walter and Fischer-Dieskau had worked with
each other, and the piano rehearsal left an imprint on the twenty-eight-year-
old baritones memory: I began to sing confidently but softly, as if I were
praying. After the first syllableHerr!Bruno Walter lifted his fingers
from the keys as if struck by lightning. No! A thousand times no! It has to
sound world-weary, as if it were being sung by a high priest who seems indif-
ferent to everything around him.90
The following day Fischer-Dieskau felt that Walter was struggling with
the chorus, mainly to elicit the expression appropriate to every measure of
the work. The result in the concert itself was an unimaginably wrong intona-
tionalmost the entire work sounding a quarter-tone lower in the chorus
than in the orchestra.91 (A recording of the Edinburgh concert belies this
comment; while the chorus sounds flat on the highest notes of Ihr habt nun
Traurigkeit and Selig sind die Toten, for most of the Requiem the intona-
tion could hardly be called unimaginably wrong.92) For his part, Walter,
who would later work with Fischer-Dieskau in Mahlers Lieder eines fahren-
den Gesellen, commented to Mali Pfitzner in that the baritone had en-
raptured him with the sincerity of his emotional expression and his pro-
found musicality.93
For the Edinburgh concerts the Vienna Philharmonic also enjoyed
the conductorship of Wilhelm Furtwngler, who, according to Fischer-
Dieskau, sat through the performance of Ein deutsches Requiem and whis-
pered to his wife, in a voice loud enough to be heard by Walter, that the tempi
were too fast. Afterward the two great German conductors met. The worlds
of enforced exile and inner emigration, burdened by old rivalries and per-
sonal animosities, encountered each other in an electric forcefield that could
not have been more explosive, Fischer-Dieskau wrote. Their conversation
turned to musical interpretation, and the encounter became distinctly
strained. Furtwngler, when asked how he had enjoyed the concert, made
no mention of the Requiem, responding instead to the Brahms Haydn Vari-
ations that had preceded the major work: The finale might have been some-
what more majestic!94
What was no doubt a more pleasant encounterthis of a literary na-
turetook place during the summer of . At some point in August or
September Walter visited the Goetheanum and met Albert Steffen, with
whom he later engaged in a lengthy exchange of letters. Walter and Delia
Reinhardt devoured Steffens books, and it is obvious that Walter had a par-
ticularly deep admiration for the Swiss author; he seems even to have gone
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out of his way to write his letters to Steffen by hand instead of dictating them
to his secretaryhis usual procedure. The personal touch of hand-drawn
characters, rather than machine-made fonts, would have been especially ap-
preciated by a correspondent with anthroposophical beliefs.
In both Europe and, later, America Walter received numerous public
tributes and personal expressions of thanks on the occasion of his seventy-
seventh birthday. Hermann Obermeyer, on behalf of the Vienna Philhar-
monic, congratulated Walter, observing that he was the conductor with
whom we have been associated for the longest time, and that before ,
Walter had led concerts with the ensemble.95 Rudolf Serkin sent a letter
that especially touched him: I am bound to you so much in love and grati-
tude that I can never tell you often enough. How often you have opened my
ears and eyes to new worlds, how many splendid impressions I owe to you!
And how encouraging and patient you have been with me when Ive been
allowed to make music with youno, Ill never be able to give thanks
enough!96 It was a magnanimous gesture of friendship from a musician
who had already enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Columbia
Records also celebrated Walters birthday with a privately circulated LP
(surely meant for air play) full of words of praise from Walters friends and
colleagues, among them Lotte Lehmann, Ezio Pinza, Eleanor Steber,
George London, Lauritz Melchior, and Joseph Szigeti. It was clear that
Columbia no longer wanted Walter to feel neglected.
Though he spent a substantial amount of time and effort in the record-
ing studio in the s, Walter let at least one opportunity to record a cycle of
the Mahler symphonies slip away. On November Heinrich Kralik invited
Walter to conduct the Mahler symphonies with the Vienna Symphony. Wal-
ter responded that, while it would mean a great deal to him to leave a kind of
testament of his Mahler interpretations, the scope and responsibilities of
the project would unfortunately put too much pressure on him in his old
age, and he also did not have enough time at his disposal to reside in Vienna
for such an extended project; therefore, he had to decline.97 There is no rea-
son to doubt Walters words, though they may not tell the whole truth. As
recordings of the Vienna Symphony from the early s demonstrate, it
was then an ensemble by no means at the level of the Philharmonic orches-
tras in New York or Vienna. And if Walter had accepted, he would have had
to face the Sixth and Seventh symphonies, works he had long avoided.
Though had brought its share of triumphs, it also delivered one se-
rious blow to Walter. On October Kathleen Ferrier died. The friendship
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that had developed between the contralto and the conductor had been brief
but intense. Despite all my efforts to see her during the last time of her life,
he wrote, I was not given the opportunityI could only send her messages
of friendship and love and receive through friends her affectionate answers.
We had said good-bye to each other at the airport in Zurich. . . . I shall al-
ways see her as she stood there before me, the very image of courage and
serenity, and I always shall hear her say, as she said whenever we parted,
God bless you. For the rest of my life I shall return these words, and think of
her with the wishGod bless you, Kathleen!98
Its clear that Walters affection for Ferrier was deep, and his passionate
words may well betray more than the friendship of professional colleagues.
Yet Walter was likewise capable of impassioned language where his other
close friends and colleagues were concerned, especially if they seemed un-
der attack. On one occasion, for example, a self-styled Mozart lover wrote
to Walter that Myra Hess, in her concert of Mozarts Piano Concerto no.
in E-flat Major (given with the New York Philharmonic in mid-January,
), had not played an Andantino, as Mozart had marked, but an Ada-
gio.99 The remark was certainly not meant as an attack on Walter, nor was it
even a harsh assessment of Hesss playing, yet Walter responded to the criti-
cism with surprising trenchancy: I gladly answer a letter from a Mozart
lover, even if he is entirely wrong,morally wrong insofar as he has not hu-
mility enough to revere in a musician like Myra Hess with her life-long devo-
tion to Mozarts music the superior insight into Mozarts musical intentions;
musically wrong, as he applies the notion of andante to the quarters instead
of to the eighths in the second movement of the concerto. . . .Should you
be a pianist, you could convince yourself that by applying the notion of an-
dante to the quarters, the movement would lose its depth and variety of ex-
pression.100 Walter was not one to let his fan mail go unanswered.
But Walters correspondence during these years consisted of more than
emphatic replies to fans. It also included appeals to his colleagues in con-
nection with projects that he deemed particularly worthy. One area that at-
tracted him was the developing discipline of music therapy, which over-
lapped with his current interest in anthroposophy and his earlier writing on
the moral forces of music. In January he wrote directly to Toscanini,
asking him to sign a petition that would encourage a scientific study of the
powers of music: Of course, it is, in the first line, a concern of physicians to
develop a scientific method of exploiting the healing possibilities of music.
But you will agree that an institution like the Ford Foundation must be in-
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formed that also the musician believes in the power of music on the human
mind. And do you not believe, like me, that also educational institutions
could make use of the moral influence of music on such social evils like juve-
nile delinquency and so on?101 Toscanini regretfully demurred, claiming
that he had never lent his name to any petition no matter how worthy the
cause.102 Yet Frances Paperte, founder-president of the Music Research
Foundation, found Walters arguments persuasive enough that she sought
permission to use his words to Toscanini in order to promote the cause of
her organization. By Walter was listed as honorary chairman of the Mu-
sic Research Foundation, and while the position required little if any real ef-
fort on his part, the goals of the organization were ones he genuinely en-
dorsed.
Engagements in Chicago and San Francisco kept Walter busy for much
of February and April . In May and June he traveled again through Eu-
rope, stopping first in London to share the podium with Sir John Barbirolli
for a special concert on May , to benefit the Kathleen Ferrier Cancer Re-
search Fund, then heading south to participate in the Maggio Musicale in
Florence and to conduct the RAI Symphony Orchestra. In June he visited
Dornach, Switzerland, and gave a concert in Lucerne in which the center-
piece was Bruckners Ninth, a work that would appear more and more on his
concert programs.
Walter returned to the United States early in July and spent several
months in Beverly Hills. Once again he was tentatively offered the opportu-
nity to record the complete Mahler symphonies,this time with the New York
Philharmonic. In January he had committed the First Symphony to disk,
and Columbia Records must have been pleased with the results, for God-
dard Lieberson, then executive vice-president of the company, approached
Walter in August, urging him to record Mahlers complete symphonies, an
issue they had discussed many times.103 In this instance Walter was not
prepared to reject the offer, as he had done with the Vienna Symphonys
proposal, but neither was he ready to accept it: You can imagine how much
the execution of the plan to record the complete symphonic works of Mahler
means to me. Of course, the reservations for my side, which you mention, are
still there but on the other hand I feel deeply my obligation to keep Mahlers
great work alive by all means possible. However, there are so many angles of
this problem to be discussed that I do not see how to do it in a letter.104 It
is hard to know what the upshot was. Walter went on to record Mahlers
Second with the New York Philharmonic, perhaps with the intention of
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recording the complete symphonies in succession, but a heart attack and
new technologythe widespread adoption of stereo soundbrought that
series, if it was a series, to a halt.
Another recording (this time not one of his own) engaged Walters at-
tention in an entirely different way. Arnold Schoenberg had died in ,
with one of his most ambitious works unfinished and unplayed. In Hamburg
on March , , Hans Rosbaud gave the world premiere performance of
the first two acts of Moses und Aron, Schoenbergs unfinished opera. Al-
though Walter had publicly condemned atonality and serialism on more
than one occasion and had provoked furtive insults from the readily af-
fronted Schoenberg, the composers widow invited Walter to hear a tape
recording of the premiere of Moses und Aron at a gathering to take place on
September , .105 Surprisingly, instead of finding an excuse to avoid
listening to a work that he would almost certainly find rebarbative, Walter
wrote that he would attend with great joy and even asked whether it would
be possible to receive a copy of the libretto beforehand so that he could be-
come acquainted with the text, also by Schoenberg; he hoped it would be all
right to bring Delia Reinhardt along.106 Why did he take such an interest in
the event? Was his interest feigned, a sign of politeness? Did the theme of the
opera pique his curiosity? Or was he genuinely eager to hear more music
from the composer of Verklrte Nacht and Gurre-Lieder? He had certainly
never forgotten these earlier works. In fact, Verklrte Nacht was one of the
pieces Walter and the New York Philharmonic presented in November .
Other works that Walter performed with that orchestra in November
and December included the New York Philharmonic premiere of Bartks
Andante for Violin and Orchestra, Opus (better known today as the first
movement of his Violin Concerto no. ), as well as the Brahms Double Con-
certo, with Isaac Stern and Leonard Rose, and Ein deutsches Requiem, with
Irmgard Seefried and George London. All three works were recorded by
Columbia for commercial release, but the harsh choral and muddled or-
chestra sounds on the master tape of Ein deutsches Requiem had not
pleased Walter, who prevented its release in his lifetime.107 As for Bartks
Andantean unusual item for Walter, beginning as it does with a strong sug-
gestion of atonality, though the piece ends consonantly enough on a D major
chordthe sad truth is that Szigeti was by this time suffering from arthritis,
and his wayward intonation was probably the reason that the recording was
never issued.108

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 Although Walter found the tape of Ein deutsches Requiem disappoint-
ing, the performance itself proved an inspiration to many. The tenor
Theodore White, then a member of the Westminster Choir, recalled the ex-
citement of rehearsing the work under Walter. When Walter came to West-
minster Choir College (in Princeton, New Jersey), classes were suspended,
despite reservations on the part of the administration, who realized that
none of the students would be in class, so they just made it official: they sus-
pended classes, because when Bruno Walter came to campus, everybody
wanted to be there. Walters ability to secure the attention of his singers
made an immediate impact on White: He had you spellbound from the
very beginning. It was something about his persona. You sensed immedi-
ately that he was very serious about the music. Yes, this was going to be a
wonderful experience, but this was not going to be a frivolous experi-
ence. . . . He knew when the choir was not giving their all. It was not just a
matter of loud here and soft there; he sensed the mental commitment that the
singers were giving to the music. So in the process of explaining what he
would want in a particular phrase, he would always express it in a way that it
wasnt a mystery. You knew exactly what he wanted. It was Walters ability
to convey the spiritual content of the text and music that particularly dis-
tinguished him from other choral conductors with whom White had
worked.109
The many requiems that Walter conducted in the s were well
timed, for in that decade many of his old friends, acquaintances, and rivals
bade farewell to this life. On November Wilhelm Furtwngler died at the
age of sixty-eight, putting an end to a professional rivalry that had lasted
nearly four decades. Walter wrote a note of condolence to Furtwnglers
widow, commenting on the grievous loss that she and the entire musical
world had suffered.110 The two conductors had achieved a kind of reconcil-
iation after the war; a photograph of the two, taken around , shows an
animated Furtwngler speaking to his wary-looking older colleague.111
Walter knew of Furtwnglers efforts to help Hugo Strelitzer, and perhaps he
had since learned of others whom Furtwngler had helped.112 When the
Berlin radio station RIAS asked Walter for a tribute in Furtwnglers mem-
ory, to be aired with other such tributes on December , he did not decline.
In his piece Walter recalled meeting Furtwngler as Pfitzners very promis-
ing assistant in Strasbourg. And I know enough of his extraordinary
development, Walter continued, to testify that the Master fulfilled in the

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richest measure what the apprentice foreshadowed. Without a doubt there
was greatness in Wilhelm Furtwngler, a greatness which enabled him to
give expression to the Great in music: and I have no doubt that his achieve-
ment, so filled with deepest devotion to music, has a significant place in mu-
sical history.113
Another major rival, born nearly two decades before Furtwngler, lived
on, celebrating his eighty-seventh birthday on March , . Walter sent
Toscanini a warm letter of congratulation. The praise was slightly different
in tone from that employed in Furtwnglers eulogy: Your birthday gives
me the welcome opportunity to express anew the deep devotion and admi-
ration for you which since long years lives in my heart. Thinking back, I
vividly visualize our first personal meeting in Milano and my ear has grate-
fully preserved performances of yours in Leipzig and Berlin, in Salzburg and
Vienna and, of course, many unforgettable ones in New York. I want you to
know that these are great memories for me and will live on as long as I
live.114 There is a far greater sense of personal engagement with the Italian
maestro than with the conductor from his native land; while Furtwnglers
contribution had a significant place in musical history, Toscaninis perfor-
mances left great memories for Walter himself to cherish.
Though Walter had not yet reached his eightieth birthday and still had
half a decades worth of productive years left to him, by his concert
schedule was at last slowing down. After appearances in Chicago and San
Francisco early in the year, he headed for Europe, where in May he per-
formed with the French National Radio Orchestra and then crossed the
Channel for a series of concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, includ-
ing a performance of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Fischer-
Dieskau. Although the baritone had already recorded the cycle with
Furtwngler, Walter afforded him a new insight into the tempo of the songs:
When it came to my approach to the Mahler lieder, which had in part been
defined by Furtwngler in Salzburg, Walter urged me to double my tempo,
arguing that Mahlers intentions could be conveyed only by a kind of ner-
vousness that betrayed no hint of assurance. And in this he was only too
right. Persuaded by Walter, Fischer-Dieskau later asked Rafael Kubelik to
speed up his tempo when they performed the same song cycle together.115
Thomas Mann became an octogenarian on June , , and Walter was
among those present in the Schauspielhaus in Zurich to celebrate his
friends birthday. Walters contribution to the festivities was a performance
of Mozarts Eine kleine Nachtmusik with the radio orchestra.116 The con-
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ductor and the author had undergone many trials together since their meet-
ing in Munich some four decades before, and now both had reached the
highest rungs of their respective ladders. But Manns eightieth birthday
would be his last; he died little more than a month later, on August . In of-
fering Manns daughter some consolation and unburdening himself of his
own heavy emotions, Walter wrote to Erika two days after the death of his
friend: You no doubt know how much I loved your father, and you surely
know of my awareness of what his life meant to you. How should I find
words for the enormity of such a loss; what could I really say to you? . . . My
heart and my thoughts are with you in love and sorrow. Rarely, perhaps, has
there been a fatherdaughter relationship more beautiful, more full of life,
more fruitful than yours, and I felt myself happy for both of you when I
thought of it. Walters relationship with his daughters had been a close one,
and perhaps the solace he offered had some reference to his own family life:
I should think that such a truly fruitful and harmonious relationship as that
between you [two] would pour its blessings over the rest of your life, and the
feeling of what you were to him and he to you must become a source of the
deepest comfort to you in all the pain over your loss.117
Another old acquaintancewho, like Thomas Mann, had fled the Old
World to find a new home in Californiawas trying to resurrect his reputa-
tion as a composer of lofty scores. With this end in mind, Erich Wolfgang
Korngold approached Walter in the s to ask for help in generating inter-
est in his new orchestral work.Though he had been successfully writing mu-
sic for Hollywood sound tracks for several years, he had not given up on se-
rious music; nor had he forgotten Walters help over the decades, having
dedicated his Third String Quartet () to him. Recently, Korngolds
opera Die Kathrin had been a flop in Vienna; now in his fifties, he belatedly
turned his hand to the symphony. In September Korngold visited Wal-
ter in Beverly Hills, bringing along a record of his Symphony in F-sharp Ma-
jor for the conductor to hear, but Walter chose to stay outdoors on the patio,
where it was cool, rather than enter the stuffy house to listen to the record.
He apologized to Korngold afterward and, eager to help the composer who
had shown so much promise earlier in life, offered to listen to the work at
Korngolds convenience.118
Well constructed, brilliantly orchestrated, full of rich Korngoldian har-
monies and romantic melodies, the symphony was patently a throwback to
an earlier era, though its composer had done his best to give it a hard, mod-
ernist edge. Walter, impressed by the piece, wrote to his colleagues to
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promote the symphony, even though he felt too old to accept the challenge of
conducting it himself. He later canvassed Reiner, Munch, and Mitropoulos
in an attempt to get them interested in the new symphony. This was an im-
portant work of original thematic substance, of a rare emotional power in a
masterly symphonic form, he wrote to Munch in . The instrumenta-
tion is also that of a master. Here is, without any doubt, a new symphonic
work with the potentialities of a genuine great success.119 This was sub-
stantially the message he sent to the other conductors, who, unfortunately
for Korngold, declined the opportunity to pursue the matter.
Walter was again conducting in Europe in October and November, vis-
iting Milan, Rome, and Vienna. The main reason for his stop in Vienna was
to conduct in the newly restored opera house, which opened on November
with a performance of Fidelio under Walters former assistant Karl Bhm,
directed by Walters old colleague and sometime nemesis, Heinz Tietjen. To
some it must have seemed ironic that Beethovens heroic opera, condemn-
ing as it does totalitarian rule, was under the artistic direction of two men
who had made no show of opposing totalitarianism in recent memory. Erich
Jantsch, of the Musical Courier, noted that For many, the real opening of the
opera [house] occurred when Bruno Walter at a matinee conducted Bruck-
ners Te Deum and Beethovens Ninth. . . . Though he does not conduct an
opera during the festival, he brought back to the Vienna Opera House the
high standards and the grandeur which have made it famous. Though his
great performance showed up the mediocrity now prevailing, he also estab-
lished firmly and categorically the niveau which should characterize the
work of the Vienna State Opera.120
As one of the last living representatives of a great conducting tradition,
Walter seems to have gained in stature almost daily. Columbia Records is-
sued a two-record set of Walter conducting the New Yorkbased Columbia
Symphony Orchestra in Mozarts Linz Symphony; entitled The Birth of a
Performance, it included long stretches of Walters rehearsal with the or-
chestra. Though he was in principle against making his rehearsal techniques
public, we can only be grateful to Columbia for preserving so many of Wal-
ters re-creative methods. The rehearsals date from April and , ,
and Walters comments are almost invariably technical rather than impres-
sionistic. He seizes, for example, on the opening movements introduction,
in which Mozart has indicated overdotted passages by placing rests before
the short notes. The orchestra seems reluctant to make the rhythms as sharp
as the score demands, to the point where Walter tells the strings and wood-
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winds to overdo it; they must be able to say off at the rest before the
short note (Rah . . . Off! Da-dee . . . Off!). His insistence on the musi-
cians taking a breath before the short note is reminiscent of attempts
among early music specialists in the s and s to play French over-
tures and other similar works with stylistically appropriate overdotting
(though Mozart wrote in the sharpened articulation, whereas baroque com-
posers usually relied on understood conventions). Walter also lets us in on
some of his own stylistic secrets, telling the musicians at one point to place
the accent after the beat in the Viennese style to give one of the chords an
especially dramatic presence, an effective device that untrained ears can mis-
take for ensemble imprecision.
On occasion Walter addressed members of the orchestra by name.
Though for some players this meant immortality, for others it was cause for
grievance. I tell you what you will do, Mr. Bloom . . . , Walter said very gra-
ciously to the first oboist, Robert Bloom, before suggesting a diminuendo on
an A-flat. He later addressed Bloom again on fine points of style. When the
record of the rehearsal was issued and Bloom heard himself being told how
to play the phrase, he was deeply disturbed, according to Loren Glickman.
Bloom was a step above most of us orchestral players, he was like the dean
of woodwinds, and he was paid more than most people for various things,
Glickman noted. Bloom asked whether Glickman was aware that his name
had been used during the rehearsal.
Oh, yes, Bob, Glickman returned. And he always says, Mr. Bloom,
would you mind doing such and such? . . . At one point, he says, Mr. Glick-
man, do this, and Im very proud that he knew my name.
Well, Im not very proud about it. I dont want to be known as a person
who takes advice from Bruno Walter, no matter how well known he is!121
It was surely not by chance that the rehearsal record was of a work by
Mozart. Walter had long been associated with the great Viennese com-
posers music, and his interpretationswhether viewed as stylistically per-
fect or over-romanticwere widely admired. It will come as no surprise that
in , during the bicentennial of the composers birth, performances of
Mozarts music would dominate Walters schedule.

G L



Mostly Mozart

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

The suns radiant glory has vanquished the night,

The powers of darkness have yielded to light.
Schickaneder and Mozart, Die Zauberflte

The year , two centuries after Mozarts birth, opened the

sluice gates to a deluge of Mozart fetes and performances around
the world. Naturally, as one of the interpreters most closely associ-
ated with Mozart, Walter was invited to take part in many of the bi-
centennial celebrations. But Mozart wasnt the only musician for
whom had special significance; Walter himself turned eighty
that year, and birthday celebrations on both sides of the Atlantic
called for his presence.
Perhaps surprisingly, Walters first concerts of the year con-
tained no Mozart whatsoever.These took place in Chicago,where
his program consisted of Schumanns Manfred Overture and
Brahmss Third, given at the beginning of February. The next
month, however, Mozart reigned. The New York Philharmonic
gave a Mozart Festival in which Walter conducted several con-
certs, concluding with three performances of the Mozart Re-
quiem, a piece he also recorded at that time. Walters soloists
were Irmgard Seefried, Jennie Tourel, Lopold Simoneau, and
William Warfield. Preparations for the piece had begun as early

as February , when Walter and Andr Mertens of Columbia Artists
Management corresponded about soloists. The bass Cesare Siepi had been
discussed as a possibility, but his contract with London Records would not
allow him to record for Columbia; Mertens then suggested Warfield, and
Walter eagerly accepted: I could not wish for a better soloist and one who
would be more qualified for the performance of this work.1 Two days later
he wrote to Bruno Zirato: Warfield is a great artist and has one of the most
magnificent voices in the country. So, please, engage him.2
For his part, Warfield was delighted to sing for a conductor whom he
deeply admired. Though Warfield has since achieved status as a cultural
icon himself, the Requiem took place early in his career, and the experience
proved an inspiration. Walter met the vocal quartet, sat at the piano, and
meticulously went through the details, polishing the work itself, Warfield
recalled, and getting us to feel the sense of the music as a quartet rather than
as individual soloists just singing lines. . . . Then when it came time for the
performance, it was just a matter of an indication. And in the performance
we had full rein to express and to delve further into the kind of thing that we
had done as a quartet.3 Walter also made his standard request that the
soloists memorize their partsan unusual stipulation for oratorio singers:
He wanted us to be so sure of the texts and the music that it wouldnt be a
matter of practicing notes. The sense of liberation Warfield felt on having
dispensed with the score put him in the habit of learning oratorio parts by
heart afterward.
The other surviving member of the quartet, the Canadian tenor Lo-
pold Simoneau, also cherished his session with Walter. He did not have to
say that much because you could really sense in his accompaniment what he
wantedthe phrasing he wanted, the emphasis he wanted on some phrase,
on some words. Like Warfield, who emphasized Walters ability to make the
four singers a well-blended quartet, Simoneau noted that Walter knew how
to make chamber music with that beautiful composition. In the perfor-
mance itself Simoneau found all the interpretive cues written clearly on Wal-
ters face; he didnt have to act like a traffic conductor, relying on exag-
gerated gestures to convey his ideas to the performers. He had such a
warm expression on his face, with his eyes, and his general expression, that
you really knew what he wanted.4
For Jennie Tourel, too, singing in the Mozart Requiem under Walter
proved not only intensely pleasurable but also sublime, as she wrote in a
letter to Walter shortly after the performances. It had been a transcendent
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musical experience, one that she would treasure for the rest of [her] life.5
The Requiem would be a recurring item on Walters programs for the rest of
the year. Over the summer he performed it in Milan, Salzburg, Vienna
(where two of his choristers were reportedly the future conducting stars Zu-
bin Mehta and Claudio Abbado6 ), and Los Angeles. For the performance in
Milan, which took place at La Scala, Walter had negotiated the arrangements
with the conductor Victor de Sabata, then artistic director of the venerable
opera house. The soprano soloist of Walters choice, Maria Stader, with
whom he had collaborated on several occasions (Bruno Walter was like a
musical father to me, she later wrote7), was unable to sing with him because
of prior commitments. De Sabata unsuccessfully tried to secure a number of
attractive alternativesLisa Della Casa, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria de
Los Angelesand finally suggested that Walter use either Anna Moffo or
Graziella Sciutti.8 Not familiar with either soprano, Walter left the decision
in de Sabatas hands, cabling a description of the vocal qualities he desired:
, and
.9 Sciutti was
eventually hired.
One other major event kept Walter busy in New York in late February
and March, a performance of Die Zauberflte at the Met, sung in English.
What brought Walter back to that opera house, a war zone that he had vowed
to avoid for the remainder of his life? There is no easy answer to that ques-
tion, but retracing some of Walters thoughts at this time might point to his
motivation.
In the first half of the s Walters thoughts continually returned to
the idea of leaving a testament that would preserve at least a portion of his
art. In addition to preserving his performances on disks, Walter sought to es-
tablish a legacy by committing his thoughts to print. Although he had pub-
lished his autobiography in and had written extensively on his musical
career up to his departure from Europe, he had, oddly enough, only touched
on the issue of musical interpretation in that work. He had scarcely finished
Theme and Variations when he embarked in earnest on a book whose
themes had preoccupied him for years, a work specifically on music and mu-
sical interpretation, which would complement his autobiography. He re-
ferred to the new book in a letter to Rudolf Mengelberg as a kind of testa-
ment.10 The book, published in , would eventually be called Von der
Musik und vom Musizieren. For the English title, Walter suggested On Music
and Musical Interpretation and some variants along the same lines; Norton
M M

finally published the book in as Of Music and Music-Making, a transla-
tion not wholly to Walters liking, since music-making did not seem lofty
enough to convey the sense of high re-creativity that Walter was trying to
evoke.11
During the years that Walter developed the ideas that appeared in this
book, he identified strongly with Mozart, regarding the composers late
works as confessional. In Walters view, for example, Mozarts last three sym-
phonies were his intellectual, spiritual and musical confession, represent-
ing , and , and .12 Die Zauberflte was a
similarly telling work for Walter, who wrote: As Shakespeare, after remain-
ing all his life the anonymous dramatist concealed behind the figures of his
stage-works, at last appears before our eyes in the person of Prospero in the
Tempest, so, I think, we at last encounter in the Magic Flute the human per-
sonality of Mozart himself.13 So Die Zauberflte had a special significance
for the aging Bruno Walter, who was himself working on a kind of testa-
ment. If any opera could bring him back to the theater, this could.
Bing had tried to lure Walter back to the Met several times after the con-
ductors official departure in always without success. But he per-
sisted, and in May he got the first sign that Walter might bend. Walter
had gathered decades worth of fond memories connected to Mozarts op-
eras, and when Bing offered him the opportunity to conduct either Cos fan
tutte or Die Zauberflte for the two hundredth anniversary of Mozarts birth,
the idea strongly appealed to Walter: Your invitation is indeed very tempt-
ing for me because I feel I have to contribute to the best of my abilities to such
an anniversary. I cannot think of Cosi fan tutte because I do not feel happy
in the vastness of the Metropolitan Opera with a work which needs intimacy.
Very differently I feel with regard to the Magic Flute. It would certainly give
me great satisfaction to try again my hand on this work which is particularly
near to my heart.14 But the logistics and the headaches of putting together
an opera remained. How could they find singers fit for the numerous and
problematical roles, where to find the stage-director, where the designer?
In the end, Walter wondered whether the Mozart Requiem wouldnt be a
better choice. Bing, however, had clearly won the crucial battle, and it was
only a matter of time before Walter would be working on another opera.
What in particular placed Die Zauberflte so near to Walters heart? His
view of the work as confessional must have been a factor. Another might
well have been its themes, which spoke very much to his present concerns.
The climactic episode in Mozarts last opera depicts a man and a woman,
M M

joined after undergoing various trials, being initiated into a sphere of higher
knowledge. The parallels between this episode and Walters comparatively
recent experience with Delia Reinhardt and anthroposophy may well have
played a part in his decision. Reinhardts very first role in Munich under
Walter was Pamina, and it would have been perfectly natural for Walter to
identify himself and Delia with the initiates Tamino and Pamina. By
Walter was regularly exchanging ideas with the leading anthroposophists of
the day, and his thoughts continually revolved around the new world picture
that Steiner and his disciples offered him. In Steiners How to Know Higher
Worlds, a book that Walter came to know well and recommended to others,
several passages bear a notable resemblance to key episodes in Die Zauber-
flte.15 The book maps out a path for initiation into a higher state of con-
sciousness. Steiner writes that those who wish to be initiated must possess
courage and fearlessness, a theme stated time and again in Mozarts li-
bretto. Shortly before Tamino and Pamina are tested, they encounter two
armed men, who warn them of the trials that await them but encourage the
protagonists to forge ahead. Similarly, followers of Steiner who wish to as-
cend to higher worlds will, in the final stages of their development, en-
counter two guardians who will explain the serious implications of con-
tinuing along the path leading to spiritual enlightenment. In Mozarts work,
Tamino and Pamina must pass through fire and water to prove themselves
worthy of receiving wisdom; initiates into Steiners higher consciousness
must likewise undergo trials by fire, water, and air.16 While the parallels may
have come about simply because the two works use long-established sym-
bols to describe various stages of initiation (and of course Steiner would
have been familiar with Mozarts opera), the similarities are nonetheless
striking. Steiners views on the ancient Persian religious leader Zarathustra
(or Zoroaster) might also have deepened Walters interest in Die Zauber-
flte, whose wisest character, Sarastro, owes his name and priestly character
to Zarathustra. For Steiner, who believed in reincarnation, Zarathustra was
one of the greatest Individualities who have worked in the course of human
evolution.17 Elements of Zarathustras being, according to Steiner, entered
into several important cultural and religious leaders, most notably Moses
and Christ, playing a crucial role in the development of both figures.18 So
Bings suggestion that Walter conduct Die Zauberflte might well have ap-
pealed not only to Walter the Mozart-lover but also to Walter the anthro-
posophist. The operas concern with love, initiation, and enlightenment co-
incided with the very themes that Walter found most absorbing at this time.
M M

 We know many of Walters thoughts on Mozarts last opera thanks to his
essay The Mozart of The Magic Flute, written to celebrate the bicentennial
of Mozarts birth.19 In Walters view Mozart in his final years became aware
of the growing accord of his love-filled heart with the Masonic tenets of hu-
manity and brotherliness, and the composer projected facets of himself
onto certain characters in the opera. Thus Tamino represents the lofty side
of Mozart and his ardent striving for ideal humanity, while Papageno, the
cheerful fellow, the simple son of Nature who likes to eat well and hankers af-
ter pretty girls, represents the Mozart whose mind was bent on worldly
pleasures. Sarastro, in turn, delivers pronouncements on love and forgive-
ness, and in his words, as Walter saw it, the world should recognize
Mozarts own spiritual testament.20 Many will also recognize in Sarastros
sentiments a kinship with Walters own leanings toward forgiveness and rec-
onciliation, which he maintained during and after his own trials by fire and
water.
The money for the new production of Mozarts opera came from the
deep pockets of the Rockefeller family. Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III gener-
ously provided an estimated $,then a hefty sum indeed.21 Getting a
cast together was the first artistic problem that Walter and Bing had to solve.
Though they had discussed the possibility of using some non-Anglophone
singers for the production, in the end they chose an almost all-American cast
and once again used the Martins English translation. Certainly, when the
opera was finally performed, many appreciated the choice of language and
casting. The accents were homogenous, and all the performers enunciated
admirably, Howard Taubman wrote. What a delight it was to the audience
to understand! What a pleasure it was to hear laughter in the Opera House in
response to comic lines!22
A number of the principals in the Flute have offered insights into
Walters thoughts on Mozarts last opera. For Sarastro, Walter had Jerome
Hines, who had sung the role at the Met during the season and who
deeply admired Walter as a conductor and as a man. He recalled years later
the maestros concern that everything be done correctly, even if doing so
meant going beyond the time officially set aside for rehearsal: We were re-
hearsing at the Met, and at one spot he said, Jerome, there is just not enough
time; you must come now to my apartment, tonight or tomorrow night. And
I found myself doing private study with him in his apartment. Now theres
the perfect example of the conscientious musician who really says: Look, I
dont care how much time the corporation has allotted us, we have to do the
M M

job with great conscience and it has to be done right. . . . I think its the only
case Ive ever had of a conductor whos made me come to his home, or to his
apartment, and continue the extra work that has to be done.23 Walter ac-
companied Hines at the piano and carefully worked out details with all the
soloists. The time and effort that he devoted to his productions, as well as his
thorough knowledge of the works, also impressed Hines: He was typical of
the great conductors of that time who would personally get you to work with
them, and they would just mold this thing; they put their stamp on it; they
became your personal coach. . . . Nowadays, instead, the coaches prepare
you, you meet the conductor for one ensemble rehearsal for three or four
hours, youre with the orchestra, and go! Because they dont know opera as
these men did. These were the giants, and I do so miss it. Despite his admi-
ration for Walter, Hines nevertheless had reservations about some of the
conductors suggestions. When Hines first sang Within these holy por-
tals, he stressed the o sound in holy and portals. Oh no, my dear Jerome,
Walter reportedly objected; all great vocal technique is based upon the
vowel u. Hines tried to sing the words exactly as Walter wanted them, and
he granted that this approach made his tone much more gentle and sweet,
though it made his voice sound somewhat smaller, and he missed the power
that the large open vowels generated. But Walter knew what he wanted. The
sweetness and gentleness were absolutely requisite for his conception of
Sarastro, within whose holy portals / Revenge remains unknown.24
Sarastro, the chief symbol of enlightenment and stability in the opera, is
counterbalanced by the Queen of the Night, the leader of the benighted sub-
versive contingent. Finding a suitable Queen presents special difficulties,
since her part requires both dazzling agility and fierce passion; not all of
Walters Queens could satisfy these requirements as brilliantly as, say, Maria
Ivogn had done in a number of Walters early productions. The young
Roberta Peters, whose ease in coloratura passages and whose crystalline
tone have remained with her decades later, had sung the role at the Met in
German under Kurt Adler in and had performed the second aria, Der
Hlle Rache, on national television for the Voice of Firestone in .25
Young, attractive, and manifestly gifted, she became Walters Queen of the
Night.
Peters characterized the Queen as a very miserable woman, a nasty
woman, and you have to portray it, not just sing the notes, but get that anger
in the voice.26 Under Walter she sang with passion and fire, and the audi-
ence burst into applause halfway through the second aria. Although she per-
M M

formed the Queen of the Night a great many times during her career at the
Met, the experience of working on the part with Walter was memorable for
her. She was still quite young at the time (the daughter was older than the
mother in this production, she recalled) and was in great awe of Walter,
whose name was so revered in our work and our profession. . . . But he was
absolutely wonderful, very calming, told me to relax and dont worry, every-
thing was going to be okay. . . . He came into my dressing room and we went
over the score. Both arias demand a great deal from the singer, and neither
allows the soprano to warm up beforehand. Although one often remembers
the second ariawith its pyrotechnical display of high Fs,arpeggios,and as-
sorted ornamentsmore vividly than the first, Walter felt that the first aria
was more difficult, and he focused his attention on it, not neglecting the
slower opening section (which he wanted very legato) in favor of the more
extroverted second half.
Walters interest in the less flashy parts of the Queen of the Nights arias
also revealed itself in his comments to Laurel Hurley, who played Papagena
in the season and in the season took over for Peters (then
pregnant) as the Queen of the Night. Walter liked the dark, lyric quality in
Hurleys voice and encouraged her to emphasize it when singing the
Queens arias.27 While she enjoyed hearing Walters praise of her vocal tim-
bre, she respectfully submitted to him that if she made her tone too dark, the
high Fs would be adversely affected. Apparently sympathizing with her
dilemma, Walter said: Why dont we cut the high F? To this day, she feels
uncertain whether Walter was joking.28 Perhaps the most significant aspect
of Walters commentwhether uttered in jest or in earnestis that it reveals
his view of the music as a vehicle for drama rather than mere display, a char-
acteristic of Walters opera conducting throughout his career.
Another key role in the opera is Pamina, to whom the thought of losing
Taminos love means death, and who unhesitatingly goes through fire and
water for him; she represents Taminos feminine ideal, as Walter wrote.29
This productions Pamina was Lucine Amara, who sang effectively but car-
ried away far from rosy memories of the event. She remembered going to
Walters hotel to rehearse the part to Walters piano accompaniment. When
she first sang the aria, Walter objected that she was singing too loudly. She
sang it again, this time more softly, but it was still too loud for Walter. (It
sounded too loud to him, according to Amara, because she was singing in
the confined space of his hotel room.) When they went to the theater, how-
ever, and she sang at the volume they had agreed on, Walter complained that
M M

she wasnt singing loudly enough.30 Despite Amaras mixed feelings about
the experience, the critics openly admired her Pamina, with Taubman at-
tributing the loveliest singing of the evening to her.31
The cast boasted a number of celebrated (or soon to be celebrated)
singers in the smaller roles.James McCracken,though later a star tenor at the
Met, received only small roles at this point in his career. By Walter
would mention McCracken, whose voice he judged beautiful and big, as a
possible Florestan for a proposed recording of Fidelio.32 In Die Zauberflte,
however, McCracken sang one of the Two Priests; Sandra Warfield, who
later married McCracken, took the part of the Third Lady, with Heidi Krall
and Madelaine Chambers singing the other two. Warfield had little acquain-
tance with Walter at this time and at first found him almost unpleasantly self-
important. I had no idea that he was such a great, great man. But if you
didnt know it before, youd know it when he came in. . . . He took himself
very seriously, you know. And I had never really seen that type of musician
before. His famous conducting jacket served to reinforce his solemn image:
He was almost like a priest. He had a little bit of white shirt showing, and
then the black. And that was so impressive. Walter gave her the impression
of a man who treated Mozarts opera almost as a sacred work, and he was
scandalized when he saw the Three Ladies original costumes, which
showed off their legs in dark navy tights. Oh no, no. Impossible, he said
immediately. The costumer, called in at once to make alterations, compro-
mised by creating something like a chiffon skirt, or at least some flying pan-
els, which covered us up enough that he thought it was decent enough for
Mozart. But he couldnt bear that we were up there in these costumes . . . I
mean, the Three Ladies from The Magic Flute with their legs out like that!
He was really incensed . . . because he thought it was actually sacrilegious to
do that to an opera like The Magic Flute.33
If Brian Sullivans sometimes caustic Tamino made for a less than ideal
leading male, Paul Franke made the most of his small role as the wicked, li-
bidinous Monastatos, delivering a highly charged performance. But in some
ways it was the productions Papageno, the baritone Theodor Uppman,
who stole the show. The early s proved a golden era for Uppman. He
created Billy Budd under Brittens direction in , made his Met debut as
Pellas under Pierre Monteux in , and triumphed as Papageno in Wal-
ters Flute in . Walter had become acquainted with Uppmans singing
by , perhaps through the Bell Telephone Hour broadcasts, and must
have been suitably impressed. When Bing suggested Uppman as Papageno,
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Walter unhesitatingly responded: Uppman as Papageno seems to me very
good.34
Uppman had already performed in Die Zauberflte, singing the part of
the Speaker in a minor production and, during the season, playing
Papageno at Covent Garden, with Peter Pears as Tamino. I was not very
happy with it, Uppman recalled. It was a terrible translation. And also I
didnt feel I was at that time ready to do the role justice. Didnt have much
time to rehearse it.35 His disappointment at the lack of rehearsal time in the
Covent Garden production would soon be compensated by Walters special
attention to Papagenonot always treated as a serious role. Appearing in
Walters production was a thrilling experience for Uppman, who in his
youth had admired Walter on radio broadcasts. But he felt, naturally
enough, some initial anxiety about the impression he would make on the
renowned conductor. I didnt have to worry about that, he admitted. He
took me under his wing, you know, taught me really everything I have done
through my whole career in that role. The teaching took several forms. Wal-
ter shared with Uppman his theory that Die Zauberflte was Mozarts last
will and testament and that Papageno represented the pleasure-loving side
of Mozarts personality. As with Hines, Walter sometimes worked with Upp-
man away from the others. He discussed phrasing and elaborated on the
text, which he cherished even in its English version. When the suggestion
was made to change the translation of Ein Mdchen oder Weibchen, for
example, Walter insisted on keeping it as A sweetheart or a maiden is Pa-
pagenos plea. He loved those words; he thought they were just right,
Uppman noted. In that aria, Walter told him, most Papagenos forget that
they have had wine to drink, and they are very sleepy. . . . You must start the
first verse almost asleep. But then, Uppman added, Papageno begins to
wake up, although hes maybe still taking a drink of that wine, he still wakes
up a little bit more in the second verse; and finally, by the third verse, of
course, hes searching for Papagena, and hes all over the stage. . . . I dont
think there are very many Papagenos who do it that way. In actual perfor-
mance Uppman, like William Warfield and Lopold Simoneau, found Wal-
ters facial expressions especially valuable and instructive. I cant tell you
how much at home I felt with him. His face was so expressive always. If I
looked at him, I knew exactly what to do. And Im sure you would hear this
from anyone else who had appeared with him in the production. Walter
himself had only the highest regard for Uppman as Papageno: Believe me,
our collaboration in Mozarts The Magic Flute was a source of rare artistic
M M

and, at the same time, personal satisfaction to me and I shall cherish its mem-
ory. I am sure Mozart would have loved your way of interpretingI prefer to
say, of beingPapageno. You brought not only your voice and your talent,
but also your heart into your task and hereby could fulfill the demands of this
eternal creation of Mozart.36
Walter took an active interest in the direction of the drama as well as in
the musical side of the opera. This had been true in Munich, Berlin, and Vi-
enna, and remained so in New York. Anne Polzer, an Austrian migre who
was then a reporter for Aufbau, a German-language newspaper based in
New York, attended a rehearsal of the Met Zauberflte in and was struck
by Walters ability to breathe life into the action onstage when he rehearsed
the Three Ladies in the opening scene. When the rehearsal began, she
wrote, their performance was heavy, dull and lifeless, without any charm
whatsoever. Yet by pointing out, in an almost fatherly way, how they
should alter their approach to the parts and suggesting new ideals to strive
for, he managed to effect a dramatic transformation: After half an hour the
scene had become weightless, floating on the waves of Mozarts ravishing
music.37
Bruno Walter came to Die Zauberflte with a long-held reputation as
one of the worlds greatest interpreters of Mozart, and the young singers ea-
gerly looked to him for guidance. They had been taught to interpret Mozart
strictly, but Walter surprised them with what they considered a romantic
approach. Jerome Hines found this Mozart refreshingly iconoclastic:
We were made very much aware that one does not play around with
Mozart; I mean otherwise it sounds like Rossini. Youve got to do
absolutely everything as written. . . . So when Bruno Walter came
to do Magic Flute, we were all anticipating what he was going to do.
I have never heard such romanticism of Mozart; he took any liberty
that he felt made good sense. And I kept looking at all the coaches
and saying [to myself], Now why dont you tell him hes wrong?
And they were all there in the position of: Salaam! Salaam! . . .
When he came to do Mozart,every coach in the place was on his
knees before him. And I just got such delight out of the fact that he
was doing everything they told us not to do.But he did it in consum-
mate good musical taste, and Mozart came alive for me for the first
time. It wasnt some kind of a metronomic experience; it was living
Mozart, which Im sure Mozart would have been delighted with.38

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Despite the preponderance of Mozart on Walters programs in , other
composers also demanded his attention. In March he entered the recording
studio for sessions devoted to the music of Johann Strauss Jr., played by the
Columbia Symphony Orchestra in New York.39 One of the most famous
waltzes, Gschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna
Woods), includes a part for zither, not an instrument found in the average
orchestra. Loren Glickman, the contractor, scoured the restaurants in
Yorkville, then the German section of New York City, and found a talented
musician who entertained the clientele by playing the zither. Glickman ap-
proached him, made sure he was a union musician, and hired him for the
recording.
Everything seemed set to go. At the recording session, however, a prob-
lem arose. The introduction began, and when it came time for the zither to
play, there was absolutely no coordination between his playing and Walters
conducting. Anxious, Glickman had a word with the wayward musician, ad-
vising him to follow Walters beat.
Youve played in orchestras before? Glickman asked hopefully.
No. This unnerving information was followed by the equally unset-
tling news that he couldnt read music.
Lets take a break, everybody, Glickman called out. He approached
Walter and said, Maestro, this man knows the music, but he doesnt know
how to read music, so maybe you could tell him the tempo that you want.
Walter happily agreed. And he got together with him and explained
how he wanted it done, Glickman recounted. After that it was perfect. The
man knew how to start on the downbeat; then he never looked up again, but
he played the way Walter asked him to play. And after that, it was a dream.40
One of the other major non-Mozartian works that Walter presented in
was of a very different order from the waltzes of Strauss: Bruckners
Ninth, which Walter performed with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. It
was a special concert, commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of Bruck-
ners death, and took place on or around July in Enns, near the composers
birthplace. When asked how much money he would want for conducting
the orchestra, Walter waived his fee: It is a pleasure to me, he wrote to an
astonished Fritz Rauch of the Brucknerbund in Linz, to be able to conduct
Bruckner in the land of Bruckner.41
Later in the year Walter conducted a few concerts of standard repertoire
with the Los Angeles Philharmonicat the Hollywood Bowl in August and
at Philharmonic Auditorium in November, where he opened the season. He
M M

was almost as much an institution at that West Coast Philharmonic as he was
in New York, where his advice was still highly valued. In April he had
made some frank suggestions about conductors the New York Philharmonic
should consider hiring in the coming season: It seems to me best to keep
the valuable services of Dimitri Mitropoulos, even be it for a shorter period,
and to include Karajan (a must in view of his exceptional talent, reputation
and success), Bernstein (a very gifted American conductor), Cantelli (a
genuine and all-around musician with full command of the orchestra),
and either Previtali (an excellent musician, conductor and a noble person-
ality) or Giulini (also a highly gifted conductor, and at the same time a per-
sonality of high standing).42
For all his closeness to the New York Philharmonic, though, he felt that
the time had come for him to end his regular guest appearances with the or-
chestra after the season. He confided to Zirato (now managing di-
rector of the Philharmonic) that, for many years, I always looked forward
with joy and happy anticipation to my rehearsals and concerts with my
friends of the Philharmonic Orchestra. This time, however, I feel the hour
has struck for me to discontinue an activity which has meant so much to me.
His eighty years had become a burden, and he preferred to leave of his own
volition before being compelled to do so by age and infirmity.43
In the same month Walter rejected another offer that many will wish he
had accepted. The composer Mario Labroca asked whether Walter would
be interested in conducting a performance of Glucks Orfeo for RAI Televi-
sion.44 Margareta Wallmann, who had worked with Walter on a highly suc-
cessful production of Orfeo in Salzburg, would also be involved. It seemed
like an ideal arrangement, and Walter confessed that the project piqued his
interest. It was a work that Walter was famous for, and posterity would surely
have cherished a television production. In the end, however, despite his
great respect for Wallmann, he felt that the special demands of Glucks
opera could never be met within the limited dimensions of a Television
performance. Glucks Orpheus calls for masses, for wide spaces, and he
could not compromise in such indispensable demands of so sublime a
work.45
But other media engaged Walters participation more readily. One pro-
ject released in was an LP devoted to an interview with Walter by
Arnold Michaelis. Long a Walter enthusiast, Michaelis had already inter-
viewed the conductor in May for the New York radio station WQXR.

M M

Goddard Lieberson, who had heard the interview, was impressed enough to
offer Michaelis a job at Columbia Masterworks, where he would produce
several recordings. The new interview was originally meant to furnish
minute-long radio spots promoting Walters records on Columbia as part of
his eightieth-birthday celebrations. It presents Walter giving relatively unre-
hearsed responses to questions on his long careerhis relationship with
Mahler, his affection for the music of Mozart and Bruckner, his early days in
Vienna, and so forth. This was an unusual format for Walter, who ordinarily
avoided spontaneous interviews, preferring to read prepared responses and
statements. (At one point, despite his elevated use of English, he uses the
German Brcke instead of the English word bridge.) After hearing the new
interview, the marketing department decided that it should be issued as an
LP, which was eventually called Bruno Walter in Conversation with Arnold
Michaelis.46
There were other birthday honors as well. Lotte Lehmann composed
a long panegyric entitled Bruno Walter: The Musician and the Man, and
Columbia put together a promotional record of short tributes for circula-
tion among radio stations, similar to the collection assembled for Walters
seventy-seventh birthday and including several of the same items as well as
new contributions from Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Rose, John Corigli-
ano, William Warfield, Jennie Tourel, and Goddard Lieberson.47 In Europe
as well as America, radio programs celebrated Walters birthday with special
broadcasts. Perhaps Walters friend Arturo Toscanini heard one of them, or
one of the records issued about that time, for on September , , he ca-
bled a congratulatory telegram to Walter from New York: I was moved by
your beautiful performance of the symphonies, he wrote in Italian; I em-
brace you with much affection.48 Though the symphonies in question are
not specified, Toscanini was probably referring to Walters record of
Mozarts Jupiter Symphony coupled with no. , performed by the New
York Philharmonic, which was issued in September .49
So much for the viewstill widely maintainedthat Toscanini hated
Walters conducting. In fact, the two remained friends until Toscaninis
death, which was not far off. The Italian maestros ninetieth birthday would
have occurred on March , , and the Symphony of the Air (the orches-
tra that had once been the NBC Symphony Orchestra, newly named after
Toscaninis retirement) planned to celebrate the occasion with an all-star
cast of conductors. The chairman of the orchestra naturally invited Walter,

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as well as Munch, Monteux, Ormandy, Cantelli, and Stokowski. Walter
happily agreed to conduct, reserving the Prelude to Die Meistersinger for
himself and sending his greeting to The Orchestra that Refused to Die.50
But the concert didnt take place as planned. Toscanini died on January
, , and Walter now received a grim new invitationto be a pallbearer
for the funeral at St. Patricks Cathedral in New Yorkan honor that his
weakened constitution must have prevented him from accepting.51 Walter
prepared a short but powerful tribute to his lost friend:
I am too deeply shocked by the passing of my dear and revered
friend Arturo Toscanini to find adequate words for the statement I
have been asked for. . . . Trying to touch on the secret of the unique
force that emanated from Arturo Toscanini over his singers and
musicians, over his audiences, over the whole musical world I be-
lieve to have found it in the rare combination of deep humility with
a dictatorial willpower. Great was his humility towards the musical
works and composers he interpreted and just as great the dynamic
strength by which he forced his singers and musicians to perform
those works according to his intentions. His ideals dominated his
musical life and he dominated in their service his collaborators. In
him was greatness and I am sure the memory of his glorious activi-
ties in the fields of dramatic and absolute music will live on in the
hearts of all of us.52
The Symphony of the Air did give its concert for Toscanini, but instead of
celebrating a long-lived colleague, the musicians offered a memorial tribute,
led by Walter, Munch, and Monteux at Carnegie Hall on February , .
Walters original choice of the jubilant Meistersinger Prelude ceded its place
to the Eroica, a more appropriate piece to commemorate the fallen titan,
with its heroic first movement, its solemn Funeral March, and its life-
affirming Scherzo and Finale.53 The performance, issued on compact disc,
has much of the drive one associates with Toscanini, and one longtime ad-
mirer of Walters, Rolland Parker, who attended the concert, later wrote to
ask whether it was possible that in matters of tempo and rhythm there was a
resemblance to Toscaninis style. Characteristically, Walter not only
thanked Parker for his letter but also took the trouble to answer his question
regarding style: I do not know of any change in my interpretative intentions
on this occasion and I presume your impression may be explained by the
fact that it was an orchestra which had played the same work under Tosca-
M M

nini for many years.54 In fact, the Toscaninian element in the performance
is plain for anyone to hear, and being informed that the orchestra was still
perceptibly playing for the old man might have brought back memories of
an orchestra not always willing to mold itself to Walters wishes. When a
guest conductor took over at the podium, as the violinist Felix Galimir con-
fessed, sometimes the members of the NBC orchestra did not even watch
whatever he was doing, and it was clear that Toscaninis presence was felt
by the players even when he was not physically there.55
With illness and death claiming his friends and his own health ailing,
Walter was no doubt particularly aware of his own mortality. By January ,
, he had made out his will, leaving about a quarter of his estate (or the
sum of $,, whichever was the lesser amount) to Delia Reinhardt and
the remainder to his daughter. His timing would prove providential.
The New York Philharmonic enjoyed his leadership again during Feb-
ruary, when he performed (among other works) Bruckners Ninth, Beet-
hovens Sixth, and Mahlers Resurrection Symphony with the contralto
Maureen Forrester and the soprano Maria Stader as soloists. The young
Canadian Maureen Forrester had had a successful audition in New York and
recalled Walters insistence that she come to California to go over the part
with hima proposition that Forrester, then strapped for money, heard with
some uneasiness.Now if you know the Mahler Second,she remarked,its
not a very big piece to sing. But everybody was so excited in Montreal when
they heard I was supposed to do it with Bruno Walter that I finally got
enough money to go. I worked with him. He just went through it a couple of
times with me and said, Thats going to be wonderful, and I flew back.56 A
recording session for the Resurrection began at that time, though the final
sessions would be postponed for a year.
On March , , Walter conducted the first performance of Die Zau-
berflte for the season. For Theodor Uppman and his family the
performance proved a memorable experience. After the opera, as the Upp-
mans drove to their home in Roslyn, New York, admiring the snow that had
recently fallen and gazing up at the now limpid sky, the night continued to
seem enchanted. Theodor Uppman vividly recalled the event: We got
home . . . Jean and the kids went in, and I was putting the car away, and I
looked up suddenly, and there were the Northern Lights, which happen very
seldom here, and it was a spectacular display, it was just flashing all over, and
so I called to Jean, Margot, and Michael and said, Youve got to see this. We
brought chairs into the back yard and sat down with the snow all around us,
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watching these lights. Boy, what an end to a perfect evening.57 That night,
however, marked the last operatic performance that Walter ever conducted.
On March , twelve days before a scheduled black-tie celebration in
his honor, arranged jointly by the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Phil-
harmonic, CBS Radio, and Columbia Recordshe suffered a heart attack,
which forced him to withdraw completely from the demands of the stage and
to restrict his musical activities to the concert hall and the recording studio.

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Columbia Symphony Orchestra

Los Angeles,

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Something of me will remain after I have gone.

Bruno Walter to Albert Goldberg in

The heart attack itself, Walter commented to Katia and Erika

Mann, was, judged objectively, mild (though subjectively un-
mild); the time in the hospital, a practical lesson in patience; the
return to our home, a relief.1 He had been taken to Flower and
Fifth Avenue Hospitals in Manhattan after the attack and felt
greatly relieved to be back in Beverly Hills the following month.
Mild or unmild, the heart attack forced him to cancel his profes-
sional activities for the rest of the year, much to the dismay of
agents who had already counted on sold-out houses through Wal-
ters participation in their concerts. Finding comfort in a motor-
ized chair that carried him up and down stairs, Walter relaxed and
improved steadily; by July he happily reported to Bruno Zirato
that he was taking long walks to the ocean every afternoon.2 Nev-
ertheless,his condition was not good,and later in the same year he
suffered another blow to his health, though its unclear whether
this was another heart attack.3 In December Walter wrote in con-
fidence to Stresemann that his health had endured something
quite serious (for the second time this year)so he probably
had a second heart attack, Stresemann surmised, but it must

have been milder than the other one.4 Walters precarious health put him in
an awkward position. On the one hand, he wanted people to know that he
craved and needed relaxation; on the other, he no doubt feared that his fu-
ture professional activities would be jeopardized if his health were seen as
dangerously frail.
If Walter was ailing through most of , many of his longtime friends
fared far worse. He had already lost Toscanini in January, and on May Ezio
Pinza died, that quintessential Don Giovanni who had shone in Walters
productions at Salzburg and the Met, the man with whom Walters daughter
Gretel had haplessly fallen in love. Emil Schipper, another singer who had
worked with Walter on countless productions in Munich and Berlin, passed
away on July . Perhaps more of a shock, however, was the death of Erich
Korngold on November , at the age of sixty. The boy who had astonished
Mahler and his contemporaries early in the century, having reached matu-
rity, wound up writing sound tracks for Hollywood classics, never regaining
the respect from the classical world that had once showered praise so boun-
tifully upon him.
The enforced period of relaxation gave Walter more time to spend with
Delia,who continued to devote her creative energy to painting.Alma Mahler
Werfel sent kind words to Delia about one of her paintings, and Walter wrote
to thank Alma for her praise, which had brought them both happiness.5 As
before, Walter and Reinhardt continued to read works by Steiner and his fol-
lowers, and Walter maintained his correspondence with anthroposophists
like Albert Steffen, Emil Bock, and Friedrich Hiebel. With the appearance of
the German edition of Walters latest book in the latter part of , the con-
ductors allegiance to anthroposophy was made public. There is no part of
my spiritual self, he wrote in his afterword to Of Music and Music-Making,
to which the sublime teachings of Rudolf Steiner have not vouchsafed new
light and definite advancement.6 More and more, Walters anthroposophi-
cal leanings would express themselves in his public and private writings. In
a preface to a collection of essays to be published by the Bruckner Society in
Italy, for example, Walter barely disguised his Steinerian Weltanschauung:
As a result of my lifelong occupation with Bruckner I am audacious enough
to express the opinion that he has lived on this earth already, not in the
sphere of Time but of Eternity. . . . Bruckners music is a bridge to trans-
cendental regions and only those longing for higher spheres will respond to
the apostolic calls sounding forth from his work.7 Reincarnation, knowl-
edge from higher spheresthese ideas could have come directly from
C S O

Steiner (though Walter himself had long written of higher spheres of
knowledge). Walter also ventured so far as to suggest that Mahler would have
been attracted to Steiners teachings: Mahler, he wrote to one correspon-
dent, was a seeker with a deeply religious disposition that most surely
would have been brought gratification through contact with Rudolf Steiner,
had fate brought them together.8
Largely in response to the epilogue concluding Of Music and Music-
Making, the anthroposophist Emil Bock, whose works Walter had read for
years, wrote a biographical essay on the conductor for the anthroposophical
periodical Christengemeinschaft. Bock had in fact known and admired Wal-
ter as a conductor for years; in the s hed heard Glucks Orfeo at the
Stdtische Oper in Berlin and a Bruckner concert at the Gewandhaus under
Walter. Having been informed that Walter read his books, and having finally
met him in when he came to conduct at the Goetheanum, Bock wrote a
congratulatory letter to the conductor on his eightieth birthday. Bock was
stunned when, shortly afterward, he received a long, handwritten thank-you
letter from Walter, who informed the author that he and Delia had read
Bocks works on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the Apostle
Paul, and were now reading his book on the Apocalypse for the second
time.9 A steady correspondence ensued. When Walter read Bocks bio-
graphical essay in , he was particularly pleased with a passage in which
the author described Walters Christianity as faith that had come from
within, during his miserable tenure in Pressburg (six decades before), when
he had been led to near-suicidal despair.10 Though Walter had claimed, in
the passage cited by Bock, that he was never to lose his faith in Christen-
dom after plunging to his spiritual nadir in Pressburg, his very concept of
Christ must have changed substantially if he subscribed to Steiners view of
Jesus as a historical figure who had been visited by the spirit that had once
inhabited Moses and Zoroaster.
Not everyone was pleased with Walters newfound enthusiasm for
Steiner. The distinguished American publishing house Alfred A. Knopf,
which published Theme and Variations and the revised translation of Gus-
tav Mahler, would not undertake the English edition of Walters new book
so long as Walter insisted on retaining the last chapter (by which was
surely meant the anthroposophical epilogue). Perhaps Knopf was looking
for an excuse not to work with Walter again; the translation headaches in-
volved with the Mahler biography had proved frustrating to Herbert Wein-
stock, Walters editor at Knopf and himself the author of several books on
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musical topics. In any case, Walter refused to strike the epilogue, and the
book eventually went to W. W. Norton, another prestigious publisher.11
Much of the negotiation for the English translation of the new book was
handled by Maria Horch, Walters literary agent and the widow of Franz
Horch, who had held the same position for most of the s. Walter, how-
ever, still saw to many of his business transactions, even during his convales-
cence. Shortly after suffering his heart attack he received a note from the fi-
nancially strapped London Philharmonic, which owed him and
pleaded for patience. Walter cabled back that he gladly waived his fee and
would have let the matter drop there.12 But on April another letter issued
from the London Philharmonic, promising payment soon. Walter again gra-
ciously waived his fee: I refer you to my telegram in which I told the Lon-
don Philharmonic Orchestra that I did not make any claim on your check in
payment of my account. It is a pleasure for me to waive any right of such
kind.13
The London Philharmonic had been fortunate enough to enjoy a trans-
atlantic visit from Walter before his illness had compelled him to cancel his
commitments in Europe. One of the many Europeans who had hoped to
present Walter in was Herbert von Karajan, who became artistic direc-
tor of the Salzburg Festival that year. Though particularly saddened that
Walter would not be there during his first year as director, Karajan wrote that
he would try to lead the festival in the spirit that Walter had given it, a spirit
that had been a continual model for Karajan since their first meeting.14 The
relationship between these two extraordinarily different musical inter-
preters, who belonged to opposite sides during the war, is hard to gauge. In
the s Karajanwhether for political or professional reasons (or both)
joined the Nazi Party, and Walter was certainly aware of Karajans outward
allegiance to the Third Reich. In he wrote to Bruno Zirato that, as far as
he knew, Karajan really [had been] a Nazi, unlike Furtwngler.15 Yet, ap-
parently unswayed by political motivations, Walter strongly recommended
Karajan in for guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic,
while knowing perfectly well that the engagement might involve some diffi-
culties.16 A few months before his death, Walter characterized Karajan as
ein seltsamer Mann, an ambiguous phrase that could mean either a pecu-
liar man or a singular man.17
Having been forced, after his heart attack, to cancel his remaining per-
formances for , Walter conducted only a handful of concerts in , the
first of which took place on February . It was a pension fund concert with
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the New York Philharmonic, and the printed program reproduced in fac-
simile the evenings musical menu in Walters now shaky handwriting. The
works were old friends: the Leonore Overture no. , Mozarts Linz
Symphony, Wagners Sieg fried Idyll, and Schuberts Unfinished. Accord-
ing to Harriet Johnson, there was no evidence that Walter had suffered a
heart attack a year before, and the audience response was predictably enthu-
siastic: The entire house rose when he came on-stage to open the concert.
The listeners remained to cheer him at every possible opportunity.18
No piece on the New York program was especially long, and Walter was
careful not to overtax himself with pieces that would put him under exces-
sive strain. In the middle of March, however, he gave two performances of
Schuberts Unfinished and Mozarts Requiem in Chicago. In choosing
the Requiem, which demands sustained concentration on the orchestra,
soloists, and chorus for roughly an hour, Walter was perhaps testing himself,
to see how much music he could perform without overburdening his consti-
tution. As he remarked to Bruno Zirato in September , the programs
that included the Mozart Requiem would not make demands with which
[he] could not cope.19 Nevertheless, he apparently took things gently in
Chicago. He seemed to want everything very soft in the Mozart Requiem,
David Lloyd, the tenor, noted. The fine quartet of soloists on this occasion
consisted of Maria Stader, Maureen Forrester, Lloyd, and Otto Edelmann,
with the two female soloists making an amusing picture onstage: the diminu-
tive Maria Stader stood beside the towering Maureen Forrester, then in an
advanced stage of pregnancy. To make the discrepancy in their appear-
ance less striking, Walter placed Stader on a platform.20
If the concerts in Chicago showed Walter testing his stamina, his choice
of Bruckners Romantic for performances in Los Angeles and San Fran-
cisco in April and May might well have been a further test. Unlike Mozarts
Requiem, Bruckners hour-long symphony has fewer places to pause for re-
grouping ones forces. It is perhaps indicative of Walters mental preoccupa-
tions at this time that he chose, for the second half of his Los Angeles con-
certs on April and , Mozarts Masonic Funeral Music and Strausss Tod
und Verklrung. Walter, as T. S. Eliot might have phrased it, was much pos-
sessed by death.
Walters last and, in some ways, most important public engagement in
was the inaugural concert of the Vancouver International Festival, given
on July . The festival offered not only classical music but also jazz, dance,
and even a performance by the renowned French mime Marcel Marceau.
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Walter opened the festivities with Webers overture to Euryanthe, Schu-
berts Unfinished, and two works by Brahms: the Alt-Rhapsodie with
Maureen Forrester (the alto soloist on his new recording of Mahlers Res-
urrection) and the Second Symphony. The great Czech-born pianist
Rudolf Firkusny was then in Vancouver and found the performance of his
sometime colleague a great inspiration. For his part, Walter was delighted
to renew his acquaintance with a musician whose collaboration he had en-
joyed in the past.21
One of the happiest results of Walters participation in the festival is the
hour-long television documentary that the Canadian Broadcasting Com-
pany made of Walter rehearsing the orchestra in the first and last movements
of Brahmss Second.22 Offering the longest video footage of Walter in action
(and including a lengthy interview between Walter and Albert Goldberg,
music critic for the Los Angeles Times), it is an invaluable record of the con-
ductors wizardry. According to the voice-over introduction, Walter was
meeting the orchestra for the first time. The ensemble was, to quote one con-
temporary report, well below top quality, though a few ringers were added
to the core players.23 In literally a matter of minutes, he transforms ragged
note-reading into sensitive music-making. Animated, attentive, utterly aware
of the sounds surrounding him, a constant twinkle in his eye, he gives no in-
dication of having recently sustained a life-threatening blow to his health.
Hardly glancing at the score, with every detail of the piece obviously
mapped out in his mind, he adjusts balances (Woodwinds, very piano; it
was far too loud), articulation (Not too staccato . . . otherwise it gets very
hard), dynamics (Shhh! Disappear!), bowing (This phrase on the
frog), and phrasing (Always with espressivo, and at the end a diminu-
endo)all this with dazzling speed and assurance. He constantly urges the
players to sing and inflect, with a politeness verging on the courtly.
While in Vancouver, when his free time must have been at a premium,
Walter was kind enough to read through a cello concerto by Ernst Fried-
lander, one of the musicians who played under him; the conductor later
claimed to be much impressed with its original musical language and pre-
dicted that the cellists colleagues would welcome this work.24
The trip had a certain therapeutic value for Walter. He enjoyed the
beautiful natural surroundings, and if he had earlier maintained doubts
about his stamina, the concert apparently brought him renewed confidence
in his powers. The music-making there, he wrote to Wolfgang Stresemann
shortly afterward, filled me with happiness, as did the magnificent land-
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scape of British Columbia, and I also noted with pleasure that conducting
hasnt yet become excessively taxing for me.25
Despite his light schedule of performances before the public, Walter
had been quite active musically in the earlier part of , though his perfor-
mances took place not on the concert stage but in the recording studio.
Throughout January and for a substantial portion of February, Walter began
a series of recordings with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The idea of
putting together a recording orchestra for Walter had been proposed the
previous summer, as John McClure, the young producer for many of those
recordings, has described. Walter was then recuperating in Palm Springs,
taking the sun in the manner of an older European generation: with top-
coat, scarf, and cloth cap against the muscular desert heat. Discovering that
Walter was recovering rapidly, McClure asked him if he were disposed to
begin a large recording project using a new process called stereo. He
pointed out that the new process was not only an advance in the recording
art,but also an eventual threat to already existing records.26 Though Walter
was apparently unimpressed by the threat, he agreed to go along with the
project, provided that a recording venue could be found near his home in
Beverly Hills.
That desideratum was discovered in a most unlikely place: an unsightly
concrete structure built in the s as a meeting place for the American
Legion, which astonishingly, according to McClure, turned out to be ideal
on every point. Well, almost every point. The orchestra had to be reduced
somewhat, especially in the strings, as a result of the size and resonance of
the hall. The sessions, averaging three hours each with several breaks to
hear playbacks, allowed [Walter] to complete even the most turbulent move-
ments of Mahler without suffering excessive fatigue.27
Those first sessions were devoted to new readings of some of the Beetho-
ven symphonies, and a performance from those sessions became one of Wal-
ters best-loved recordings, that of the Pastoral. For many this became the
quintessential Walter interpretationa moderate tempo, a gentle and ex-
pansive approach to the score, sensitive shaping of the lines, sensuous
orchestral playing. The Columbia Symphony Orchestra recordings were
often in this mold, though there were certainly some exceptions to the rule
such as the demonic finale to Brahmss Third Symphonyand, largely be-
cause of their excellent sound, they have become the legacy by which Walter
is mainly remembered. Despite their abundant virtues, however, these per-
formances record only the last phase of Walters long career; this is the
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beauty of Winterreise and Parsifal rather than Die schne Mllerin and Meis-
tersinger.
Though initially unimpressed by the threat that stereo sound posed
to his monaural recordings, Walter was grateful to have one more chance to
add to his legacy. Nevertheless, he was not overjoyed with the idea of re-
recording all the Austro-German classics that he had committed to disks just
a few years before. With evident anxiety he asked his East Coast producer,
David Oppenheim, about the fate of his recordings with the New York Phil-
harmonic: Will our whole work over the last years,Mozart,Haydn, Strauss,
etc.will they have to be thrown into the ashcan because they are depreci-
ated by the stereophonic method of today? Would it not be a waste of pre-
cious time and strength to remake for instance those works of Brahms (to
whose Third Symphony I listened yesterday with satisfaction)? Do you not
prefer to use January and February for increasing our repertoire, instead of
decreasing it by depreciating our former records of Brahms and implicitly
many records of the same vintage? I think in this way we would have con-
demned our whole former work to obsolescence. How could I, at my age,
ever hope to make up for such a loss?28 Some have felt that Walter, in his fi-
nal years, unimaginatively stuck with the same repertoire that he had
recorded in the recent past, but its worth bearing in mind that the choice of
repertoire was not always his to make, and he was certainly interested in
recording pieces he hadnt yet committed to disk. In , with less than a
year to live, Walter made a list of several projects he hoped to complete with
the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, some of the more mouth-watering (and
heart-breaking) of which were Mahlers Third, Bruckners Eighth, the four
Schumann symphonies, and Mendelssohns Scottish Symphony. Several
of these have not come down to us in any form, not even a scratchy acetate
made from a poor broadcast signal. Yet Walters plans were as realistic as
they were ambitious: Of course, we shall be lucky, he commented prophet-
ically, if I could finish this repertoire in my th year.29
Walter also finished a recording project with the New York Philhar-
monic in February, one that had been interrupted by his heart attack the pre-
vious year. He declined an invitation to conduct Mahlers Second in concert
with the orchestra, maintaining that the piece would be too taxing for him to
perform live: There are very few works of the concert repertoire which de-
mand as much strength as such a Mahler Symphony, and I think I have to re-
nounce efforts of this kind. But studio work was another matter: Two
movements are already on record, so we have to take only the three remain-
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ing ones and I think we will do it in two sessions, which will make all the dif-
ference in the world.30 As with the recording of the First Symphony, Walter
agreed to write the liner notes, in which he urged the listeneras he had
done so many years before in connection with the Third and Fourth sym-
phonies of Mahlerto approach the purely instrumental movements as
symphonic (rather than programmatic) music before he discussed the re-
lations between text and music in the last two movements.
Quite apart from recording projects, Mahler continued to loom large in
Walters life. Erwin Ratz, one of the most prominent editors of Mahlers
works and a key member of the Mahler Gesellschaft in Vienna, corre-
sponded with Walter on a number of issues related to the composer. A point
of contention arose over a biographical essay on Mahler in which Ratz dis-
cussed Mahlers connection with the Schoenberg circle. To Walter, Ratz
seemed to be suggesting that Mahlers polyphony influenced the atonal ex-
periments of the Second Viennese School. Always sensitive to this argu-
ment, Walter refused to endorse what Ratz had written, referring him to pas-
sages in his own writings that expressed his hostility to atonality and the
twelve-tone technique, as well as his feeling that Mahlers art was in a very
different category from that of the atonalists.31 Ratz tried to appease Walter
by rephrasing his comments, but Walter still bristled at the vestigial implica-
tions. In the end, Ratz struck the passage from his essay; Walters approval,
Ratz felt, was more important than his own personal ideas on the matter.32
Walter, of course, was far from the only conductor to present Mahler to
the public in the s. Heinz Ungerlike Walter, one of the leading cham-
pions of Mahler in Berlin shortly before the events of was now in
Canada, conducting the York Concert Society. He had recently given a per-
formance of Mahlers Second and proudly sent Walter a newspaper review
of the concert. At the Grosse Appell in the last movement, where the cho-
rus sings Auferstehen (Arise), Unger thought he remembered Walter
having the chorus rise from their seats, as Unger himself had recently done.
Walter disabused Unger of this notion: I am in principle against all such ex-
tra-musical aids of material effects; [but] I can imagine, he added with due
sensitivity to Ungers feelings, that your idea was very effective.33
One more touching link with his mentor occurred at the end of .
Mahler made four piano rolls in for the company M. Welte und Shne,
preserving his readings of two songs, the last movement of the Fourth Sym-
phony, and the first movement of the Fifth. Despite some ragged playing,
these are extraordinary artifacts, being the only sound documents of
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Mahlers own interpretations of his works. As early as Alfred Ros
(Arnolds son and Gustav Mahlers nephew) had written to Walter about a
record made from the piano rolls, the playing on which he found so ner-
vous, clipped, and conductorly that he questioned their authenticity.
Though unfamiliar with the rolls, Walter wasnt surprised to hear Ross
comments; Mahler, after all, was not playing the piano regularly when he
made the rolls, and his playing was likely to be hard.34 Apparently Walter
did not follow up on the matter until , when he noticed that Columbia
had once issued the disk in question, though it was by then out of print. He
wrote to Goddard Lieberson in November in the hope of convincing
him to reissue the record. Lieberson explained that it included several other
early performances and that the public was rather apathetic toward these
historical curiosities, and therefore they were withdrawn from our cata-
logue. Nevertheless, he would run off test pressings for Walter, as well as for
Alma and her daughter Anna, at no charge.35 When Walter heard the
record, it must have brought back the golden days of those private recitals in
Hamburg, when Mahler would play his works in progress for his young pro-
tg. Listening to Mahlers playing was a deeply moving experience for
me, he wrote to Lieberson afterward, which awakened great memories.36
However hard and clipped the playing, Walter clearly enjoyed the illusion of
being in Mahlers presence again.
While he occasionally turned his glance backward, the world continued
to carry him forward, as the younger generation looked to him for guidance.
Already in February Walter had made contact with an up-and-coming
American piano virtuoso, Van Cliburn (then only twenty-three), who gained
international recognition that year by winning first prize in the Tchaikovsky
competition in Moscow. Walter was one of Cliburns heroes, and the young
pianist was drawn to the musical elder statesman not only for his interpretive
powers but also for his philosophical interests. In fact, Cliburn took a dis-
tinct interest in anthroposophy and sought Walters advice on whether or
not to make his interests public. (Walter characteristically advised against it.)
He also asked to study Brahmss Second Piano Concerto with Walter, which
the conductor happily agreed to.37 After the private lesson, Cliburn sent a
check to Walter for vouchsafing some of his precious time; Walter, re-
fusing any financial relation, returned the check.38 The following year
Cliburn expressed his strong desire to record the Second Piano Concerto
with Walter, but contractual restrictionsCliburn recorded for RCA Vic-
tor, not Columbiaprevented this desirable project from being realized.39
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In , however, the two would finally collaborate on the concerto, in Wal-
ters very last public concert.
Rare enough in , Walters public appearances were limited to three
events in . On March and he conducted the Los Angeles Philhar-
monic in a program consisting of the Midsummer Nights Dream Overture,
Haydns Symphony no. , and Schuberts Symphony no. . Songfulness
was the keynote of the conductors interpretation, Goldberg wrote of the
Schubert; even the climaxes were treated lyrically.40 The interpretation
must have been nearly identical to the broadly paced reading Walter had just
preserved with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. He returned in Novem-
ber to open the Los Angeles Philharmonics forty-first season,offering a pro-
gram that featured Bruckners Ninth, a work he recorded a few days later
with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (drawing heavily on members of
the Los Angeles Philharmonic). He was apparently still in good physical
form; Goldberg noted that for the opening-night concert Walter walked on
the stage with a vigor that belied his eighty-three years of life and more than
sixty years of distinguished service to the art of music.41 For the concerts
and the recording Walter presented the three-movement symphony in its
original scoring (as edited by Leopold Nowak), rejecting Lwes well-meant
and long-accepted tinkerings.42 When a fan who had enjoyed Walters
recording of the Ninth asked, in all innocence, whether any traces of a fourth
movement existed that could perhaps be worked up into a presentable
performing score, he unwittingly triggered a knee-jerk response:
Indeed, Bruckner has not completed his th Symphony, but
left sketches for a finale. I had the occasion to study them and they
only confirmed what I had always felt, that after such an adagio,
nothing could followsimilarly as is the case with Schuberts Sym-
phony in B minor. There is a power of musical and spiritual expres-
sion which cannot allow anything to follow.
I have also objected strongly to the completion and publication
of Mahlers th Symphony. Who could dare to continue where a
great master was compelled to leave incomplete one of his highest
works of art?
I hope I have made myself clear.43
As on other occasions, Walter revealed an uncongenial side of his personal-
ity when confronted with people who, in his view, felt they had the right to
tamper with works of genius. But it was a genuine reverence toward musical
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greatness, rather than disdain for music-lovers who wanted to squeeze one
or two more pieces from the legacy of their favorite composers, that elicited
such prickly words from him.
The other performance of , which took place earlier in the year, was
Walters farewell to the Metropolitan Opera. On March and , Good Fri-
day and Easter Sunday, Walter led the Met Orchestra and Chorus in Verdis
Requiem, preceded by the Convent Scene from Forza. He had given the
identical program in , thinking then that he was bidding the house
adieu. Ironically, when he came in , there was still negotiation on his
possible return the following year, but this really was to be his last perfor-
mance at the Met. The repertoire marked a departure from the Mets usual
practice of staging Parsifal on Good Friday, which Rudolf Bing claimed he
couldnt bear to see again.44 As for the soloists, Bing suggested Zinka Mi-
lanov, who had sung the part before under Walter; Rosalind Elias, who had a
bit part in Walters Flute and who had since made a name for herself in Bar-
bers Vanessa (Bing thought Walter might be able to help her as he had once
helped Kathleen Ferrier); Carlo Bergonzi, whom Bing recommended with-
out reservation; and either Cesare Siepi or Giorgio Tozzi, both of whom had
worked with Walter on earlier occasions. There was also a distinct possibil-
ity of recording the Requiem for RCA Victor, though Walter was far from
sanguine on that point: It seems more than improbable to me that Colum-
bia would lend me to the Victor Company.45 Eventually the soloists were
chosenMilanov, Elias, Bergonzi, and Tozziand in January Walter
asked Bing to inform the soloists that they were expected to know their parts
by heart.46 It was a requirement common enough from Walter, especially in
solemn works like the requiems of Mozart, Brahms, and Verdi. For three of
the four singers, Bing replied, Walters will would be done. Milanov, how-
ever, neither knew the part by heart nor could learn it in time for the concert,
because she was away on tour and would not have sufficient time to memo-
rize it on her return.47
That was perhaps an ill omen. For the Good Friday performance, Mi-
lanov was suddenly taken ill, and the soprano part went to Heidi Krall, who
had sung a small role in Walters Flute performances in and . On
Easter Sunday, Milanov sang the Convent Scene and took part in the Re-
quiem through the Dies Irae. Her voice showed noticeable strain on the
high notes in the Recordare and the Lacrimosa, and she collapsed near
the end of the movement, to be replaced again by Krall. Through it all,

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Walter kept the whole musical machine running smoothly, as a recording of
the broadcast shows. Rolland Parker, who attended both concerts, recalled
Walters coolly professional response to Milanovs collapse: the soprano
literally fainted on stage. I was watching Bruno Walter through powerful
binoculars, and he did not so much as blink an eyelash. Now, naturally he
must have been a little concerned when they were dragging off his soprano
in the middle of the Verdi Requiem in his ultimate performance with the
Metropolitan Opera, but he had very great composure.48
A very different eyewitness account came from a fellow conductor, a
man who had once assisted Walter during the s. Erich Leinsdorf, also
conducting at the Met in the season, attended the Good Friday
performance of the Requiem. His verdict was that Walter had grown too old
to be effective in a work like the Requiem, with its demanding choruses:
Age had taken physical vigor out of his arm and his beat was weak, Leins-
dorf recalled in the mid-s. Rarely have I perspired as much as I did
during that short afternoon. Many were the moments when it was touch and
go if the music would continue at all or break down in total chaos.49 Con-
temporary reviews, however, reported no such problems (Mr. Walter
brought to life the fervor and the piety, the drama and lovely gentleness of
Verdis score with incomparable artistry, wrote Paul Henry Lang, while
Howard Taubman noted how well the chorus and orchestra could perform
for the right maestro); nor does the recording of the Sunday broadcast
suggest that Walter was beyond delivering a coherent, powerful perfor-
mance. His impassioned grunts and often audible comments to the soloists
suggest a man fully engaged in the act of making music.50
Like many other off-the-air recordings, the taped performance of Verdis
Requiem preserves the only interpretation of a work that Walter had per-
formed many times throughout his career. Those interested in his develop-
ment can only be grateful that enthusiasts were capturing the performances
for posterity. But how did Walter himself feel about such air-checks? Did he
disapprove of them as he did the recordings of his rehearsal sessions? Ap-
parently not at all. When Douglas Duer of the Columbia Record Club wrote
that he was collecting air-checks of Walters radio performances for the Co-
lumbia Record Club, Walter gave the project his full blessing and said he
would be happy to meet Duer in New York.51 Although Walters attitude
might seem surprising (given his hostility to reissuing the live perfor-
mance of Mahlers Ninth), his eagerness to give permanence to what would

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otherwise be ephemeral activities corresponded to some of the most press-
ing concerns of his old age. He wanted to leave a legacy, and collecting
off-the-air performances was just one more way of adding to that legacy.
However much he wanted to record his active repertoire, there were
limits to what Walter would agree to commit to disk. When he heard early in
the year that Columbia had suggested a recording of light music ( Johann
Strauss Jr., Supp, and others), he promptly voiced his objections to the
plan: I am first of all an interpreter of our classical music, and I consider it
my lifes mission to contribute in this sense to our contemporaneous musical
life as long as destiny will permit me. . . . [I]t would hurt my feelings as well
as my prestige with our public if we filled the remaining sessions with light
literature, be it even as charming as Strauss or Supp. . . . Next Friday we
will already do Strauss Roses from the South and it is a depressing thought
for me to continue in the same vein.52 He wrote this letter as he was finish-
ing up one of the most penetrating and sublime recordings of his late period,
that of Brahmss Fourth Symphony, the first of his stereo cycle of the Brahms
symphonies.53 There is no indication in the paperwork at Columbia that
Walter ever recorded Roses from the Southwith the Columbia Symphony
Orchestra,and the relationship between Columbia and Walter seems to have
taken a turn for the better, since the remaining records Walter made were all
of substantial material and included performances of major works by Bee-
thoven, Bruckner, Dvork, Mahler, Mozart, Schubert, and Wagner.
David Oppenheim had responsibilities on the East Coast apart from his
work with Walter, so in August John McClure officially succeeded Oppen-
heim as Walters producer. The friendly relationship between the two men is
clear throughout their congenial correspondence. Although Walter felt un-
comfortable about offering, at McClures suggestion, a rehearsal session of
the Beethoven symphonies with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (it was
issued anyway), he was delighted when the new set of symphonies came out.
I received the Beethoven records, he wrote to McClure in October, and I
am deeply moved by this monumental effort of Columbia, which to a great
extent is your effort.54 He also thanked his old producer Goddard Lieber-
son, now president of Columbia Records, not only for the set but also for
having accepted the new relation between us. It is a wonderful experience
for me to have found such understanding of my situation.55
Although the Los Angelesbased Columbia Symphony Orchestra was
the ensemble for the new Beethoven cycle, one key movement in the set
the ever problematic finale to the Ninthwas taken by the New York pickup
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orchestra. Once again the conclusion had to be recorded separately from the
opening three movements. Walter was dissatisfied with the chorus in Cali-
fornia, so one day the contractor Loren Glickman received a call asking for
him to arrange a recording session in New York. It took place at the
St. George Hotel in Brooklyn Heights. I always thought that was a terrible,
terrible thing to put upon the public, Glickman commented, because
theyre buying an orchestra, and it turns out to be two completely different
orchestras.56

Though Walter had deliberately reduced his performing schedule to almost

nothing, orchestras continued to seek his services, and two offers proved too
tempting to refuse. One was to conduct in the first Mahler Festival given by
the New York Philharmonic during the season, commemorat-
ing, as the programs stated, the Hundredth Anniversary of Mahlers birth
and the Fiftieth Anniversary of his first season as Music Director of the New
York Philharmonic. Most of the conducting duties were divided between
the two leading Mahlerians of their generationsLeonard Bernstein, now
music director of the Philharmonic, and Dimitri Mitropoulos, a former mu-
sic director of the orchestrawith Walter taking part in a single work.
Though eager to participate in a celebration of his friend and mentors work,
Walter harbored doubts about spending the coldest part of the year in New
York (the bulk of the festival would take place in January and February);
could the Philharmonic, he asked, extend the Mahler Festival until April?
There were also questions about the repertoire. Walter suggested Mahlers
Fourth, since he didnt feel up to the longer and more strenuous works.57
In the end the festival was indeed extended to April, leaving an awkward
two-month gap between the penultimate concert and the conclusion to the
series, and Walter performed not the Fourth but Das Lied von der Erde.
The second offer that Walter accepted also involved his old mentor.The
hundredth anniversary of Mahlers birth was to be celebrated in Vienna as
well as in New York, not with a full-fledged cycle but with a healthy sampling
of Mahlers works spread throughout the Vienna Festival Weeks in May and
June . No one was better suited to launch the festival than Walter, and as
early as March Rudolf Gamsjger, of the Gesellschaft der Musik-
freunde in Vienna, asked the conductor if he would be able to participate.
Not surprisingly, Walter wanted to perform Das Lied, a work he had pre-
miered, also a work that he was scheduled to conduct with the New York
Philharmonic in the same season. Unfortunately, Herbert von Karajan had
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already claimed Mahlers symphonic song cycle, and Gamsjger could offer
only the Fourth or Second symphonies to Walter.58 Disappointed, Walter
delicately suggested that, owing to the atmosphere of sympathy between
himself and Karajan, it might be possible to ask him to change his program:
Perhaps you can let him know of the particularly deep personal meaning
that Das Lied von der Erde has for me, as well as the sense of farewell, which
is especially apt for one of my years, and convey my wish with my warmest
regards. But Gamsjger could not offer Walter what he wanted. Already a
formidable personage in the musical world, Karajan would be gaining even
more power in the years to come, and Gamsjger doubtless had no desire to
get on his bad side.He urged Walter to conduct the Fourth,so loved in Vienna,
and Walter somewhat grudgingly consented.59 (As late as October, however,
Walter was still inquiring whether Karajan was definitely scheduled to con-
duct Das Lied.60) Perhaps Karajan felt a twinge of remorse at having wrested
from Walters hands a work that the old master virtually owned, for in August
Baron Heinrich Puthon of the Salzburg Festival invited Walter to conduct a
program of his choice at the new Festspielhaus for the next Salzburg Festival,
which, Puthon made sure to mention, was under the artistic direction of
Karajan, who sent his best regards.61 Walter appreciated the gesture but felt
that adding the Salzburg engagement would overtax his system.
While Mahlers presence was still very much in the air, the ghost of one
of Mahlers greatest contemporaries, Richard Strauss, also continued to
haunt Walter. Strauss, who died in , had not reestablished contact with
Walter after World War II, and well before the war years Walter had ex-
pressed reservations about Strausss music and his personality. Yet Strauss,
as Walter was fully aware, had helped him on a number of occasions. Al-
though Walter often performed Strausss music throughout his career, its
unclear how far he truly admired it. Even in his autobiography there are
hints that Walters old aversion to Strausss music had not quite disap-
peared. When describing a concert in which Strauss himself conducted
Tod und Verklrung for the Berlin Philharmonic premiere, Walter, who was
present, recalled feeling perplexingly overwhelmed by it; but in spite of
the intoxicating splendor of the orchestration and the dramatic force of the
conception I was excited and disturbed rather than deeply moved and up-
lifted.62 He didnt add that he later came to regard the work as an incompa-
rable masterpiece, though he had performed it on countless occasions. The
impression remains of a piece that had never quite taken hold of his emo-
tions as, say, Mahlers works had done.
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 So it may have been with mixed feelings that Walter received a letter
from Alice Strauss, the composers daughter-in-law, who had found four-
teen letters pertaining to Walter and Strauss in the Richard Strauss Archive.
Walter was pleased to receive copies of the letters but regretted that he could
not reciprocate by sending copies from his own collection: All my letters
from the most revered master were lost in , and thereafter, of course, the
connections between us were broken off.63 Polite, but to the point: Walter
had lost much during the Nazi years, when he had been driven first out of
Germany, then out of Austria. No doubt he was still smarting at the thought
of the events of March , when Strauss agreed to take over the Berlin Phil-
harmonic concert that the Nazis had prevented Walter from conducting.
Yet Walter was capable of offering some highly favorable words about
Strauss as well. Earlier in Walter had contributed a fine eulogy to his
late colleague in a pamphlet published by the Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft:
All that I can say is that my frequent performances of his symphonic tone-
poems in my early years live in my grateful memory, that I count his dramatic
works among the most important events of my later activity in the theater,
and that, in retrospect, I am conscious of my ever growing admiration for the
expressive power and the richness of musical language as well as the mastery
of formal construction in those mighty works.64 Its hard to reconcile this
assessment of Strauss with other utterances, both private and public, that
Walter made about his music. And while Walter concluded his panegyric by
stating that he felt more strongly than ever the greatness of Strausss work,
that body of work never made an appearance on Walters final recordings
with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra; nor does any of it appear on the
list that he submitted in of pieces that he hoped someday to record in
stereo.65

In ,as in the previous year,only three occasions brought Walter onto the
concert platform, but would see his very last public performance. As
arranged in , Walter concluded the New York Philharmonics first
Mahler Festival with four performances of Das Lied von der Erde (preceded
by Schuberts Unfinished) in Carnegie Hall, on April , , , and ,
. His soloists were Maureen Forrester and the English tenor Richard
Lewis. He was also making his final recording with the New York Philhar-
monic at this time, entering the studio on two consecutive Mondays,April
and , to tape his only stereo recording of Das Lied. The soloists for this
project, however, were not Forrester and Lewis, who had recently recorded
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the work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner, but
Mildred Miller and Ernst Haefliger.
The newspapers universally praised the concerts at Carnegie Hall, and
a live recording of the performance on April shows Walter to have been
very much in control. As usual, he gave a passionate reading of the score and
had carefully worked out the details of phrasing with the soloists, though
Lewis and the orchestra fell momentarily out of synchronization at the be-
ginning of Der Trunkene im Frhling. Walter had been interested in using
Lewis for Das Lied as early as , when planning a performance of the
work in Paris. Kathleen Ferrier had recommended Lewis then, and Walter
felt that he could fully rely on her judgment.66 But scheduling conflicts
prevented Lewis from joining Walter on that occasion, and when, eight years
later, he did sing Das Lied with Walter, his voice showed noticeable strain in
the high notes of those notoriously difficult songs.
Forrester was, of course, a known quantity to Walter, since they had
worked together on Mahlers Second and Brahmss Alt-Rhapsodie. Having
asked after the first collaboration if she was familiar with Das Lied, he may
well have been making some mental notes for possible future perfor-
mances.67 In October he wrote to see if she could arrange a visit to his
house in Beverly Hills, to come to a full understanding with her on Das
Lied without the pressure of the New York musical climate.68 When they
met, he accompanied her at the piano, as was his custom, and discussed
mainly musical matters rather than approaches to the text (Now here I take
a bit of a pause, and then pick up the tempo69).
While planning the concerts with one alto and tenor,Walter had to make
the necessary preparations for a recording with another pair of soloists. The
tenor, Ernst Haefliger, was perhaps the most renowned student of Julius
Patzak, who had sung with Ferrier on Walters recording of Das Lied with
the Vienna Philharmonic in . (Haefliger heard Patzak sing Das Lied un-
der Walter at the Salzburg Festival in .) Like Richard Lewis, Haefliger
had been proposed for the Das Lied, but scheduling interfered. By
he had already made a recording of Das Lied with the Concertgebouw under
van Beinum, and Wolfgang Stresemann recommended the tenor to Walter
for his recording.70
Preparing for the recording was difficult for the soloists, who never had
a chance to rehearse with the orchestra. The week before the recording ses-
sion, Haefliger met with Walter in New York, and Walter again accompanied
at the piano. One entertaining comment of Walters that Haefliger found
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especially memorablethe kind of aperu that can suddenly bring a nebu-
lous aesthetic problem into sharp focusconcerned the mood of Das Trin-
klied vom Jammer der Erde, the first song in the sequence. You have to
sing about wine, Walter instructed, not about beer.71
When it came time to record, Walter lightened the orchestration in
places, using two horns instead of four (when the other two horns were sim-
ply doubling) to achieve a better balance between Haefligers light voice and
the large Mahlerian instrumental forces. Despite the absence of rehearsal,
the opening number went so smoothly that it was done in one take. Though
a lyric rather than a heroic tenor by nature, Haefliger deliberately darkened
the tone of his voice in the first song to create a more dramatic sound. The
other two tenor songs were recorded on the same day. Oddly enough, the
three songs for alto (or mezzo-soprano, in this case) were not to be recorded
during this session; in fact, Mildred Miller and Ernst Haefliger didnt even
meet each other on this occasion, though their joint effort was soon to be
available on one disk.
Mildred Miller at this time was known largely for her work at the Metro-
politan Opera in such roles as Cherubino and Carmen. She was familiar to a
wide audience through her appearances on television shows like the Voice of
Firestone and the Bell Telephone Hour, but Walter knew nothing of this when
he chose her. She had been picked from among nine recordings of different
candidates, all apparently submitted anonymously to Walter. Coming from a
family of German migrs, Miller was fluent in German and had originally
trained to be a lieder singer, so when she made a recording of the Abschied
to piano accompaniment for Walter, she felt herself on firm ground. She was
told when she got the recording engagement that Walter had said: This is
the one I can work with, because she is an artist. When she went to his home
in Beverly Hills to work on the songs before the recording session, she was
pleasantly surprised to find his methods gentler than those prevailing at the
Met: I can honestly say that no other conductor I have ever worked with got
out of me such excellencenot before, not during, or after again. He did it
with total respect for the human voice and for the person that he respected as
an artist. And he did it with kindness. I came from the era at the Met when we
artists were very browbeaten by most of the conductors.72
Like Haefliger, Miller entered the studio never having rehearsed the
songs with the orchestra, but unlike Haefliger, she had never even sung
them in concert. It must have been an intimidating situation, but, as the
final recording shows, she was fully in control. Miraculously, she did the
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Abschiedthe concluding song, which lasts half an hour and demands
intense concentrationin one take. Afterward, during the playback in the
control booth, Walter reportedly said, I dont think we can improve on
that.73
Also in the control booth was John McClure, the producer, who vividly
recalled a visit from another conductor during the recording of Das Lied.
The guest was the charismatic musical director of the New York Philhar-
monic, Leonard Bernstein, whose fervent commitment to Mahler was al-
ready seen to rank with Walters. Though Bernstein had learned much from
Walter and claimed to have been introduced to several of the Mahler sym-
phonies through Walters interpretations, he had developed his own strong
ideas about Mahler, many of which conflicted with Walters. Slated to record
with the Philharmonic after Walter finished his work with the orchestra,
Bernstein arrived early for the session, sat next to McClure, and proceeded
to criticize Walters interpretation. Why does he do that? Bernstein asked
McClure, who maintained a politic silence, despite being sorely tempted to
reply, Because its right.74
Walter, pleased with Millers performance, asked her after the session
what else she wanted to record. She suggested the only Mahler song cycle she
then knew well, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, a work hed never
recorded. Walter, however, harbored concerns that the songs might be too
high for her range, so he suggested to McClure that she also work on some
other Mahler songs for orchestra.75 When she arrived at Walters house for
the piano rehearsals,she was still uncertain what they were planning to record
and asked Walter what was on the agenda. Well, he said, you wanted to do
the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.She answered in the affirmative,to which
he responded, Well, thats it.76 Evidently there was no problem with the
songs voice range after all. It is almost by chance, then, that we have an excel-
lent recording of Walter doing the Wayfarer Songs, which Miller and the
Columbia Symphony Orchestra made on June and July , .
Walters farewell concerts of continued in Vienna, where he con-
ducted a single performance of Schuberts Unfinished, Mahlers Fourth,
and three of Mahlers orchestral songs with the Vienna Philharmonic on
May . For his last appearance in the lavishly gilded Musikvereinssaal,
which no doubt unlocked golden memories, he had as his soloist Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf, who had sung with him in Mahlers Fourth at his last perfor-
mance with the Concertgebouw in . Although no one could be certain
that this was Walters final concert in Vienna (there were tentative plans for
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him to give a performance of Bachs Matthus-Passion in ), his presence
before the Vienna Philharmonic was a major occasion, and the organization
hoped to televise the concert in Austria. Unfortunately for posterity, Walter
strenuously objected to the idea on aesthetic grounds. A concert should be
heard and not seen, he wrote to Egon Hilbert of the Vienna Philharmonic.
The lighting equipment, cameras, and other paraphernalia would surely
disturb members of the audience, Walter argued, turning them into specta-
tors, at the expense of the music; moreover, as he pointed out in another let-
ter to Hilbert, he wanted this to be not a Celebration of Walter but a Cel-
ebration of Mahler.77 Another proposed project connected with the event
was a commercial recording of the concert, though contractual legalities
sank that planand perhaps it was for the best. A recording of the entire
program has circulated for some years, and the concert was not one of Wal-
ters triumphs.78 The orchestral playing is tentative almost throughout, and
the intonation, especially in Schuberts Unfinished, is often painfully way-
ward. Already in February Walter had expressed concern about not overtax-
ing himself during his stay in Vienna, and his age (or jet lag) was apparently
catching up with him.79
Several months were to pass before Walter ascended the podium for the
last time in public. The occasion was a pension fund concert for the Los An-
geles Philharmonic, given in Shrine Auditorium on December , . In
this all-Brahms program, Van Cliburn was at last to realize his dream of per-
forming Brahmss Second Piano Concerto under Walter. Though the young
pianist was in the middle of his own tour, he arranged his recitals in such a
way that he could play with his friend and sometime mentor.80 When he
spoke to Walter about the forthcoming event,Cliburn told him how much he
looked forward to hearing the maestro conduct the other work on the pro-
gram, Brahmss First Symphony, after the concerto. Walter, however, replied
that the second half had to be reserved for Cliburn.81 On the one hand, it set
Cliburn in the place of honor, a generous gesture from such an esteemed
master.On the other,it was a stratagem no doubt calculated to keep audience
members in their seats till the very end of the concert. No one who found the
First Symphony of Brahms plodding would be likely to leave the auditorium
knowing that Americas star pianist was in the wings, ready to take part in a
historic collaboration. As Walter wrote in , his policy was to put a
problematic work in the middle of the program (or, in this case, at the
beginning), leaving the conclusion to the soloist, thus compelling the
audience to stay and listen to the work in question.82
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 The combination of Cliburn and Walter proved a most successful
match to Albert Goldberg. One had the feeling that Cliburn must have
studied the concerto carefully with the conductor, for their viewpoints coin-
cided in an exceptionally unified interpretation, Goldberg noted, perhaps a
little disingenuously, since he must have known that Cliburn had studied the
work with Walter. It was all first rate Brahms, and it gave Cliburn a new
stature among pianists.83
Though Brahms and Mahler dominated the handful of concerts that
Walter gave in , those composers did not monopolize his attention.
Bruckner remained a strong presence in Walters later years. The conductor
made his first commercial recording of Bruckners Fourth in February with
the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, not long after recording Bruckners
Ninth (for the second time, though the first recording, with the New York
Philharmonic, was never officially issued); shortly afterward he wrote to Ed-
ward Neill of the Italian Bruckner Society that he felt certain that the time for
Bruckner [had] finally arrived.84 His fondness for Bruckner prompted him
to pass along one of his many prizesthe Rennerpreis of , Austrian
schillings, which had been bestowed on him in to the Internationale
Brucknergesellschaft.85 When word of this typically open-handed gesture be-
gan to circulate,the Internationale Mahler-Gesellschaft evidently felt slighted.
Erwin Ratz noted that Bruckners music and reputation had not suffered dur-
ing the Third Reich and that the Internationale Brucknergesellschaft cur-
rently had ample means at its disposal. For Mahler the situation was quite dif-
ferent. At present, much had to be done to reinstate him, and it would require
hard work and encouragement. Walter, who had heard that the Brucknerge-
sellschaft was in need of funding,was pained and surprised to hear Ratzs con-
flicting report and offered the Mahler Society a contribution of Austrian
schillings as a sign of his heartfelt alliance with the goals of the society.86
Another of the great Teutonic composers occupied Walters thoughts in
. From his earliest days as a piano student, Walter had admired the con-
trapuntal mastery of Johann Sebastian Bach, and even in his old age he
would sometimes return to the piano to play through a prelude and fugue
from The Forty-Eight. He conducted many performances of the Mat-
thus-Passion in Munich and New York, and a performance had been
planned for Vienna in March ; but Walter, fearing the strain that such an
obligation would entail, declined the invitation.87 He was willing to lend his
name, however, to the San Francisco Bach Society, allowing the organization
to list him as co-chairman (a nominal office), and he wrote a brief statement:
C S O

Bachs work is today what it was through two centuries: a pillar of our cul-
ture, and its profound beauty and greatness always prove a source of
strength and happiness to the human soul.88
Near the end of a challenge involving another titan in musical his-
tory piqued Walters interest. For a variety of reasonspolitical, economic,
and contractualWalter had never made a commercial recording of any
complete opera. The closest he had come was the exhilarating but histori-
cally ill-timed Walkre, begun in Vienna not long before the Nazi annexa-
tion. When Columbia Records suggested that Walter record Fidelio, how-
ever, the operatic gap in his discography might have been filled. In October
Schuyler Chapin, the new director of Masterworks at Columbia Records
a man later to become, among other things, Commissioner of the Depart-
ment of Cultural Affairs in New York Citywrote to Walter that, in his
meetings abroad and at home, he had heard many requests for a recording of
Fidelio under Walter. Despite Walters desire to cut back on his work, this
idea excited him: Believe me that the suggestion of doing a record of Bee-
thovens Fidelio accelerates my heartbeat, he opened his response to
Chapin. But there were problems. What language would be used? To his
knowledge, there were no adequate English translations, so the opera would
have to be performed in German.As for the dialogue,all the single numbers
of the score follow in their emotional expression the last spoken words be-
fore their beginnings. So we cannot entirely cancel the dialogue without
jeopardizing a most important musical inspiration of Beethoven. Perhaps
German actors could take over for the dialogue. Walter also doubted
whether a wonderful male choir could be found in either Los Angeles or
San Francisco. Nevertheless, having interjected his caveats, Walter con-
cluded by stating that he could not think of anything greater than doing this
work.89 For the remainder of his life, Walter intermittently corresponded
with Columbia Records,especially with John McClure,about casting for the
Fidelio recording that never was.
Some of the singers considered for Walters Fidelio would appear on the
famous recording under Otto Klemperer, perhaps Walters greatest living ri-
val in . Another Mahler protg, Klemperer had recently brought out a
short book of memories about the great composer and had sent a copy to
Walter, who wrote back to say how much he enjoyed reading the memoirs,
particularly their meeting in Prague some fifty years before at the premiere
of Mahlers Seventh.90 Much has been made of the supposed antipathy
between Klemperer and Walter, but the letters they exchanged in the last
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years of Walters life suggest at least the cordiality that comes with the pas-
sage of time and with shared experiences, both triumphant and humbling.
The previous year Walter had sent birthday greetings to Klemperer, who re-
turned a warm response in which he commented that he was to conduct
Tristan for the first time in about thirty-six years; but, he added, we (the
musicians of the old school), you know, never forget something like that.91
While Walter could be congenial to Klemperer (then in poor health),an-
other conductor famous for championing Mahler inspired less complimen-
tary words. Dead for nearly a decade, Willem Mengelberg, renowned for his
breathtakingly controlled but decidedly idiosyncratic readings of the classic
scores, continued to provoke controversy and commentary in . One
conducting student who had studied with Walters friend Sir Adrian Boult
was curious to know what Walter felt about Mengelbergs performances.
Mahler had known Mengelberg personally and admired him; could Mengel-
bergs highly individual interpretations therefore be regarded as authen-
tic?92 Though normally diplomatic about the aesthetic slants of his col-
leagues, Walter responded with unusual frankness on this occasion: Willem
Mengelberg was a great admirer of Gustav Mahlers works, but with all his
strong talent as a conductor, one could not say that he strove to satisfy the in-
tentions of the composer. I remember having found in Amsterdam, when I
conducted Mahlers First Symphony . . . the printed score full of red correc-
tions from Mengelbergs handall pointing to a tendency for exaggeration.
Mahler, in contrast, demanded strict fidelity to the score, and Walter claimed
that his own performances were in line with what the composer desired,
dominated as they were by his wish to fulfill the intentions of the creative
mind from which the work stemmed.93

It was fairly clear by now that Walters career had run most of its course, and
there were at least two attempts in to trace the path of his life. One was
a short book by the critic Artur Holde that appeared in a series of biogra-
phies published in Berlin by Rembrandt-Verlag. A music critic for the news-
paper Aufbau, Holde had been active as a choral conductor for Jewish orga-
nizations both in Germany before World War II and then in the United
States. His modest book, running to about twenty-five pages of actual text,
rarely strayed beyond the material in Walters own memoirs, though it did
offer a handsome selection of photographs following the text.94
Walter, the grand old man of the podium, also became the subject of
an article in Harpers magazine, written by Martin Mayer, who interviewed
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Walter and observed him conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra.
In preserving some of Walters personal opinions on topics that he rarely ad-
dressed, Mayers essay is an important contribution to our understanding of
Walters personality and tastes during his last years. Changes that the twenti-
eth century had wrought on the sounds of orchestral instruments and the
techniques used to play them, for example, did not fully please him:
Think what the flute has gained up top of the range, he says, but
it has lost in its beauty. Jean Paul wrote of the moonshine of the
flute. Who would now say, the moonshine of the flute? Approv-
ing a recording of the Schumann Piano Concerto, Walter sighed a
little over a clarinet phrase. That is just a gentle clarinet, he said.
But today they all play trumpet.95
As for technical precision for its own sake:
This idea of precision in orchestral playing is very recent. It was a
necessary reaction to a certain lackadaisical way of attacking tasks,
and Toscanini in forwarding it did a wonderful service. But now
precision has become an ideal, which is wrong.
Music must breathe. You must get used to that, and make al-
lowances.96
When Mayer submitted the article for approval in April , Walter
strenuously objected to the depiction of his personality and his musical as-
pirations. He took offense at the implication that he did not, to use Walters
words, seem to feel seriously troubled by bits of sloppy execution. And the
portrayal of his relationship with members of the orchestra also rubbed him
the wrong way: Already by calling the gentle friendship which shows in my
relationship to my musicians a technique for getting on with them, you
make me appear a scheming and insincere personwhich is entirely alien to
my nature.97 That objection, though understandable, isnt wholly fair; in
his own memoirs he had written that, already in his Hamburg days, hed
learned to influence the artists by psychological methods appropriate to
and in conformity with [his] nature.98 If anything, Mayers statement is
more oblique than Walters in hinting at insincerity. In any case, having read
Walters grievances, Mayer corrected some of the factual errors in his draft
but, in the end, ran the article more or less in the form that Walter had read.
From January to March Walter was busy making his final recordings
with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The large-scale works that he pre-
C S O

served on tape included the First and Ninth symphonies of Mahler, Dvorks
Eighth, and Bruckners Seventh. The recordings of the two great Mahler
symphonies were landmark performances: though both were taken at slower
tempi than Walter had used in his earlier recordings of the works, he still of-
fered powerful, broad readings of the scores. According to Schuyler Chapin,
who was in large part responsible for arranging these final recordings, Walter
was eager to record the First Symphony in the then new stereophonic
sound.99 An awkward problem, however, had presented itself in connection
with the project, for Leonard Bernstein was also slated to record Mahlers
First with Columbia, as part of his now famous cycle of the Mahler sym-
phonies, almost all performed with the New York Philharmonic. Chapin de-
cided to let both projects proceed,but when John McClure returned from the
recording session of the symphony under Walter,he urged Chapin to listen to
the performance and be prepared.Chapin played the acetate disks that Mc-
Clure had brought, and, as he tells the story, out poured the most unbeliev-
ably beautiful performancemeasured,polished,serene yet robust and filled
with passiona reading of the work by a grand old master doing final
homage to his idol. After the symphony ended, I found it hard to move from
my chair. I finally pulled myself together and knew I had to call Bernstein;
contract or no contract, I had to ask him to cancel our plans.100
Asking Bernstein to cancel, or at least postpone, his plans to conduct
Mahlers First must have been a difficult task. Bernstein, who did not always
agree with Walters interpretations, asked to hear what Chapin was raving
about. After listening to the recording, however, he understood: Oh, my
God, he said, thats unbelievable! Forget about it from me. Well do it at the
end of the cycle. I couldnt bear the thought of trying to record the work now.
Its his!101
So Bernsteins recording with the New York Philharmonic was bumped
to a later date. Walters orchestra, unlike the New York Philharmonic, was
not completely familiar with Mahlers music, and Walter had to teach many
of the players the Ninth Symphonythough now a staple of the symphonic
repertoirefrom scratch. The cellist George Neikrug confessed that the
Ninth was terra incognita for him: I was sight reading practically, and I had
the solo part.102 The session prompted another invaluable rehearsal
record, capturing Walters thoughts on one of the masterpieces of the sym-
phonic repertoire, a work he premiered.103
John McClure, who narrated the rehearsal session, would occasionally
ask Walter in private about perceived Jewish elements in Mahlers music and
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Judaism in general. But whenever he brought up the topic, he was met by
total blankness. I mean, he had buried that part of him really deep.104 It
may have been a natural reaction on Walters part to decades of musical stud-
ies that had analyzed the Jewish elements in Mahlers music, often to show
how Mahler had polluted the great German musical tradition.
Along with these large symphonic works, Walter also recorded two
Haydn symphonies,the overture and Venusberg Musicfrom Tannhuser,
and several Mozart overtures (his final recordings, made on March and
). Thomas Frost, the producer for these works, recalled some of the prob-
lems encountered during these sessions. One had to do with the Venusberg
Music, which has a brief section for chorus. When the choral section ar-
rived, Walter was astounded to find his conducting suddenly rendered inef-
fectual. Walter couldnt figure out what it was, Frost remembered. He
was beating his normal time, and the choir couldnt follow him, and the or-
chestra and choir were playing different music. Puzzled, he asked to see the
singers sheet music and discovered, to his horror, that the chorus, from Oc-
cidental College, was using a pianovocal score that attempted to simplify
the piece rhythmically by barring the music in / rather than the / of
Wagners score. Scheduling made it imperative to finish the recording ses-
sion that day, a task that seemed well-nigh impossible. But Phil Kahgan, the
orchestras contractor, made a few calls to copyists in the area who were used
to the unreasonable demands and deadlines of Hollywood films, and liter-
ally within minutes the copyists were at the American Legion Hall, writing
out the vocal parts in the correct meter. The day was saved.105
In the year of his last recordings Walter also found time to listen to the
work of his colleagues, old and young. The career of George Szell, once the
wunderkind pianist who had astonished Vienna concertgoers near the turn
of the century, had taken a path similar to Walters. From till his death in
he held the post of musical adviser to the Cleveland Orchestra, with
whom he made a large number of notable recordings, one of which was a col-
lection of Schumanns symphonies. Szells reading of the Fourth in particu-
larthough far more restrained than Walters own recorded interpreta-
tionsimpressed the older conductor, who called the record a wonderful
achievement for Szell and Columbia.106
Another new recording deeply affected Walter: Strausss Elektra under
Karl Bhm, Walters old assistant at the Munich Opera. Let me tell you,
Walter wrote Bhm, that your masterly achievement gave me great plea-
sure. This record is an absolutely extraordinary high point of technical
C S O

reproduction of a great masterpiece, and I congratulate you on it.107 Bhm
had recently suffered a detached retina in one eye and wrote to Walter that
the other eye was also troubling him, yet he was planning to conduct
Wozzeck. Walter, whose opinion of the Second Viennese School had hardly
mellowed with age, quipped: Well now, youre recuperating in the gentle,
sunny atmosphere of Wozzeck, and perhaps, dear friend, for a musician ad-
dicted to work like you, thats a better way to recover than taking walks along
the quiet oceanwhich, however, does good to my considerably more ad-
vanced years.108

As late as June and July of Walter was planning to record major works in
the studioBruckners Eighth, Mahlers Fourth and Fifth symphonies
and the Fidelio project was very much alive in his correspondence with Mc-
Clure till the end of . Bing had even invited Walter to perform Fidelio at
the Met and to conduct the Verdi Requiem in at the opening of Phil-
harmonic Hall in Lincoln Center, New Yorks largest performing arts com-
plex, then under construction.109 Walter had looked so healthy when Bing
had last seen him; surely he would be fit to conduct in two years time?
But Walter knew he was losing the battle. In December he wrote to John
McClure in confidence that he was subject more and more to attacks:
I do not feel well, and remembering my heart attack of in New
York, I have to take the symptoms of my illness seriously. They are
attacks of angina pectoris, a condition of strong distress which does
not permit the slightest physical exertion and responds only to a
use of nitroglycerin. These attacks arrive without warning and
seem to be of psycho-somatic origin. But whatever be their cause,
they prevent mephysically and emotionallyfrom conducting. I
consulted an excellent heart specialist, who only could advise what
I myself had already understood: That I have to postpone my
recording. . . .
But, you cannot imagine, dear friend, what it means to me to
make such difficulties for you and for Columbiayou will have to
try the cancellation or postponement of your engagements for Fi-
delioso you will know how terrible I feel.110
Walters apologetic confession that the attacks seemed to be psychosomatic
and the sincere regret that he had burdened his colleaguesall from one

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with two months left to liveare typical of the man who had so often shown
his sensitivity to the feelings of others.
That sensitivity made its presence felt a few days later, when Walter re-
ceived a letter from a woman who had heard him conduct in Berlin in .
She was currently preparing a school play of As You Like It and wondered
whether Walter could suggest some appropriate music by Mozart for inci-
dental music. Instead of pushing the letter aside and taking a walk along the
palm-lined streets of Beverly Hills, he took time to respond that he couldnt
think of any better music for Shakespeares comedy than Mozarts Les Petits
Riens. Perhaps, as he wrote, he relived the daynearly half a century
beforewhen he gave the Munich premiere of Mozarts ballet music. In a
postscript he told her that she could order the parts through the publisher
Breitkopf und Hrtel.111
Ill health or no, Walter continued to receive visitors at home. His date
book for records numerous appointments with doctors (a Dr. Kurt and
a Dr. Vincent) as well as scheduled meetings, or possible meetings, with
other conductorsSchmidt-Isserstedt on January , Meta (probably
Zubin Mehta, then conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic) on January
, and Bernstein (possibly Dr. M. A. Bernstein, who filled out his death cer-
tificate) on January .112
Walters thoughts in his final months were much like those that had
dominated his life. Others interpretations of Mahlers music still attracted
his interest, even if they did not always win his approval. A recent recording
of Mahlers Ninth by Leopold Ludwig and the London Symphony Orches-
tra came out around March , in remarkably vivid stereo sound. Records
of the work were still few and far between, and this one, from a conductor
who, during the Nazi years, had filled some of the same posts that Walter had
previously held, must have particularly piqued his curiosity. Ludwig skill-
fully brought out some of the inner lines and was clearly committed to the
piece, but at times he seemed eager to move the music along at places where
Walter would linger over phrases. Certainly for Walter the recording proved
a disappointment; it was a thoroughly unsatisfactory recording: a musty
smell of routine pervades this performance, he wrote in disgust to Wolfgang
Stresemann.113
Mahlers earliest symphony also prompted some personal observations
from Walter, who received a letter from the Hungarian critic Mihly Meixner
in late January concerning the Blumine movement that had originally

C S O

appeared in the Titan. Walter explained why he felt the charming piece
had been dropped from the score: I know the movement well and fully un-
derstand why Mahler didnt want to retain it. It is a gentle, purely lyrical
piece, so different from the revolutionary boldness of the other movements
that one might have the impression of a violation of artistic decorum.114
People with connections to his distant past continued to reach out to
Walter. Erich Korngolds widow, Luzi, died at the end of January , and
Walter immediately sent a letter of condolence to her son, George Korngold.
You can imagine how nearly her departure touches me, he wrote, and
how painful it is for me to have to bid farewell to this soulgood, pure, and
imbued with love. The marriage of your parents, blessed as it was by love
and music, will remain as unforgettable to me as her amiable personality it-
self. In concluding his letter, perhaps with a thought to his own future, he
offered what solace he could: From my heart I want you to be utterly con-
vinced that there will be a reunion with her in eternity.115
And of course Pfitzner was still very much alive in Walters thoughts.
Walters last letter, addressed to Mali Pfitzner on February , ended on the
topic of Palestrina, a work Walter still held dear: From Berlin Ive received
the news that the excellent Swiss tenor Ernst Haefliger will be singing Pale-
strina in the coming new production of Palestrina and that he plans to come
here in March to get my advice on it, which I will naturally give him with joy.
Despite all the grim events of our times, Im confident that Palestrina will
endure. The work has all the elements of imperishability.116 Walters own
work as a conductor also had all the elements of imperishability, but he him-
self was only so much flesh. That evening he suffered what proved a fatal
heart attack. At : on the morning of February , Walter was officially pro-
nounced dead.117
Someone, perhaps Lotte, mysteriously jotted in his diary for February
: Walter . His death certificate states that a fatal heart attack had begun
its course about ten hours before the time of death, and the likelihood is that
shortly before : on Thursday night Walter showed signs of serious trou-
ble. At first he might have had some sense of what was happening, but for
most of the next ten hours he would surely have been unconscious. Perhaps
the person who marked February as his date of death was haunted by the
image of an immobile Walter, stilled on that terrible night.
On the day of Walters death, Nadia Boulanger was in New York to con-
duct the Philharmonic in a performance of the Faur Requiem. Before her

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performance Leonard Bernstein announced the somber news to the audi-
ence: My dear friends, I bring you the heartbreaking news that Bruno Wal-
ter died this morning. It is almost too much to bear. Last year our beloved
Mitropoulosand now this great genius, who for forty years has been so
close to us here at the Philharmonicwho has guided us so wisely, and so
generously brightened and enriched our lives. Like Mitropoulos, he was one
of the saints of musica man all kindness and warmth, goodness and devo-
tion. We can only mourn, and pay tribute.118
Lengthy obituaries ran in the major newspapers, and the funeral took
place on Tuesday, February , at : p.m. in Pierce Bros. mortuary in Bev-
erly Hills. By then, however, most of the worlds attention was focused else-
where, for John Glenn made history on that day by orbiting the earth several
times in spacethe first American to do so. Walters funeral merited only a
small notice in the Los Angeles Times. He received an anthroposophical ser-
vice, conducted by Verner Hegg, a priest of the Christian Community. Over
two hundred mournersamong them musicians and representatives of the
German and Austrian governmentsattended the funeral. Van Cliburn
was there, accompanied by his mother. A string quartet drawn from players
in the Los Angeles Philharmonic performed music by Beethoven and
Haydn, two masters of the Austro-German musical tradition that Walter
revered. Telegrams of condolence arrived from the German Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer and from Willy Brandt, mayor of West Berlin.119
Walters corpse was cremated, and his ashes were removed to the ceme-
tery of Sant Abbondio in Montagnola, near Lugano, Switzerland, where his
remains joined those of his wife and his daughter Gretel. His daughter Lotte
lived on till January 1970, dying in St. Moritz, Switzerland, shortly after the
publication of an edition of her fathers letters that she had worked on for
several years.Within a few months of Walters death,Delia Reinhardt had re-
turned to Europe, moving in with her old friend Irma Geering in Dornach,
near Basel, Switzerland. On August 26 Delia picked up her pen to write
Alma Mahler Werfel birthday greetings and realized that this was the first
time she had done so alone, without Walter. Yet, since she continued to feel
very strongly Brunos nearness, his presence, his being-entirely-with-me,
she thought it likely that Alma herself would also feel his presence when she
read Delias letter.120
Certainly Walters presence continues to be felt today, even by those
who have never had the pleasure of knowing him personally or hearing him

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conduct during his lifetime. His performances circulate continually, whether
on commercial reissues of his studio recordings or on pirated releases of his
broadcasts. His books still attract new readers, and his own life story has all
the elements of an enduring tale. As he had wished, something of him has re-
mained now that he is gone.

C S O

 Recommended Discographies

Several discographies devoted to Bruno Walter have appeared over the years,
at least one of book length (Koho Unos Japanese study, published in
though omitted from this selection because of the language barrier). The four
discographies recommended below, presented in reverse chronological or-
der, are well researched and highly useful; those by Louis and Massini are
particularly valuable in that they list both commercial and noncommercial
recordings. For more recent information, the authors advise interested per-
sons to consult the online Walter discography at www.bwdiscography.com.

Rmy Louis, Bruno Walter au disque, supplement to Diapason no.

(May ): xivxviii.

Umberto Massini, Discografia di Bruno Walter, Classica (June ):

.

David A. Pickett (revised by Richard Warren Jr.), A Bruno Walter Discogra-

phy: Part One: Commercial Recordings: Issued Discs Only (Bruno Walter
Society, []). (Note: Part Two was never issued.)

Robert C. Marsh, The Heritage of Bruno Walter: A Discography, High

Fidelity ( Jan. ): , .

 Filmography by Charles Barber

The film record of Bruno Walter in rehearsal, concert, and conversation is

substantial and influential. No other documentary source reveals so clearly
and compellingly his manner and charm, his baton and its eloquence, his
collegiality and its demands.
The earliest known film of Walter is silent and dates from a appear-
ance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. This event
was filmed by Philip Kahgan (), longtime principal viola with that
orchestra. Walters last film was made in at a recording session with the
Columbia Symphony Orchestra and broadcast in the CBS television series
Playback.
The single most substantial Walter document was filmed in Vancouver
in by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and consists of a re-
hearsal of the Brahms Symphony no. combined with an interview filmed
contemporaneously in Beverly Hills. Made near the end of a long and pro-
ductive life, it conveys an extraordinary picture of serenity unyielding in its
musical purposes. Several hours work were actually filmed at these Brahms
rehearsals; the outtakes were destroyed some time thereafter.
In three decades evidence of Walter on film, one surprising fact pre-
vails: his was a technique and an approach that changed very little over time.
From first to last, the same body, eye, and gestural vocabulary is manifest.
Walters podium work seems to have matured early and thereafter to have
been a sure and constant process. Walters was a musical aesthetic felt long
and deeply. The central case for that aesthetic is made in his letters, diaries,
books, and conversations; it is confirmed in the visual proof of his actual
work as a conductor. No better claim for his enduring musical constancy can
be found than in these images.
The film and video materials described below are owned by their copy-
right holders, and no suggestion is made that any of them is commercially
available save as noted. Most of these documents, however, are held in the
Conductors on Film Collection, Archive of Recorded Sound, at Stanford
University in California. Application for scholarly study of them is welcome;
if permission is granted, the materials will be made available on site without

charge. Because of the formidable complications of international copyright
law, duplication is not possible.

Dr. Charles Barber, Founder and Curator

Conductors on Film Collection
June , Stanford

Bruno Walter Rehearsal and Performance Films

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl (:)

Repertoire unknown, rehearsal, silent
: Film and Television Archive, UCLA.
: The date of Walters appearance at the Hollywood Bowl was provided
by filmmaker Philip Kahgan on an insert card interpolated into the film it-
self.

Weber, Overture to Oberon (:)

Berlin Philharmonic, Singakademie
: Private, apparently from a series of German music films produced
in this era.

Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice (:)

Salzburg Festival Orchestra, Salzburg
: Private, appearing in the documentary Sagt, holde Frauen
. . . produced by ORF- and -Sat.
: This fragment, in various pirate editions, has frequently (and erro-
neously) been described as having originated in . Walter is seen working
in the pit.

Wagner, Prelude to Die Meistersinger (:)

New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall
: Carnegie Hall, a Federal Films/United Artists release produced by
Boris Morros and William LeBaron. It has appeared in several different ver-
sions.

F C B

: The sound track was prerecorded. The visual track was filmed later,
and synchronized to audio playback. Nearly all of this film was made at
Carnegie Hall in the summer of .

Beethoven, Symphony no. , fourth movement, rehearsal (:)

Vienna Philharmonic
: Newsreel Bruno Walter dirigiert, produced by Welt im Film.

Mozart, Symphony no. , fourth movement (:)

Berlin Philharmonic, at Philharmonie and elsewhere
: Private, appearing in the documentary Botschafter der Musik.
: Sources providing these materials have also provided three separate
dates for them: Mar. , ; Sept. , ; and . The longest version
takes music from the end of the Menuetto into the Allegro. The film in its
present form is a composite. The s elements include pan shots of the old
Philharmonie, destroyed by Allied bombing during the war. Long shots
from the rear show the conductor working without a railing. The ele-
ment shows an older Walter, with a protective railing behind him, and play-
ers working on more modern-appearing instruments. may be the year
in which the composite was produced.

Mahler, Symphony no. , conclusion of first movement (:)

Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam
: Private.

Brahms, Symphony no. , rehearsal (:)

Vancouver Festival Orchestra, July
: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
: This film is commercially available through Video Artists Interna-
tional (see below). It is also excerpted on the Teldec video and laser
disc release, The Art of Conducting.

Beethoven, Leonore Overture no. , conclusion (:)

Columbia Symphony Orchestra, studio recording session, July ,
: Sony Music Archives.

F C B

: This footage was included in the promotional television series Play-
back, introduced by Goddard Lieberson. Among the minutes of outtakes
in the Sony Music Archives are further rehearsal and performance se-
quences that present Walter head-on and primarily from below the podium;
the orchestra is never seen. Also included in the footage is a playback session
in which Walter and John McClure listen to and discuss the recording and
the piece; Delia Reinhardt is glimpsed briefly.A silent version of the outtakes
has circulated privately.

Bruno Walter Documentaries

The Creative Person: Bruno Walter (:)

Beethoven, Leonore Overture no. , conclusion (:)
Columbia Symphony Orchestra,
: Peabody Awards and Media Archives, University of Georgia.
: This is a Arnold Michaelis documentary, produced for National
Educational Television. The conducting footage comes from the Playback
episode listed above.

Bruno Walter: The Face of Music (:)

BBC Omnibus television series, broadcast Feb. , ; Robert Vas, pro-
ducer
: British Broadcasting Corporation.
: This documentary includes brief excerpts from Beethovens Leo-
nore Overture no. , Brahmss Symphony no. , Mozarts Symphony no.
, and Wagners Prelude to Die Meistersinger, as well as interviews with
Leonard Bernstein, Karl Bhm, Lotte Lehmann, John McClure, Georg
Solti, and members of orchestras led by Walter.

Sound of a Century: The Concertgebouw at (::)

: Private.
: This is Het Orkest: Geluid van een Eeuw, a Dutch documentary
about the hall, orchestra, and its conductors, produced by Sieuwert Verster
and others. Walter appears conducting Mahlers Symphony no. and is dis-
cussed by members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra who knew him.

F C B


Bruno Walter: The Maestro, The Man (:)
Brahms, Symphony no. , Allegro non troppo, rehearsal (:)
Brahms, Symphony no. , Allegro con spirito, rehearsal (:)
Vancouver Festival Orchestra, July
Interview with Albert Goldberg (:)
: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Video Artists Interna-
tional release .
: Interviewer Albert Goldberg ( ) taught at the Chicago Mu-
sical College (), became music critic of the Chicago Herald Exam-
iner (),then of the Chicago Tribune ().He later became music
critic of the Los Angeles Times ( ), succeeding the legendary Isabel
Morse Jones. This is the only known interview of Bruno Walter on film.

Other Visual Materials

. In , in commemoration of the ninetieth anniversary of Walters birth,

the music division of Sddeutsche Rundfunk-Fernsehen in Stuttgart made a
significant documentary on Walters life and career.
. In the mid-s, Bruno Walter appeared in several televised broadcasts
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. These appearances, which in-
cluded music of Mozart, Haydn, and Wagner, were produced by Chicago-
based WGN-TV and broadcast on the DuMont Network. Although ki-
nescopes (film made directly from the television image) were surely taken
from these performances, and numerous efforts have been made to trace
them, none appears to have survived. These broadcasts include the follow-
ing musical materials:
Feb. ,
Beethoven, Triple Concerto [John Weicher, Jnos Starker, George Schick]
Mendelssohn, Overture to A Midsummer Nights Dream
Jan. ,
Brahms, Double Concerto [John Weicher, Jnos Starker]
Mozart, Symphony no. (Haffner)
Jan. ,
Haydn, Symphony no. (Miracle)

F C B

Wagner, Sieg fried Idyll
Weber, Overture to Euryanthe
Jan. ,
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante [ John Weicher, Milton Preves]
Mozart: Symphony no.
. Two reels of home movies made with Bruno Walter in the s, now in
the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

F C B

 Notes

Unattributed translations in the text, with the exception of those drawn from the
sources below, are by the present authors. The rhyming couplet that serves as the
epigraph to Chapter is from the translation of Die Zauberflte by Ruth and
Thomas Martin. Italics in quoted passages reflect identical or similar treatment
(such as underlining or spread characters) in the original source. In cases in which
two spellings of a name are equally valid (e.g., Else/Elsa, Katja/Katia, Krenek/
Krenek), we have chosen the spelling last used by the person in question. A handful
of obvious typographic and orthographic errors in correspondence have been
changed, though unorthodox spellings that suggest a special pronunciation (e.g.,
glaziers for glaciers) have been retained.

Abbreviations
AMWC Alma Mahler Werfel Collection, Special Collections, Van
Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania
AZ Allgemeine Zeitung
BBC Walter Omnibus An hour-long documentary on Walter produced by the
BBC for its Omnibus series in
BT Berliner Tageblatt
BW Briefe Bruno Walter, Briefe , ed. Lotte Walter Lindt
(Frankfurt: S. Fischer, )
BWL The Bruno Walter Legacy: A Series of Commemorative Ra-
dio Programs on the th Anniversary of the Conductors
Birth, a fifteen-disk set of LPs (Public Broadcasting Asso-
ciation, EMA-)
BWP The Bruno Walter Papers, housed in the New York Public
Library for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, New
York City. The roman numeral indicates the series in
which the item appears, the arabic numeral the particular
folder where the item can be found.
DGMP Daniel Gregory Mason Papers, Rare Book and Manu-
script Library, Columbia University
GM Bruno Walter, Gustav Mahler (Vienna: Herbert Reichner,
); translated into English by James A. Galston (Lon-
don: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., ; New
York: Greystone Press,); a later translation was super-

 vised by Lotte Walter Lindt (; reprint, London: Quar-
tet Books, ). Unless otherwise noted, the translation
used is that supervised by Lotte Walter Lindt ( re-
print).
GML Gustav Mahler, Selected Letters of Gustav Mahler, trans.
Eithne Wilkins, Ernst Kaiser, and Bill Hopkins, ed. Knud
Martner (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, )
La Grange Henry-Louis de La Grange, Mahler (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, )
La Grange Henry-Louis de La Grange, Gustav Mahler, Vienna: The
Years of Challenge () (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, )
La Grange Henry-Louis de La Grange, Gustav Mahler: LAge dor de
Vienne ( ) (Paris: Fayard, )
LAT Los Angeles Times
LLP Lotte Lehmann Papers, PA MSS , Department of Special
Collections, University Libraries, University of Califor-
nia, Santa Barbara
LNN Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten
MA Musical America
MC Musical Courier
MFCC The Pierpont Morgan Library, Mary Flagler Cary Collec-
tion (MFC W F)
MK Bruno Walter, Von den moralischen Krften der Musik (Vi-
enna: Herbert Reichner, )
MM Bruno Walter, Von der Musik und vom Musizieren (Tbin-
gen: S. Fischer, ); translated into English by Paul
Hamburger as Of Music and Music-Making (New York:
Norton, ). Unless otherwise noted, the translation of
Paul Hamburger is used.
MNN Mnchner Neueste Nachrichten
MZ Mnchener Zeitung
NFP Neue Freie Presse
NWJ Neues Wiener Journal
NYHT New York Herald Tribune
NYPA New York Philharmonic Archives
NYT New York Times
NZM Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik (Neue omitted in title between
Aug. and Sept. )
TMD Thomas Mann: Diaries, , trans. Richard and
Clara Winston (London: Robin Clark, )
TMGW Thomas Mann, Gesammelte Werke, vols. (Frankfurt: S.
Fischer, [ ])
TV Bruno Walter, Thema und Variationen (Stockholm: Ber-

 mann-Fischer, ); translated by James A. Galston as
Theme and Variations (New York: Knopf, ). Unless
otherwise noted, the translation of James A. Galston is
used, though on rare occasions we have silently changed
Galstons wording.
VZ Vossische Zeitung

Preface
. Isaac Stern, from an interview in the BBC Walter Omnibus.
. Hans Joachim Moser, Musik Lexikon (Berlin: Max Hesses Verlag, ), .
. The first volume of Michele Selvinis beautifully produced tribute to Walter,
Bruno Walter: La porta delleternit (Milan: Fondazione culturale della collina
doro, ), represents the first attempt, in any language, at a full-length biogra-
phy of the conductors entire life. It appeared as we were making final adjust-
ments to our manuscript and unfortunately could not be absorbed into our own
study.

Bruno Schlesinger
. Many of the following facts and anecdotes come from reminiscences of Walters
mother, transcribed and typed out in a document dated Aug. , , sent to
Walter by his brother and sister (BWP II.). According to his birth certificate,
Walters original name was simply Bruno Schlesinger, with no middle name.
. Johanna Schlesingers recollections (BWP II.).
. TV, .
. Heinrich Ehrlich, Wie bt man am Klavier (Berlin, ).
. Wilhelm Klatte and Ludwig Misch, Das Sternsche Konservatorium der Musik zu
Berlin (Berlin, ca. ), .
. VZ, Mar. , ; BT, Mar. , .
. TV, .
. National Zeitung, Feb. , ; VZ, Feb. , .
. Johanna Schlesingers recollections (BWP II.).
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Amy Fay, Music-Study in Germany (; reprint, New York: Dover, ), .
. Felix Weingartner, ber das Dirigieren (; revised edition, ), translated
by Ernest Newman as On Conducting in Weingartner on Music and Conducting
(New York: Dover, ), .
. Weingartner, On Conducting, .
. Ibid., ff.
. TV, .
. MM, .
. TV, .
N P xiv

. Ibid.
. After World War II, Wieland Wagner invited Walter to conduct Beethovens
Ninth at Bayreuth, but Walter regretfully declined, assuring Wieland of his
goodwill. See Wieland Wagner to Bruno Walter (hereafter BW), Jan. , ;
BW to Wieland Wagner, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Heinrich Ehrlich, Dreissig Jahre Knstlerleben (Berlin, ), .
. Ibid., .
. BW to Sam Barlow, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. TV, .
. Ethel Smyth, The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth, abridged and introduced by Ronald
Crichton (Harmondsworth: Viking, ), .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Johanna Schlesingers recollections (BWP II.).
. Paul Stefan, Bruno Walter (Vienna: Herbert Reichner, ), .
. MM, .
. Johanna Schlesingers recollections (BWP II.); TV, .
. BW to his parents, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. Weingartner, On Conducting, .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Klner Tageblatt, Mar. , .
. BW to his parents, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. The antipathy between Walter and the Heydrich family carried into the next
generation, for the singers son, Reinhard, would become an infamous Nazi.
. BW to his parents, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Julius Stern, Wiener Volksblatt, Apr. , ; Sterns anecdote is based on infor-
mation he had gathered from Walter during an interview.
. TV, (we have slightly altered Galstons translation).
. Arthur Foote, Gustav Mahler: The Composer, the Conductor and the Man. Ap-
preciations by Distinguished Contemporary Musicians (New York: The Society
of Friends of Music, ), .
. GM, .
. TV, .
. Ibid.
. GM, .
. Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters, trans. Basil Creighton, ed.
Donald Mitchell, rev. ed. (New York: Viking Press, ), .
. Ferdinand Pfohl, Gustav Mahler: Eindrcke und Erinnerungen aus den Ham-
burger Jahren, ed. Knud Martner (Hamburg: Karl Dieter Wagner, ), .
. TV, .

N P

. Richard Specht, Gustav Mahler (Berlin: Schuster & Loeffler, ), .
. Ibid., .
. Issued on video in as Bruno Walter: The Maestro, the Man (VAI );
the rehearsal dates from July .
. Mahler to BW, July , (GML, ).
. GM, .
. Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Recollections of Gustav Mahler, trans. Dika Newlin, ed.
Peter Franklin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), .
. Pfohl, Gustav Mahler, .
. Hamburger Nachrichten, Sept. , .
. GML, .
. See Max W. Busch and Peter Dannenberg, Die Hamburgische Staatsoper I:
bis (Zurich: M & T Verlag AG, ), .
. TV, .
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Ludwig Sittenfeld, Geschichte des Breslauer Theaters von bis (Breslau:
Preuss und Jnger, ), .
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. BW to Leo Schlesinger, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).

Kapellmeister Walter
. BW to his parents, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. BW to his parents, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Breslauer Zeitung, Oct. , .
. TV, .
. Breslauer Morgen-Zeitung, Oct. , .
. Breslauer Morgen-Zeitung, Oct. , .
. Breslauer Zeitung, Oct. , .
. See Emil Bohn, Hundert historische Concerte in Breslau. (Breslau:
Commissions-Verlag von Julius Hainauer, ).
. In his review of Waffenschmied, Oct. , .
. TV, .
. BW to Herbert Urban, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Emanuel Fernbach, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. TV, .
. BW to his parents, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Pressburger Zeitung, Oct. , .

N P

. TV, .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Pressburger Tageblatt, Nov. , .
. Interview with Regina Resnik, Feb. , .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Undated interview with Lotte Lindt, recorded between and (BWL).
. Entry for Sunday, Apr. , (TMD), .
. TV, .
. Born Else Wirthschaft, she adopted the stage name Elsa Korneck (taking her
grandmothers last name),by which she was always known,though close friends
continued to spell her first name Else.
. Wolfgang Stresemann, . . . und abends in die Philharmonie (Munich: Kristall
bei Langen Mller, ), .
. The two reels of mm film are part of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Sound
Archive of the New York Public Library.
. Rigasche Rundschau, Aug. , .
. Dna Zeitung, Aug. , .
. Klaus Mann, The Turning Point (; reprint, New York: Marcus Wiener Pub-
lishing, Inc., ), .
. It was in his letter to Oskar Irschick that Walter gave as the date of the en-
gagement. See Walter to Irschick, July , (BWP I.).
. BW to his parents, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Dna Zeitung, Aug. , .
. Dna Zeitung, Oct. , .
. Seen in the BBC Walter Omnibus.
. Rigasche Rundschau, Aug. , .
. Walter also played piano accompaniment for Ferdinand Raimonds Der Ver-
schwender and conducted the incidental music for a local premiere of Ernst
Rosmers Knigskinder, whose score, by Engelbert Humperdinck, was later
worked into a more substantial composition.
. Rigasche Rundschau, Jan. , .
. Mahler to BW, Oct. , (GML, ).
. BW to his parents, Oct. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Mahler to BW, n.d. (GML, ).
. BW to his parents, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Fernbach, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Mahler to BW, n.d. (GML, ).
. BW to his parents, Nov. [] (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).

N P

. The songs included in the concert (given on Apr. , ) were Der Ring,
Die Linde, Meine Mutter hats gewolt, Vorbei, Waltrauts Lied I, and
Waltrauts Lied II.
. TV, .
. VZ, Aug. , .
. Berliner Morgenpost, Nov. , . See also TV, .
. TV, .
. BT, Dec. , ; it should be added that W. B. in VZ, Dec. , , gave the
opera a distinctly unflattering review.
. TV, .

Mahlers Second-in-Command
. NFP, Mar. , .
. Mahler to BW, [June] (GML, ).
. Mahler to BW, [June] and Aug. (GML, ).
. BW to Joseph Schlesinger, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Mahler to BW, [June] (GML, ). Mahler himself conducted Hoffmann
on Nov. , ; it hadnt been performed at the Hofoper since (La Grange
, ).
. BW to his parents, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Recollections of Gustav Mahler, trans. Dika Newlin, ed.
Peter Franklin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), .
. NFP, Sept. , ; unsigned review.
. Signed m. g., NWJ, Sept. , .
. K. H., Deutsches Volksblatt, Sept. , .
. BW to his parents, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Oct. , ; unsigned review.
. Wallascheck seems surprisingly open-minded in his book Primitive Music
(London, ), a survey of the music of other lands and cultures, though he of-
fers a dubious comment concerning the music of the Jews: the Jewish, even the
synagogue, music has been modernised, notwithstanding the fact that many of
the old songs have been preserved. Their sickly sweet lamentabile is still un-
mistakable in Mendelssohns compositions ().
. Die Zeit, Oct. , .
. Franz Mickorey (), who later worked in Dessau, Helsinki, and Braun-
schweig (see La Grange , ); Herr Becher is probably Gustav Brecher
(), a friend of Walters mentioned as a humble assistant conductor at
the Opera in TV, ; see also La Grange , .
. Die Zeit, Oct. , .
. Wallaschek, Primitive Music, .
. TV, . We have been unable to locate the exact passage that Walter cites from
the Neues Wiener Tagblatt, though abusive reviews of Walters conducting of

N P

 Tannhuser did appear in that newspaper and the NFP on Dec. , (both fo-
cusing on the overture), as well as in Die Zeit on Dec. , .
. Mahler to BW, [winter] (GML, ).
. Bauer-Lechner, Recollections of Gustav Mahler, .
. BW to Joseph Schlesinger, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. BW to Ludwig Schiedermair, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Ibid. (BW Briefe, ). Walters interpretation, of course, owes a large debt to
the text of the last movement.
. Die Musik (): .
. NFP, Mar. , .
. BW to his parents, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Hans Pfitzner, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Ibid. (BW Briefe, ).
. Pfitzner wrote to Alma on Mar. , , asking for permission to dedicate his
string quartet to her. See Susanne Keegan, The Bride of the Wind: The Life and
Times of Alma Mahler-Werfel (New York: Viking, ), .
. BW to Pfitzner, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Apr. , May , and June , ; Neues Wiener Tagblatt, June , .
. NFP, Oct. , .
. NFP, Oct. and , .
. NFP, Jan. , . On Nov. , , Walter had conducted a mostly vocal pro-
gram (though it included Beethovens Egmont Overture and Mozarts Piano
Concerto no. in D Minor) in the Musikvereinssaal; this was perhaps his first
concert in the hall.
. From unidentified clippings (dated Feb. ) in a scrapbook now in the Uni-
versitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
. Interview with Mildred Miller, Oct. , .
. Mary Komorn-Rebhan, Was wir von Bruno Walter lernten: Erinnerungen
eines ausbenden Mitgliedes der Wiener Singakademie (Vienna: Universal,
[]), .
. Both published by Josef Weinberger and listed in Hofmeisters Musikalisch-lit-
erarischer Monatsbericht (Jan. ), cited in Paul Bankss unpublished biblio-
graphical study of the piano arrangements of Mahlers symphonies.
. Walters two collections were listed in the Musikalisch-literarischer Monats-
bericht (Feb. and Mar. ), and .
. BW to Pfitzner, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. The manuscript for the last three movements of Walters Quartet is now in the
Universitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
. Signed B, Allgemeine Musikzeitung (Dec. , ): .
. NFP, Nov. , . The comment on eleven thousand virgins is an allusion to

N P

 a line in Das himmlische Leben, the text to the last movement of Mahlers
Fourth.
. BW to Pfitzner, July , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Dec. , .
. BW to Richard Strauss, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. The manuscript for Walters Symphonische Phantasie, in two movements
(dated summer and Mar. ), is now in the Universitt fr Musik und
darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
. NZM (June , ): .
. From the unpublished manuscript of Ein Leben mit Gustav Mahler, cited in La
Grange , . Alma places this performance in , but she also says that the
Ros Quartet played Walters Quartet after this performance, which seems un-
likely. Her dates must be regarded with caution.
. NFP, Apr. , .
. BW to Pfitzner, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Nov. , .
. NFP, Nov. , .
. NFP, Dec. , .
. BW to Pfitzner, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Jan. , .
. TV, .
. Ibid.
. The Piano Quintet is not among the works held by the Universitt fr Musik
und darstellende Kunst in Vienna; its whereabouts are unknown to the authors.
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. ber Kunstverstndnis,sterreichische Rundschau (MayJuly ): .
. Ibid., .
. BW to Pfitzner, [Feb. ] (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ); NFP, June , .
. Probably either a performance of Die Rose on Oct. or the Viennese premiere of
his overture to Kthchen von Heilbronn, which took place on Oct. , .
. BW to Pfitzner, [Dec. ] (BW Briefe, ).
. See Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters, trans. Basil Creighton,
ed. Donald Mitchell (New York: Viking, ), .
. BW to Pfitzner, [Dec. ] (BW Briefe, ).
. Ibid. (BW Briefe, ).
. Ibid. (BW Briefe, ).
. Marie Baumayer took Walters place in a recital scheduled for Feb. , , and
on Mar. Ferdinand Lwe stepped in for Walter, playing the piano part for the
premiere of a new violin sonata by Robert Fuchs.
. TV, .
. TV, .

N P

 . BW to Arturo Toscanini, Aug. , , in The Toscanini Legacy (New York
Public Library, Lincoln Center, Special Collections), L, A-.
. Die Musik , no. (): ; Walters piece is analyzed on .
. Interview with Wolfgang Stresemann, Oct. , . See also Stresemanns es-
say on Walter in Jahre Berliner Philharmoniker: Grosse deutsche Dirigen-
ten (Berlin: Severin & Siedler, ), .
. GM, .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. NFP, Oct. , .
. Deutsche Zeitung, Oct. , .
. The scrapbook in the Universitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst contains
no fewer than fifteen notices for the trioa very high number, suggesting the
importance of the piece to Walter. The whereabouts of Walters Piano Trio are
unknown to the authors.
. Die Musik , no. ( ): . Altmanns nationalistic tendencies, not evi-
dent in this review, emerged clearly in ; see Erik Levi, Music in the Third
Reich (New York: St. Martins Press, ), .
. Gustav Mahler to Alma, Jan. , , in Ein Glck ohne Ruh: Die Briefe Gus-
tav Mahlers on Alma, ed. Henry-Louis de La Grange and Gnther Weiss
(Berlin: Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, ), .
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ). In an article published in the
Boston Transcript (Mar. , ), concerning Walters first appearance in that
city, the author mentions that the Austrian conductor Wilhelm Gericke (who
conducted in Boston from to and from to ) had reportedly
commended Walter to Henry Higginson, the founder of the Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra, whereupon the founder and sustainer issued edict that,
were Mr. Walter ever to come to America, he should conduct at the Symphony
Concerts.
. NFP, Jan. , .
. Klemperer had played earlier recitals in Vienna during February and March.
See Peter Heyworth, Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times, vols. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, ), : .
. Gustav Mahler to Alma, Sept. , (Ein Glck ohne Rh, , ). Accord-
ing to Mahler, Walters symphony had been composed the previous year.
. BW to Pfitzner, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ). With Pfitzners help, Walter
himself eventually gave the German premiere in Strasbourg.
. NFP, May , .
. The Memoirs of Ethel Smyth, ed. Ronald Crichton (Harmondsworth: Viking,
), .
. BW to Pfitzner, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Mahler to BW, [Dec. ] (GML, ).

N P


Composer and Conductor
. NFP, Jan. , .
. NZM (Jan. , ): .
. BW to his parents, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Deutsches Volksblatt, Apr. , .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. BW to Prof. Robert O. Weiss, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Olga Schnitzler, July , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. Arthur Schnitzler, The Road to the Open, trans. Horace Samuel (Evanston, Ill.:
Northwestern University Press, ), .
. BW to Johanna Schlesinger, July , (BW Briefe, ).
. GM, .
. Walter recalled their meeting in a letter to Klemperer dated Dec. , (BWP
I.).
. NFP, Dec. , .
. NFP, Jan. , .
. Ironically, Mahler had recently introduced cuts to Wagner at the Metropolitan
Opera, which elicited protests from the New York critics.
. NFP, Jan. , .
. The parts are housed in the Universitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vi-
enna.
. BW to Pfitzner, June , (BW Briefe, ). On the last page of the man-
uscript part for the sixth horn in F, someone has written in timings for a perfor-
mance that would last fifty-two minutes: I.[Moderato /], minutes; II.[Ada-
gio /], minutes; III. [Allegro con brio /], minutes; IV. [Agitato /],
minutes.
. BW to his parents, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Feb. , .
. See Elsa Bienenfeld, NWJ, Apr. , ; R. Batka, Allgemeine Musikzeitung
(Mar. , ): .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. Times, Mar. , .
. BW to his parents, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Published by Universal in , it has recently been recorded by Vita and Ish-
mael Wallace (issued by VAI Audio, VAIA ).
. Compare the first movement of Walters sonata (p. , mm. ), for example,
with the first of Mahlers Ninth Symphony (p. , mm. , horns and trumpets);
the motive recurs throughout Mahlers work.
. Die Musik , no. (): .

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. Die Jungwiener Tondichter, Die Musik , no. ( ): ; the article
concludes in the following issue.
. Ibid., .
. Bruno Walter, Gustav Mahlers III. Symphonie, Der Merker (): .
. Ibid., .
. NFP, Oct. , .
. NFP, Oct. , .
. BW to his parents, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. An advertisement for the songs appeared in NFP on Feb. , ; Musikanten-
gruss was also published separately near the end of the first issue of Der Merker
in .
. Frstel sang Walters songs again, on Feb. , at a symphony concert of the Vi-
enna Tonknstler Orchestra.
. Though the dedications appear at the beginning of each set of three songs, re-
ferring specifically to Musikantengruss and Die Lerche, they probably refer
to the other two songs in the respective collections as well.
. Fischer-Dieskau recorded all three songs in May , with Jrg Demus at the
keyboard, on an LP issued by Deutsche Grammophon (DGG ); a
live recording of Der Soldat and Der junge Ehemann,with Wolfgang Sawal-
lisch at the piano, was issued on CD by Orfeo (C A) in ; Hggan-
ders recording was released on LP by Bluebell of Sweden (Bell ) in .
Hermann Prey recorded Der junge Ehemann in Dec. (Philips /
Philips ).
. In the s, Musikantengruss was performed at the Czechoslovakian detain-
ment camp Terezn. A facsimile of the program on which Walters piece was in-
cluded is given in Joza Karas, Music in Terezn (New York: Beaufort
Books, ), [].
. NFP, Feb. , .
. Times, Feb. , . Another performance with the same cast, not reviewed in
the Times, took place on Feb. .
. Times, Mar. , . Before leaving London, Walter led one more Tristan, with
Edyth Walker as Isolde, on Mar. .
. Times, Dec. , ; an abbreviated translation of ber Ethel Smyth. Ein
Brief von Bruno Walter, Der Merker (Dec. ): .
. NFP, Apr. , .
. TV, , and BW Briefe, ; BW to Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Apr. ,
(BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. AZ,Oct.,; Klnische Zeitung,Feb., (Abend Ausgabe); see also NFP,
May , .
. BW to Hofmannsthal, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. Der Merker (June , ): .
. Gottfried Reinhardt, The Genius: A Memoir of Max Reinhardt (New York:

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 Knopf, ), . The memorial concert took place at Carnegie Hall on Nov.
, .
. TV, ; also Mahler to BW, Apr. , (GML, ).
. Siegfried Lipiner, Fremden-Blatt, Feb. , .
. NFP, Sept. , ; TV, .
. In Paul Stefan, ed., Gustav Mahler: Ein Bild seiner Persnlichkeit in Wid-
mungen (Munich: R.Piper & Co.,),; reprinted in BW Briefe, .
. BW Briefe, .
. BW Briefe, .
. GML, .
. BW Briefe, .
. BW Briefe, .
. The first movement of Walters Symphony in E Major is dated Aug. , ;
three movements, now in the Universitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst in
Vienna, are extant, and they show signs of heavy revision.
. BW to his parents, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Sternbergs piece originally appeared in Fremden-Blatt, Mar. , ; cited and
translated in Brendan Carroll, The Last Prodigy: A Biography of Erich Wolfgang
Korngold (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, ), .
. NFP, Dec. , .
. Julius Korngold to BW, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. BW to his parents, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).

Premiere Performances
. Mary Komorn-Rebhan, Was wir von Bruno Walter lernten: Erinnerungen eines
ausbenden Mitgliedes der Wiener Singakademie (Vienna: Universal, []).
. Ibid., .
. La Tribuna, Feb. , ; NFP, Feb. , .
. MNN, Feb. , ; AZ, Feb. , .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. Walter remembered the year as (TV, ), but in the parts to the sym-
phony, on the last page of the second trumpet in B-flat, the date for the concert is
given as Feb. , .
. Walter wrote that it gave him joy to conduct his symphony with a fairly com-
petent orchestra in Strasbourg (TV, ), suggesting that he had not been fully
satisfied with the playing of the Konzertverein Orchestra at the premiere.
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. Komorn-Rebhan, Was wir von Bruno Walter lernten, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. NFP, May , .

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. BW to his parents, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. BW to his parents, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, [May ] (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, May , . Walter remembered the funeral as having taken place the day
after Mahlers death (GM, ).
. BW to Alma Mahler, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Justine Mahler, June , (The Gustav MahlerAlfred Ros Collec-
tion, Music Library, University of Western Ontario).
. Deutsches Volksblatt, May , .
. MA, June , .
. NFP, July , .
. NFP, Sept. , .
. See Thomas G. Kaufmans chronology of Carusos appearances in Michael
Scotts The Great Caruso (New York: Knopf, ), .
. TV, .
. Some reviews list this performance as a world premiere (Urauffhrung), oth-
ers as a first performance (erste Auffhrung), which usually means a local pre-
miere.
. NWJ, Nov. , .
. BW to his parents, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Richard Strauss, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Walter and Cahier also gave a Mahler song recital in Vienna on Nov. .
. TV, .
. AZ, Nov. , .
. MNN, Nov. , .
. Cited in Peter Heyworth, Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times, vols. (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, ), :.
. TV, .
. TV, .
. AZ, Dec. , .
. Komorn-Rebhan, Was wir von Bruno Walter lernten, .
. Acetates in good sound were made of Walters performance of the Missa solem-
nis with the New York Philharmonic on Apr. , ; unfortunately, the only
version currently available on compact disc is wretchedly distorted.
. Komorn-Rebhan, Was wir von Bruno Walter lernten, .
. NFP, Feb. , .
. TV, .
. NFP, Feb. , .
. J. M. Corredor, Conversations with Casals, trans. Andr Mangeot (New York:
E. P. Dutton, ), .
. Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Mar. , .
. NFP, Mar. , .
. NWJ, Mar. , .

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. NFP, Mar. , .
. BW to Strauss, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. La Tribuna, Mar. , .
. Gascos Preludio pastorale: Presso in Clitunno and Scherzo orgiastico
were presented as noveltiesin Munich during the spring of under Walter;
a negative review, signed A. A. N., appeared in AZ on Apr. , .
. TV, . Walter performed Siegfrieds Rhine Journey twice at the Augusteum
in Rome on Mar. , ; see La Tribuna, Mar. , .
. BW to his parents, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Komorn-Rebhan, Was wir von Bruno Walter lernten, .
. Sir Adrian Boult, My Own Trumpet (London: Hamish Hamilton, ), .
. AZ, Aug. , .
. AZ, Aug. , . Walter may have had an aversion to the lid. Decades later, he
wrote that, in a covered pit, it was impossible for the orchestral sound to achieve
the brilliance it had in an open space,such as that of the Nationaltheater; see BW
to Egon Hilbert, July , (BWP I.).
. MNN, June , .
. Unpublished interview with Joseph Braunstein by Rolland Parker, Sept. ,
.
. Neues Wiener Tagblatt, June , ; NWJ, June , .
. NFP, June , ; Die Musik , no. (): .
. Rudolf Louis, MNN, Oct. , .
. BW to Stresemann, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. NFP, Nov. , .
. BW to Joseph Schlesinger, [mid-July ] (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, . In fact, German Austria became a republic in , which nullified
the contract Walter had made during the imperial regime.

Generalmusikdirektor
. BW to Richard Strauss, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Martin Mayer, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Frederic Spotts, Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival (New Haven: Yale
University Press, ), .
. BW to Emil Preetorius, May , (BWP I.).
. See TV, , and AZ, Jan. , .
. MNN, Jan. , .
. Ibid.
. MC, Jan. , .
. MNN, Jan. , .
. Moskovskie vedomosti, Jan. (), ; also, Die Musik , no. (): .
. TV, .
. Michael Kennedy, Richard Strauss, d ed. (New York: Schirmer, ), .

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. BW to Strauss, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, A Working Friendship: The
Correspondence between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, trans.
Hanns Hammelmann and Ewald Osers (New York: Random House, ), .
. MNN, Feb. , .
. BW to Strauss, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. As a guest, Walter would return to conduct the Singakademie on many occa-
sions through , most often to perform Mahlers Eighth.
. Review signed A. A. N., AZ, Mar. , .
. MNN, Feb. , .
. Rudolf Louis, MNN, Mar. and , ; A. A. N., AZ, Mar. , .
. See the entry for Senius in K. J. Kutsch and Leo Riemens, Grosses Snger-
lexikon, d ed., vols. (Bern: K. G. Saur, ).
. Walter conducted the Matthus-Passion yearly from to , with the ex-
ception of , which seems to have passed without a performance of Bachs
oratorio in Munich.
. MNN, Mar. , .
. BW to his parents, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. VZ, June , .
. Karl Robert Blum, Die Musik , no. (): .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. Rudolf Louis, MNN, Nov. , ; H. Sch., AZ, Nov. , .
. Reviewed in AZ, Dec. , .
. BT, Dec. , .
. MNN, Jan. , . These observations may have carried some anti-Semitic
overtones; in Louis had published some dubious comments on Jews in mu-
sic in his book Die deutsche Musik der Gegenwart; see Erik Levi, Music in the
Third Reich (New York: St. Martins Press, ), .
. TV, . Walter remembered that he had not yet turned fifty, but in fact he
contracted pneumonia in the summer of , shortly before his fifty-first birth-
day.
. MNN, Jan. , .
. Interview with Schreker, NFP, Jan. , ; BW to Richard Strauss, Mar. ,
(BW Briefe, ).
. AZ, Mar. , .
. NFP, Jan. , .
. MNN, Mar. , .
. AZ, Mar. , .
. Bruno Walter, ber Kunstverstndnis, sterreichische Rundschau (May
July ): .
. Spotts, Bayreuth, .
. Incidentally, Wagners famous Festspielhaus was closed from to , so
during that period, the Prinzregententheater was the only venue to offer faithful
stagings of works composed specifically for Bayreuth.

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. MNN, May , .
. AZ, May , .
. MNN, May , .
. TV, .
. Alfred von Mensi, AZ, June , .
. BW to Ernst von Possart, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. Furtwngler expressed his gratitude for Walters assistance in securing the
Mannheim position in a letter to BW dated Jan. , (BWP I.).
. Adelheid Furtwngler to BW, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. Thomas Mann, Musik in Mnchen, TMGW : (originally published in
Der Tag, Jan. and , ).
. Bruno Walter, Zur Notlage der Musiker. Bierkonzerte unter berhmten Diri-
genten, Der Merker (Oct. ): .
. Most of the concerts went unreviewed, but see AZ, Dec. , , which gives a
good idea of the repertoire; BW to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, June , (BW
Briefe, ).
. MNN, Dec. , .
. TV, .
. Ossip Gabrilowitsch to BW, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Richard Wrz, MNN, Dec. , .
. BW to his parents, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. MNN, Feb. , .
. Max Mahler, MNN, Apr. , ; Walter also conducted Elektra in , ,
and . For Strausss complaints about Walter, see Strauss to Hofmannsthal,
Aug. , (Working Friendship, ).
. AZ, Mar. , .
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).

Delia
. MNN, Aug. , .
. MNN, Sept. , .
. Thomas Mann, Musik in Mnchen, TMGW :.
. Interview with Irma Geering, Dornach, Switzerland, Feb. , .
. Delia Reinhardt is referred to as Schtzendorf s wife in MNN, Nov. , .
Schtzendorf joined the Munich troupe in , having previously worked in
Strasbourg; he probably married Reinhardt sometime after her arrival in Mu-
nich in .
. Speech for the Korngold Memorial Concert, [Apr. , ] (BWP I.).
. AZ, Apr. , .
. Erich Wolfgang Korngold to BW, April , (BWP I.).
. Felix Weingartner, Lebens Erinnerungen (Zurich: Orellfssli Verlag, ),
.

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. Alexander Berrsche, MZ, Mar. , .
. BW to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TMD, June and , ( ).
. Though most of the reviews Walter received in the leading papers were positive,
there were evidently some dissenting voices as well. In September Wolfgang
Blau countered the negative comments leveled at Walter with his essay Eine
kleine Trutzschrift, Signale fr die musikalische Welt (Sept. , ): .
. Bruno Walter, Kunst und ffentlichkeit, Sddeutsche Monatshefte, Oct. ,
.
. Ibid., .
. Thomas Mann, Musik in Mnchen, TMGW :.
. Mann to Pfitzner, May , , in The Letters of Thomas Mann, ,
trans. Richard and Clara Winston (London: Secker and Warburg, ), .
. Mann, Von der Tugend, in the collection Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen;
see TMGW : , esp. .
. BW to Sam Barlow (in English), Mar. , (BWP I.).
. AZ, Nov. , .
. Hugo Rhr had in fact given a performance of Mozarts Mass in C Minor in Mu-
nich in , as Paul Ehlers noted in his review of Walters performance (MNN,
Nov. , ), but clearly it was very seldom performed.
. AZ, Apr. , .
. See, in particular, the letter from BW to Max Auer of Mar. , (BWP I.).
. See Ronald Hayman, Thomas Mann: A Biography (New York: Scribner, ),
, , , , , and passim.
. MNN, Dec. , .
. MNN, Dec. , .
. For Trapp, see Michael Kater, The Twisted Muse (New York: Oxford University
Press,),.Ehrenberg became a member of the Nazi Party in Aug.,
according to Joseph Wulf, Musik im Dritten Reich (Hamburg: Ullstein, ;
repr. ), n. .
. BW to Lotte Walter, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Lotte Walter, Oct. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Munich was no exception; an unusually hostile review appeared in AZ, Dec. ,
.
. MNN, Dec. , . See also Owen Toller, Pfitzners Palestrina (London: Toc-
cata Press, ), .
. BW to Wilhelm Furtwngler, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Partiturreform, Der Merker (July ): , .
. TMD, .
. Recounted in a letter from BW to Fritz Klein, May , (BWP I.).
. BW to his parents, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to his parents, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. MNN, Jan. , .
. MNN, Feb. , .

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. TV, vii.
. BW to Franz Schreker, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Schreker, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Schreker, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. MNN, Nov. , .
. AZ, Nov. , .
. AZ, Nov. , .
. TMD, Apr. , ().
. Reported in MNN, Nov. , .
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. Lotte Walter Lindts note to p. in BW Briefe, .
. BW to Pfitzner, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Gretel Kraus, Apr. , (BWP I.). Walter also fondly recalled, how-
ever, that Pfitzner used to play with his daughter Lotte when she was young and
remarked that he had never met anyone who could play with children as well as
Pfitzner; see BW to Mali Pfitzner, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. R. Hoffmann, Musik in Wien, Musikbltter des Anbruch (Mar. ): .
. BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, June ,,in response to an invitation to conduct
Mahlers Seventh with the Concertgebouw. Walter had rejected an earlier invita-
tion to perform the Seventh with the Concertgebouw in ; see Rudolf Men-
gelberg to BW, Jan. , , and BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, Jan. , (Con-
certgebouw Archives).
. On Walters desire to perform Gurre-Lieder, see Arnold Schoenberg: Letters, ed.
Erwin Stein, trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser (New York: St. Martins
Press, ), .
. Bruno Zirato wrote to Dimitri Mitropoulos on Jan. , , that Walter had
wanted to perform Gurre-Lieder with the New York Philharmonic many times,
but he gave up the idea owing to the terrific cost of the production (NYPA).
. BW to Egon Hilbert, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. MNN, Apr. , .
. Stresemann to BW, Feb. , (BWP I.). Walter performed Gurre-Lieder
with the Vienna Symphony in .
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, July , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW Briefe, .
. Entry for Oct. , (TMD, ).
. See, e.g., the review in AZ, Dec. , .
. Adrian Boult, Bruno Walter, Recorded Sound (): .
. BT, Jan. , .
. From a speech of Apr. , , cited in Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Vienna: A
Dictators Apprenticeship, trans. Thomas Thornton (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, ), . Hitler reportedly leveled the same charge in ; see
Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgesprche im Fhrerhauptquartier , d
ed. (Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, ), .

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. William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Fawcett Crest,
), .
. Vlkischer Beobachter, May , .
. Vlkischer Beobachter, May , .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. BW to Emanuel Fernbach, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. Recounted by Alfred Einstein in a review of Ezio under Robert Denzler, BT,
Feb. , ; there the words are attributed to the singer Joseph Geis.
. VZ, Nov. , and Jan. , .
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. The petition in its entirety, running to about pages, is in BWP I..
. Dr. H. B., Zum Fall Bruno Walter, Vlkischer Beobachter, Mar. , .
. MC, May , .
. Interview with Stresemann, Oct. , .
. TV, .
. Paul Bekker, Zeitwende, Die Musik , no. (): .
. Undated interview, recorded between and (BWL).
. Dr. Eckardt to Friedrich Trefz, Mar. , (BWP I.) and Arthur Weisser to
BW, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. See Ehlerss tribute to Hitler () in Erik Levi, Music in the Third Reich (New
York: St. Martins Press, ), .
. TV, .
. Norbert Salter to Giulio Gatti-Casazza, Sept. , (Met Archives).
. Interview with Irma Geering, Feb. , . Walter conducted the Detroit Sym-
phony Orchestra, Gabrilowitschs ensemble, on his first trip to the United
States, and Gabrilowitsch was responsible for arranging at least some of Wal-
ters other American concerts.
. Interview with Thea Dispeker, Sept. , .
. BWP I..
. Ludwig Karl Mayer,Bruno Walter und Mnchen,Deutsche Tonknstler-Zeitung
(): .
. MZ, Mar. , .
. Dr. H. B., Vlkischer Beobachter, Oct. , .
. Alfred Einstein, Bruno Walters Mnchner Wirksamkeit, Musikbltter des An-
bruch (Nov. ): .
. Adrian Boult to BW, Jan. , (BWP II.). The anecdote is also related in
Boults essay The Conductor: Foreground or Background?, reprinted in
Boult on Music (Thetford, Norfolk: Toccata Press, ), .
. George Martin, The Damrosch Dynasty: Americas First Family of Music (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, ), n. .
. Walter Damrosch, My Musical Life (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, ),
.

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 . BWP I..
. Adolf Schiedt to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).

New and Old Worlds
. BW to Lotte Walter, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NYT, Feb. , .
. Daily News, Feb. , .
. New York Evening Post, Feb. , .
. New York Herald, Feb. , .
. Cited in George Martin, The Damrosch Dynasty: Americas First Family of Mu-
sic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ), .
. MA, Feb. , .
. BW to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. MA, Feb. , .
. BW to Lotte Walter, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. John K. Sherman, Music and Maestros (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, ), .
. Cited in ibid., .
. BW to Lotte Walter, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Globe, Mar. , .
. Boston Post, Mar. , .
. Transcript, Mar. , .
. Translated into German in BW Briefe, . Walter does not identify the newspa-
per, but he enclosed the original clipping, with his translation to be used for
publicity in Vienna.
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. There is some confusion on this point even within the memoirs. Walter wrote
that his family had made its permanent home in Vienna by the summer of
but later claimed that he and his family chose to spend the winter of in
Vienna (TV, , ).
. BT, Apr. , .
. LNN, Aug. , .
. TV, .
. De Telegraaf, Oct. , .
. BW to Alma Mahler, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Wolfgang Stresemann, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Alma Mahler, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to B. Krassin, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Siegfried Jacobson, Die Musik , no. (): .
. MC, Feb. , ; NYT, Mar. , . On the Roman reception of Verklrte
Nacht, see TV, .

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. MC, Mar. , .
. MC, Mar. , .
. NYT, Feb. , .
. Notice for the concert, on Mar. , (from the collection of Jon Samuels).
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. BW to Franz Schreker, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Lotte Walter, Aug. , (BW Briefe, and note on ).
. Times, May , .
. Frida Leider, Playing My Part, trans. Charles Osborne (New York: Meredith
Press, ), .
. Times, May , .
. Julian Herbage, Home Service typescript for Sunday, Sept. , (BWP
I.).
. TV, .
. Lotte Lehman, Midway in My Song (; reprint, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Li-
braries, ), .
. Listed in the Symphony Society Bulletin , no. (Jan. , ).
. TV, .
. Paul Stefan, Bruno Walter (Vienna: Herbert Reichner, ), .
. TV, .
. VZ, Nov. , .
. Sergei Prokofiev to Nikolai Miaskovsky, Jan. , ; in Selected Letters of
Sergei Prokofiev, trans. and ed. Harlow Robinson (Boston: Northeastern Uni-
versity Press, ), .
. BT, Dec. , .
. TV, .
. Times, Dec. , .
. Edward Elgar to Adela Schuster, Mar. , ; in Elgar, Letters of a Lifetime, ed.
Jerrold Northrop Moore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), .
. On the LP Bruno Walter in Conversation with Arnold Michaelis (Columbia
Masterworks BW ), Walter said that hed made his first recording in Berlin in
. When questioned about this date by Joseph Boonin, he confidently wrote
that the prelude to Act from Carmen was recorded in with the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra; BW to Joseph Boonin, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. Double Sided Disc-Records-Catalogue: Polydor ( ), .
. Bruno Walter, Some Thoughts about the Musical Record, American Record
Guide (): .
. Bruno Walter in Conversation with Arnold Michaelis.
. Claude G. Arnolds The Orchestra on Record, (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, ) presents the most thorough documentation of orches-
tral recordings (and their dates) during the acoustic era.
. In the series Early Recordings on s ( Japanese Deutsche Grammophon,
POCG-).
. Times, Feb. , .

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. Wilhelm Rode to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Deutsche Theater-Zeitung (Apr. , ): ; cited in Fred Prieberg, Trial of
Strength: Wilhelm Furtwngler in the Third Reich, trans. Christopher Dolan
(Boston: Northeastern University Press, ), .
. Daniel Gregory Mason to BW, Oct. , (DGMP).
. NYT, Mar. , .
. BW to Gabrilowitsch, May , (BWP I.).
. Reprinted from The Gramophone (July ) in Herman Klein and The Gramo-
phone, ed. William R. Moran (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, ), .
. The history of Berlins opera houses during the confusing period of is
dealt with in Peter Heyworth, Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times, vols. (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, ), :.
. Adolf Weissmann, Die Musik , no. (): .
. BW to Thomas Mann, July , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Sept. , .

A New Opera Company
. VZ, Sept. , .
. In a letter to Hans Schwieger, dated May , (BWP I. ), Walter recom-
mended opening a concert that had Das Lied as its centerpiece with either
Schuberts Unfinished or Mozarts Symphony no. ; the combination of the
Unfinished and Das Lied appeared again on Walters last program with the
New York Philharmonic, in .
. TV, .
. Bruno Walter, Kapelle und Kapellmeister, Deutsche Tonknstler-Zeitung
(): .
. Yehudi Menuhin, interviewed for the BBC Walter Omnibus.
. TV, .
. Times, May , .
. Heinz Tietjen to BW, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Tietjen to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. Signed g. c., Corriere della Sera, June , .
. TV, .
. Typescript, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BT, Sept. , .
. TV, .
. BT, Nov. , .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. BW to Isao Uno, July , (BWP I.).
. Printed as Dem Menschen und Musiker in BT, Mar. , , and as Rede
Bruno Walters bei der Beethovenfeier in der Philharmonie in Die deutsche
Bhne (Apr. ): .

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. See Michael Kater, The Twisted Muse (New York: Oxford University Press,
), .
. [BW] to Oberbrgermeister [Gustav Bss], Jan. , , and Bss to BW, Feb.
, (BWP I.).
. Georg Sebestyen, Bruno Walter, Die Musik , no. (): .
. Anton Weiss to BW, May , (BWP I.); BW to [Weiss], May , (Vi-
enna Philharmonic Archives).
. Weiss to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. BW to [Weiss], June , (Vienna Philharmonic Archives).
. In the season Lotte Walter appeared as Fiordiligi in Cos, Amalia in
Ballo, Pamina in Die Zauberflte, and a woman in von Schillingss Mona Lisa;
the following season, she sang Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Adele in Die Fle-
dermaus, Lisa in Pique Dame, Frau Fluth in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, as
well as several roles in now forgotten works.
. Rudolf Bing, Nights at the Opera (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ),
. Walter wrote that Lotte and her first husband were separated by (TV,
).
. TV, .
. Report signed E.C., MC, July , .
. Ibid. and MA, July , .
. San Francisco Chronicle, July , .
. LAT, July , .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. BW to Hans Pfitzner, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Adolf Diesterweg, NZM (): .
. Bruno Walter, interviewed by Bernhard Romani, Existenzfragen der Oper,
Die deutsche Bhne (): .
. Interview with Albert Goldberg, aired in a documentary on Walter for the Cana-
dian Broadcasting Company in and reissued by VAI in Bruno Walter: The
Maestro, the Man (VAI ).
. Tietjen to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. Diesterweg, NZM (): .
. Alfred Einstein, Bruno Walters Mnchner Wirksamkeit, Musikbltter des An-
bruch (): .
. BT, Nov. , .
. TV, .
. BT, Jan. , .
. BT, Feb. , .
. TV, .
. VZ, Feb. , .
. BW to his parents, Feb. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .

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. Brendan Carroll, The Last Prodigy: A Biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold
(Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, ), .
. BT, Apr. , .
. See Carroll, Last Prodigy, .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. See the announcement in BT, Jan. , .
. Le Figaro, June , .
. S. Francoeur, BT, May , .
. Le Figaro, May , .
. Stravinsky, In Re Walter, Stereo Review (Mar. , ): [].
. In the BBC Walter Omnibus, Georg Solti recalled meeting Walter on a train at a
time when Walter and Stravinsky were neighbors in Beverly Hills. Noticing a
score that Solti was carrying, Walter asked what it was. On learning that it was Le
Sacre, he reportedly replied: Oh, how can you do that piece? Its terrible, a ter-
rible piece!
. Le Temps, June , .
. Le Figaro, June , .
. Le Figaro, June , .
. The matrix number for the Figaro Overture is WAX , an item first brought
to our attention by James Altena, who in turn was alerted to its existence by the
British dealer Raymond Glaspole.
. BT, June , .
. See BW to Tietjen, June , (BWP I.).
. Typescript in BWP I.; the work was surely meant for publication and may well
have been published, though we have not yet found a published version. Some
years before, Max Marschalk had published an article on the sorry state of opera
in Berlin, also entitled Operndmmerung (VZ, Nov. , ).
. BW to Bss, Sept. , (BWP I.); an abbreviated version is given in BW
Briefe, .
. LNN, Oct. , .
. BT, Dec. , .
. BT, Jan. , .
. Arthur Judson to BW, Jan. , ; BW to Arthur Judson, Jan. , (NYPA).
. See the first and fourth documents in BWP I..
. Lotte Lehmann to BW, Mar. , (LLP).
. VZ, Mar. , .
. BT, Mar. , .
. BT, Apr. , .
. Yehudi Menuhin, Unfinished Journey (New York: Knopf, ), .
. Times, May , .
. TV, .
. Bruno Walter, interviewed by Bernhard Romani, Existenzfragen der Oper,
.

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Gewandhauskapellmeister
. TV, .
. In Walters introduction to Eberhard Creuzburg, Die Gewandhaus-Konzerte zu
Leipzig, (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel, ), .
. See the letters in BWP I.; Creuzburg, Gewandhaus-Konzerte, .
. Johannes Forner, ed., Die Gewandhaus-Konzerte zu Leipzig, , d ed.
(Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag fr Musik, ), .
. Die Musik , no. (): .
. TV, .
. NZM (): .
. NZM (): .
. See his announcement of Walters appointment in LNN, Dec. , .
. NZM (): .
. ber den Vortrag einiger Motive und Stellen in klassischen Werken, vornehm-
lich Mozarts, NZM (): .
. NZM (): .
. Take, e.g., Walters recording of the Prague Symphony or Beethovens Pas-
toral, both recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic in .
. In NZM () and succeeding issues.
. NZM (): .
. NZM (): .
. NZM (): .
. BT, Jan. , . The same review appears in Die Musik , no. (): .
. Entry for Dec. , (TMD, ).
. Bruno Walter at the Piano (Bruno Walter Society BWS ).
. Quoted in Nicholas Kenyon, The BBC Symphony Orchestra:The First Fifty
Years (London: BBC, ), .
. The Strauss pieces with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra have been reissued
by Sony (SMK ); those with the Vienna Philharmonic (a broadcast
recording) were briefly available in Japan on Wing Disc (WCD ).
. From an insert in the programs for his Covent Garden performances.
. BW to Paul Block, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW quoted in the NWJ, Mar. , .
. Nachtausgabe, Mar. , .
. See the correspondence between Walter and Reinhardt (BWP I.).
. Harold Rosenthal, Two Centuries of Opera at Covent Garden (London: Putnam,
), .
. Times, May , .
. BW to Harold Rosenthal, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. It was actually Schneiderhans secret negotations with Furtwngler that prompted
Schalks resignation. See Marcel Prawy, The Vienna Opera (New York: Praeger,
), .

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. NFP, Dec. , .
. TV, .
. NZM (): .In framing his symbolic question, Junk used the familiar du
for you, demonstrating just how deeply and intimately he felt the Viennese
cared for Walter.
. TV, .
. Golo Mann, Reminiscences and Reflections: A Youth in Germany, trans. Krishna
Winston (New York: Norton, ), .
. Ibid., .
. TV, .
. From Covent Garden insert.
. Times, May , .
. Times, May , .
. The various behind-the-scenes maneuverings to secure Beecham, the prime
mover of which appears to have been Lady Snowdon, one of the trustees of the
Covent Garden Opera Syndicate, are described in detail in Francis Donald-
sons The Royal Opera House in the Twentieth Century (London: Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, ), . Lady Snowdon would later claim that the board of
trustees had engaged Beecham without consulting her.
. Quoted in Harold Rosenthal, Opera at Covent Garden: A Short History (Lon-
don: Victor Gollancz Ltd., ), .
. Roland Tenschert, Die Musik , no. (): ; NWJ, Aug. , .
. BW to Wolfgang Stresemann, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Margarete Wallmann, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Creuzburg,Gewandhaus-Konzerte,.The Gewandhaus performed in Cologne,
Brussels, Paris, Strasbourg, Ghent, Stuttgart, and Munich.
. Die Musik , no. (May ): .
. See Creuzburg, Gewandhaus-Konzerte, .
. NZM (): .
. TV, .
. BW to Arthur Judson, May , (NYPA).
. NYT, Jan. , .
. NYT, Feb. and Jan. , .
. Prokofiev to Vernon Duke, June , ; in Selected Letters of Sergei Prokofiev,
trans. and ed. Harlow Robinson (Boston: Northeastern University Press, ),
.
. BW to Daniel Gregory Mason, May , (DGMP).
. NYT, Feb. , .
. NYT, Feb. , .
. Herbert F. Peyser, Bruno Walter, Disques (Feb. ): .
. Bruno Walter, Konzerte und ihre Funktion, Berliner Zeitung (undated clip-
ping from the second scrapbook in BWP IX, probably published in the fall of
).
. Annotated comment by Mason on a letter from BW, May , , in which Wal-

N P

 ter asked if he might keep the Shepherd score longer (DGMP); NYHT, Feb. ,
.
. New York Sun, Feb. , ; New York Post, Feb. , .
. The recording project had been discussed as early as Oct.,and many letters
passed between RCA Victor and the New York Philharmonic to work out the le-
galities involved.It is very unlikely that a recording was made,however,since the
Philharmonics Personnel Managers Report for the week ending Feb. , ,
has no notes on extra payments made to the performers for a recording (NYPA).
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Forner, ed., Gewandhaus-Konzerte, .
. LNN, Mar. , .
. See Hans-Joachim Nosselt, Das Gewandhaus-Orchester (Leipzig: Koehler &
Amelang, ), .
. Walter Vetter, Res Severa Verum Gaudium: Die Tradition des Gewand-
hauses, in Festschrift zum jhrigen Bestehen der Gewandhauskonzerte,
(Leipzig; Deutscher Verlag fr Musik, ), .
. Fritz Hennenberg, Das Leipziger Gewandhausorchester (Leipzig: VEB Edition,
), .
. Vetter, Res Severa, .
. Edith Stargardt-Wolff, Wegbereiter grosser Musiker (Berlin: Bote & G. Bock,
), .
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Julius Kopsch to BW, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Kopsch, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Internationale Mitteilungen Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft (May ): . See
also Gerhard Splitt, Richard Strauss : sthetik und Musikpolitik zu
Beginn der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus Ver-
lagsgesellschaft, ), . Splitt seems generally to accept the Stargardt-
Wolff version.
. BW to Stargardt-Wolff, July , (BWP I.).
. Stargardt-Wolff to BW, July , (BWP I.).
. Stargardt-Wolff to BW, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. Vlkischer Beobachter, Mar. /, .
. Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, Apr. , ; quoted in Splitt, Richard Strauss, .
. NYT, Apr. , .
. Bundesarchiv Berlin, Bestandssignatur (Bruno Walter).
. NZM (May ): .
. Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Mar. , .
. Quoted in NYT, Mar. , .
. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners (New York: Knopf,
).

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 . Hellmut Krug to BW, Mar. , (BWP I.). The letters that Walter saved
from Germans alone take up three entire folders.
. BW to Ada Pixis, May , (BWP I.). The letter to Pixis is written in a
different hand, possibly Elsas.
. Draft of speech (BWP I.).
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, May , (BWP I.).
. BW, telegram to North American Newspaper Alliance, n. d. [after Mar. ,
] (BWP I.).
. Quoted by Alfred Einstein, BT, Feb. , .
. BW to Kanitz, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Staatsrat Dr. Korn, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. NZM (May ): ; see Erik Levi, Music in the Third Reich (New York:
St. Martins Press, ), .
. BW to Deutsche Wochenschau, May , (BWP I.).
. Gustav Bosse to BW, May , (BWP I.); NZM (June ): .
. Allgemeine Musikzeitung (May , ): .
. Wilhelm Furtwngler, Notebooks, , trans. Shaun Whiteside, rev. ed.
(London: Quartet Books, ), , .
. The articles are reprinted in Joseph Wulf, ed., Musik im Dritten Reich (Frank-
furt: Ullstein, ), .
. TMD, .
. Gino Baldini to BW, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Baldini, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, May , (BWP I.).

Nomad Again
. Quoted in MC, May , .
. BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, Mar. , (Concertgebouw Archives).
. Algemeen Handelsblad, Mar. , .
. TV, .
. De Telegraaf, Mar. , .
. TV, .
. Paul Stefan, MA, Apr. , .
. NYT, Apr. , .
. NFP, Apr. , .
. Stefan, MA, Apr. , .
. MC, May , .
. Times, May , .
. Entry for Apr.,,in Virginia Woolf,The Diary of Virginia Woolf,ed.Anne
Olivier Bell, vols. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, ), :.
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, May , (BWP I.).

N P

. NFP, Aug. , .
. See the account in NYT, Aug. , .
. Edith Wharton to Gaillard Lapsley, Aug. , ; in The Letters of Edith Whar-
ton (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, ), .
. NYT, Aug. , .
. BW to Bruno Zirato, Sept. , (NYPA).
. NYT, Sept. , .
. NYHT, Oct. , ; NYT, Oct. , .
. NYT, Oct. , .
. BW to Randall Thompson, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. NYHT, Nov. , .
. BW to Werner Bollert, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Leo Schlesinger, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NFP, Mar. , .
. Marcel Prawy, The Vienna Opera (New York: Praeger, ), .
. Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Sept. , .
. NFP, Mar. , .
. NFP, Apr. , .
. Quoted in Nicholas Kenyon, The BBC Symphony Orchestra: The First Fifty
Years (London: BBC, ), .
. Wilhelm Backhaus to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. BW to Bruno Zirato, Dec. , (NYPA).
. TV, .
. See Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Austrians (New York: Carroll & Graf, ),
.
. TV, .
. Currently housed at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Sound Archive.
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Ezio Pinza (with Robert Magidoff ), An Autobiography (New York: Rinehart &
Co., ), .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. NFP, Aug. , .
. Erich Leinsdorf, Cadenza (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, ), .
. Kurt Weill to Lotte Lenya, Sept. , ; in Speak Low (When You Speak Love):
The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, ed. and trans. Lys Symonette and
Kim H. Kowalke (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), .
. Weill to Lenya, Oct. , (Speak Low, ).
. De Telegraaf, Oct. , .
. NYT, Dec. , ; NYHT, Dec. , .
. NYHT, Dec. , ; NYT, Dec. , .
. NYT, Dec. , .
. Arturo Toscanini to Ada Mainardi, Jan. , (Arturo Toscaninis letters to

N P

 Ada Mainardi, private collection, Milan; courtesy of Harvey Sachs, who trans-
lated the letter from the original Italian).
. Otto Strasser, Und dafr wird man noch bezahlt: Mein Leben mit den Wiener
Philharmonikern (Vienna: Paul Neff Verlag, ), .
. Interview with Siegmund Levarie, Mar. , .
. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E. F. J.
Payne, vols. (New York: Dover, ), :.
. MK, .
. MK, .
. Katia Mann, Unwritten Memories, ed. Elisabeth Plessen and Michael Mann,
trans. Hunter and Hildegarde Hannum (New York: Knopf, ), .
. Lotte Walter identifies Neppach as a film producer (BW Briefe, ), while sev-
eral newspapers referred to him as an architect in .
. Pinza, Autobiography, .
. Ibid., .
. BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, Aug. , (Concertgebouw Archives).
. BW to Leo Schlesinger, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Thomas Mann to Heinrich Mann, July , ; in The Letters of Thomas Mann,
, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (London: Secker and Warburg,
), .
. Allan Keiler, Marian Anderson: A Singers Journey (New York: Scribner, ),
.
. NYT, July , .
. NFP, Aug. , .
. Prawy, Vienna Opera, .
. TV, .
. Ibid.

Dies Irae
. Paul Stefan, Bruno Walter (Vienna: Herbert Reichner, ).
. Bruno Walter, Mahlers Weg. Ein Erinnerungsblatt, Der Merker (Aug. ):
.
. GM, , , .
. BW to his parents, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. GM, .
. GM, .
. BW to Clara Gabrilowitsch, Oct. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Interview with Elena Nikolaidi, May , .
. Edition Wiener Staatsoper Live, vol. (Koch Schwann, ).
. Broadcast of Feb. , , included on a New York Philharmonic/WQXR Ra-
diothon recording (NYP ); another performance of the overture is that with
the Bavarian State Orchestra of Oct. , , issued on AS Disc (AS ).

N P

 . NFP, May , .
. J. M. Corredor, Conversations with Casals, trans. Andr Mangeot (New York:
E. P. Dutton, ), .
. NWJ, Aug. , .
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, Sept. , (MFCC).
. The performance of Don Giovanni from Aug. , , has been issued by the
Radio Years (RY .).
. TV, .
. BW to Hans Pfitzner, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. Edition Wiener Staatsoper Live, vol. (Koch Schwann, ).
. TV, .
. TV, .
. NWJ, Feb. , .
. BW to George Marek, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. Marek to BW, Oct. , ; draft of letter from BW to Marek, Oct. ,
(BWP I.).
. Egon Wellesz, Bruno Walter (), Music and Letters (): .
. TV, .
. BW to Toscanini, Feb. , ; trans. in Harvey Sachs, Toscanini, Hitler, and
Salzburg, in Reflections on Toscanini (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, ),
. The original of the letter is in The Toscanini Legacy, housed at the New
York Public Library.
. BW to Toscanini, Feb. , ; in Sachs, Toscanini, Hitler, and Salzburg,
.
. Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Austrians (New York: Carroll & Graf, ), .
. TV, .
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, Apr. , (MFCC).
. NWJ, Mar. , .
. TV, .
. Ibid.
. BW to Clara Gabrilowitsch, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. BW to Paula Gericke, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. TV, .
. TV, .
. Neue Zrcher Zeitung, Aug. , .
. BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, Sept. , (Concertgebouw Archives).
. Their correspondence and proposed lists of works and conductors are found in
BWP I..
. TV, .
. TV, .
. See Harvey Sachs, Toscanini (n.p.: Prima Publishing, ), , .
. NYT, Mar. , .
. NYT, Mar. , .

N P

. Quoted in B. H. Haggin, The Toscanini Musicians Knew, d ed. (New York:
Horizon Press, ), reprinted in B. H. Haggin, Arturo Toscanini: Contempo-
rary Recollections of the Maestro, ed. Thomas Hathaway (New York: Da Capo,
), .
. Haggin, The Toscanini Musicians Knew, .
. Story told by Josef Gingold in ibid., . A similar account is related by
Frederic Waldman, also a player in the NBC orchestra, who recalled a rehearsal
in which Toscanini yelled No! in disapproval several times as Walter re-
hearsed the orchestra (Waldman to Rolland Parker, Feb. , , courtesy of
Parker).
. Quoted in Sachs, Toscanini, .
. TV, .
. GM, .
. NYHT, Apr. , .
. Pinza, Autobiography, .
. Arturo Toscanini to Ada Mainardi, Aug. , (Arturo Toscaninis letters to
Ada Mainardi, private collection, Milan; courtesy of Harvey Sachs, who trans-
lated the letter from the original Italian).
. Pinza, Autobiography, .
. A small notice appeared in the Neue Zrcher Zeitung, Aug. , .
. BW to Thomas and Katia Mann, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, Sept. , (Concertgebouw Archives).
. BW to Alma Mahler Werfel, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Mengelberg, Oct. , (Concertgebouw Archives).

Guest Conductor on Two Coasts
. BW to Helmut Fahsel, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, Nov. , (MFCC).
. LAT, Dec. , .
. BW to Fahsel, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Thomas Mann, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. The performance has been released on Pearl (GEMM CD ).
. NYT, Feb. , .
. Bruno Walter, Bruckner and Mahler, Chord and Discord , no. (): .
. LAT, July , .
. BW to Flagler, Aug. , (MFCC).
. BW to Wolfgang Stresemann, Oct. , (BW Briefe, ). The book in ques-
tion was either his autobiography or an early draft of MM.
. BW to Flagler, Aug. , (MFCC).
. Bruno Walter, About War and Music, Decision , no. (): .
. Detroit Free Press, Nov. , .
. LAT, Nov. , .

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. LAT, Nov. , .
. BW to Bronislaw Huberman, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. NYT, Jan. , .
. The broadcast of Jan. , , has been released on compact disc by AS Disc
(AS ), though better-sounding sources have survived in private collections.
. NYT, Jan. , .
. The performance of Blochs Evocations on Feb. , , has been issued on AS
Disc (AS ).
. Nation, Mar. , ; reprinted in B. H. Haggin, Years of Music (New York:
Horizon Press, ), .
. NYT, Feb. , .
. Haggin, Years, .
. NYT, Jan. , .
. The broadcast of Jan. , , has been released by AS Disc (AS ).
. Time, Feb. , .
. David Berkowitz, Behind the Gold Curtain: Fifty Years in the Metropolitan
Opera Orchestra (Delhi, N.Y.: Birch Brook Press, ), .
. Ibid., .
. Sir Georg Solti (with Harvey Sachs), Memoirs (New York: Knopf, ), .
. Interview with David Kates, July , .
. Interview with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Nov. , .
. Interview with Siegmund Levarie, Mar. , .
. BW to John McClure, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Berkowitz, Behind the Gold Curtain, .
. NYT, Feb. , .
. In The Maestro Myth (New York: Citadel Press, ) Norman Lebrecht not
only makes the unsubstantiated claim that Gretel killed herself, but blames Wal-
ter for her death, saying that his daughters paid the ultimate price for his pater-
nal shortcomings ().
. Berkowitz, Behind the Gold Curtain, .
. BW to Francis Biddle, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. LAT, July , .
. In Walter would receive an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the Uni-
versity of California in Los Angeles, and in another Doctor of Music degree
from the University of Edinburgh.
. BW to Leo and Emma Schlesinger, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Herbert Graf, May , (BWP I.).
. NYT, Nov. , .
. Virgil Thomson, NYHT, Nov. , .
. Jarmila Novotn to Erik Ryding, Jan. , .
. Interview with Ruth Martin, May , .
. Ibid.
. NYHT, Dec. , .
. Walters early recordings of Beethovens Fifth Symphony, the Eroica, and the

N P

 Emperor with Serkin (as well as the Eighth Symphony) have been issued by
the French label LYS (LYS ); the Emperor has also appeared, in bet-
ter sound, in Sony Classicals Bruno Walter Edition (SMK ).
. Ernst Krenek, Gustav Mahler, in Bruno Walter, Gustav Mahler, trans. James
Galston (New York: Greystone Press, ), .
. BW to Krenek, Dec. , (BWP I.; also in BW Briefe, ).
. LAT, July , .
. Grace Koopal, Miracle of Music: The History of the Hollywood Bowl ([Los Ange-
les: Anderson, Ritchie and Simon], ), .
. BW to Stresemann, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Leo and Emma Schlesinger, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Harry Harkness Flagler, Sept. , (MFCC).
. BW to Arthur Judson, Dec. , (NYPA).
. BW to John Alden Carpenter, July , (BWP I.); NYT and (for Briggs)
unidentified clipping, both dated Oct. , .
. Cyril Clemens to BW, Dec. , , and BW to Clemens, Dec. , (BWP
I.).
. NYT, Dec. , ; NYHT, Dec. , .
. Interview with Stresemann, Oct. , . It is impossible to know with ab-
solute certainty whether Walter conducted this work earlier in his career, where
documentation is still spotty; but in all likelihood this was indeed his first per-
formance of Forza. Stresemann commented that Walter found the overture par-
ticularly attractive.
. NYT, Jan. , .
. BW to Daniel Gregory Mason, Sept. , (DGMP).
. BW to Grete Rauch, July , (BWP I.).
. Bruno Zirato to BW, July , (NYPA).
. MM, .
. The series of letters between Walter and Drinker resides in the library of the
Universitt fr Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
. MM, .
. BW to Leo and Emma Schlesinger, June , (BW Briefe, ).
. MM, .
. MM, .
. MM, .
. MM, , .
. BW to Zirato, July , (NYPA).
. [Zirato] to BW, Mar. , (NYPA).
. MM, .
. NYT, Apr. , .
. Leonard Rose, interviewed for the BBC Walter Omnibus.
. BW to Flagler, Sept. , (MFCC).
. Zirato to Mr. Correa, U.S. District Attorneys Office, Apr. , (NYPA).
. BW to Stresemann, May , (BWP I.).

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 . Elsa Walter to Stresemann, July , (BWP I.).
. Koopal, Miracle of Music, .
. LAT, Aug. , .
. BW to Leo and Emma Schlesinger, Sept. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Flagler, Sept. , (MFCC).
. From Bernsteins interview with Arnold Michaelis, included in a documentary
on Bruno Walter produced by Michaelis for National Educational Television.
. Interview with William Lincer, Feb. , . Leonard Bernsteins Philhar-
monic debut has been privately released on compact disc by the New York
Philharmonic.
. Interview with Lincer, Feb. , .
. NYT, Dec. , .
. Memo of conversation between Edward Johnson and BW, Jan. , (Met
Archives).
. NYT, Jan. , .
. NYT, Mar. , .
. NYT Magazine, Mar. , .
. BWP I..
. BW to Thomas Mann, Oct. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Kansas City Star, Feb. , .
. TV, .
. The New York Philharmonic performed on both recordings, which have been
reissued by Sony Classical on SMK (Mendelssohns Violin Concerto)
and SMK (Mahlers Fourth). In Sony Classical issued a promo-
tional CD of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, with the original cover repro-
duced in miniature, to celebrate the birth of the LP.
. Walters presence was noted in the New York Post, May , .
. Arthur Schnabel to BW, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Csar Saerchinger to BW, Sept. , ; BW to Saerchinger, Oct. , (BWP
I.).
. BW to Flagler, May , (MFCC).
. Interview in BWL.
. BW to Thomas Michels, May , (BWP I.).
. Alma Mahler (with E. B. Ashton), And the Bridge Is Love (New York: Harcourt
Brace, ), ; Karen Monson, Alma Mahler: Muse to Genius (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, ), .
. James Galston to BW, Aug. , (BWP II.).
. BW to Franz J. Horch, Oct. , (BWP II.).
. Chicago Tribune, Oct. , .
. BW to Leo and Emma Schlesinger, July , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Leo and Emma Schlesinger, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. NYT, Dec. , .
. Henry-Louis de La Grange to Erik Ryding, Mar. , .
. NYHT, Mar. , .

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. BW to Tadeusz Kassern, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Munich Detachment, U.S. Army, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Hans Pfitzner to BW, Mar. , ; in Hans Pfitzner, Briefe (Ttzing: Hans
Schneider, ), .
. Pfitzner to BW, Oct. , (Pfitzner, Briefe, ).
. BW to Pfitzner, Nov. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Dr. Jur. Eugen Leer, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. Sam Chapiro to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. NYT Book Review, Aug. , .
. Times, Oct. , .
. BW to Thomas and Katia Mann, Dec. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Globe, Jan. , .
. BW to Andreas Barban, July , (BWP I.).

Musical Adviser
. See Howard Shanet, Philharmonic: A History of New Yorks Orchestra (New
York: Doubleday, ), .
. Artur Rodzinski to BW, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Rodzinski, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Unidentified newspaper clipping, Feb. , (Bruno Walter clipping file,
New York Public Library).
. Memorandum from Louise Fry to Miss Meyer and Miss Dennis, Oct. ,
(NYPA).
. BW to Mrs. Charles F. Guggenheimer, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Wolfgang Stresemann, July , (BWP I.).
. BW to Stresemann, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Stresemann, May , (BWP I.).
. The most recent recording of the symphony is that of Neeme Jrvi and the De-
troit Symphony Orchestra () for Chandos Records (CHAN ).
. BW to Stresemann, May , , and Stresemann to BW, May , (BWP
I.).
. BW to Stresemann, May and June , (BWP I.).
. Stresemann to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. BW to Stresemann, June , (BWP I.).
. Stresemann to BW, June , (BWP I.).
. Stresemann to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. BW to David Stanley Smith, July , (BWP I.).
. Daniel Gregory Mason, Journal entry for Apr. , (DGMP).
. Mason to BW, June , (DGMP; also BWP I.).
. BW to Mason, June , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Bruno Zirato Jr., Sept. , .
. Dimitri Mitropoulos to BW, Jan. , (BWP I.).

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. BW to Mitropoulos, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. GM, .
. BW to Bruno Zirato, June , (NYPA).
. BW to Lotte Lehmann, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. The Immolation Scene is included on the CD set Helen Traubel in Concert
(Eklipse EKR ).
. From the concert of July , , preserved on Walter Collection , Historical
Performers (HP ).
. Helen Traubel, St. Louis Woman (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, ),
.
. Rudolf Bing, Nights at the Opera (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ), ,
.
. Bruno Walter, Farewell, in Kathleen Ferrier : A Memoir, ed. Neville
Cardus (London: Hamish Hamilton, ), .
. Ibid., .
. BW to Lotte Lehmann, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Mertens Colonert, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. The orchestra later published a pamphlet on the Edinburgh Festival, noting
Walters conciliatory attitude; see Die Wiener Philharmoniker: ein Stck Welt-
geschichte (Vienna: Verlag der Wiener Philharmoniker, ), . According to
another account, Buxbaums return to his place in the orchestra was accompa-
nied by a barbed comment on the sound of the orchestra as ganz judenrein (a
pun that could mean completely free of Jews or quite in tune in the Jewish
manner); see Richard Newman (with Kitty Kirtley), Alma Ros: Vienna to
Auschwitz (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus, ), .
. BW to L. C. Mazirel, Oct. , (BWP I.; also in BW Briefe, ).
. Cited in a letter from Cyril Clarke to BW, June , (BWP I.). In a letter
to Julius Kopsch dated Oct. , , Walter recorded his continuing resentment
that Strauss had taken over his Berlin Philharmonic concert in : But natu-
rally, he added, my admiration for the great musician, as well as my promotion
of his works, has remained unaffected by this incident (BWP I.).
. BW to Clarke, July , (BWP I.).
. The broadcast of Nov. , , has been reissued on Music and Arts (CD ).
. BW to Mitropoulos, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Mitropoulos to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Quoted in a letter from Zirato to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Mitropoulos to BW, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Mitropoulos, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. NYT, Nov. , .
. BW to Stresemann, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Berta Morena, Oct. , ; Morena to BW, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Norman Lebrecht, in The Maestro Myth (New York: Citadel Press, ), claims
that after the Anschluss Walter responded to Arnold Ross need for financial
assistance by pleading poverty and offering only a few hundred dollars (a con-

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 siderable sum at that time). The following year, Lebrecht writes, basking in
the Californian sunshine, he demanded the return of his loan (). The inci-
dent, if it happened as Lebrecht represents it, would have been highly unchar-
acteristic. It is perhaps significant that Ross son, Alfred, wrote to BW affec-
tionately as Dear Uncle Bruno on June , (BWP I.).
. BW to Thomas Mann, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. H. E. Jacob to BW, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Godfrey Turner, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Alma Clayburgh, undated telegram (BWP I.).
. The broadcast of Jan. , , is included in New York Philharmonic: The
Mahler Broadcasts, (New York Philharmonic Special Editions NYP
/).
. Cited in Winifred Ferrier, The Life of Kathleen Ferrier (London: Hamish Hamil-
ton, ), .
. Leonard Bernstein to BW, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Bernstein, Feb. , (Leonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Con-
gress).
. Walter conducted the overture to Hindemiths Neues vom Tage with the Gewand-
haus Orchestra on Dec. , .
. BW to Paul Hindemith, Jan. , (Paul-Hindemith-Institut, Frankfurt am
Main). We are indebted to Luitgard Anna Schader of the Paul-Hindemith-Insti-
tut for calling this letter to our attention, as well as the date and place of the meet-
ing marked in Hindemiths pocket calendar and a notation by Gertrud Hin-
demith that the meeting was to take place on Saturday, Feb. , at : a.m.
. The performance has been issued by AS Disc (AS ).
. BW to Zirato, Apr. , (NYPA).
. NYT, Sept. , ; BW to Zirato, Sept. , (NYPA).
. See the correspondence in BWP I..
. BW to Norman Dello Joio, July , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Dello Joio, Nov. , .
. Interview with Stresemann, Oct. , .
. BW to Stresemann, July , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Dello Joio, Nov. , .
. BW to Zirato, June , (NYPA).
. BW to Zirato, June , (NYPA).
. BW to Zirato, May , (NYPA).
. BW to Zirato, May , (NYPA).
. BW to Lotte Lehmann, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. Lehmann to BW, Apr. , (LLP).
. Delia Reinhardt to Alma Mahler Werfel, Mar. , (AMWC).
. NYHT, May , .
. A brief promotional film clip of Walter rehearsing the last movement of Bee-
thovens Ninth with the Vienna Philharmonic has circulated and been reissued
on video by Parnassus Records (PCV ).

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. The performance has circulated on Nuova Era (/) as well as other labels.
. NYHT, May , .
. NYT, May , .
. BW to Alfred Polgar, Sept. , (BWP I.; abbreviated version in BW
Briefe, ).
. Quoted in Albert Goldberg, Bruno Walter: Poet of Conductors, NYT Maga-
zine (Sept. , ), .
. BW to Arthur Judson, Oct. , (NYPA).
. Sadly, kinescopes of Walters programs seem not to exist, though some have sur-
vived for other Chicago Symphony Orchestra broadcasts of the same vintage.
. BW to Eric Oldberg, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Rudolf Bing, Mar. , (BWP I.). On the two drafts of this letter
see Sam Shirakawa, The Devils Music Master (New York: Oxford University
Press, ), .
. See Strelitzers contribution to Furtwngler Recalled, ed. Daniel Gillis (Tucka-
hoe, N.Y.: John De Graff, Inc., ), .
. BW to Zirato, Jan. , (NYPA).
. BW to Wilhelm Furtwngler, Jan. , (BWP I.; also in BW Briefe,
), cited and translated in Shirakawa, Devils Music Master, . We have al-
tered the translation in places.
. The footage of Furtwngler conducting the finale of Beethovens Ninth before
Goebbels is available on the videotape Great Conductors of the Third Reich, is-
sued by the Bel Canto Society (BCS ), which also shows Furtwngler con-
ducting the Prelude to Die Meistersinger at the AEG factory, the background of
which is decorated with images of large swastikas enclosed in gears.
. Fred Prieberg,Trial of Strength: Wilhelm Furtwngler in the Third Reich,trans.
Christopher Dolan (Boston: Northeastern University Press, ), .
. Interview with Yehudi Menuhin, May , . See also Menuhin, Unfinished
Journey (New York: Knopf, ), .
. BW to Zirato, Feb. , (NYPA).
. Interview with Walter Hendl, Sept. , .
. BW to Zirato, Feb. , (NYPA).
. BW to Eleanor Steber, Apr. , (NYPA).
. Steber to BW, Apr. , (NYPA).
. BW to Goddard Lieberson, Oct. , (Sony Music Archives).

Gains and Losses
. Delia Reinhardt to Alma Mahler Werfel, Mar. , (AMWC).
. Interview with a former student of Delia Reinhardts, Nov. , .
. Frieda Margarete Reuschle, in an obituary tribute to Delia Reinhardt (an uniden-
tified item among the papers on Reinhardt at the Goetheanum).
. Interview with Irma Geering, Feb. , . Unless otherwise noted, the follow-

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 ing biographical comments come from either this interview or the obituary by
Reuschle cited above.
. Otto Rennefeld to BW, June , (BWP I.).
. Rudolf Steiner, Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der hheren Welt (Berlin, ),
trans. by Christopher Bamford as How to Know Higher Worlds (Hudson, N.Y.:
Anthroposophic Press, ), .
. See Gerard Van Loon to BW, Apr. and July , (BWP I. and ).
. Interview with Irma Geering, Feb. , .
. Bruno Walter, Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie, Das Goetheanum (Dec. ,
): .
. Bruno Walter, ber Kunstverstndnis, sterreichische Rundschau (May
July ): .
. BW to Daniel Gregory Mason, May , (DGMP).
. BW to Jerome Hines, Nov. , (courtesy of Jerome Hines).
. Interview with Henry-Louis de La Grange, Feb. , . De La Grange heard
the story from Walters longtime secretary Susie Danziger.
. See Lottes own note on her marriage in BW Briefe, .
. Claire Norden to BW, undated; BW to Norden, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. See Max Brockhauss typescript Hans Pfitzners letzte Tage (BWP I.).
. BW to Brockhaus, May , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Olin Downes, June , (BWP I.).
. BW to Artur Schnabel, June , (BWP I.). Fleishers performance is
preserved on Bruno Walter Rarities (AS ).
. Issued as vol. of Londons Kathleen Ferrier Jubilee series (London
).
. Gerald Moore, Collected Memoirs (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ), .
. The FerrierWalter Kindertotenlieder has been reissued in EMIs series Great
Performances of the Century (EMI ).
. Interview with a former student of Delia Reinhardts, Nov. , .
. Lotte Lehmann to BW, Nov. , (LLP).
. BW to Lehmann, Dec. , (LLP).
. BW to John Bauer, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to John Bauer, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Los Angeles Examiner, May , .
. Unsigned memo, Oct. , (NYPA).
. BW to Bruno Zirato, May , (NYPA).
. BW to Wolfgang Stresemann, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. Rudolf Bing, Nights at the Opera (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ), .
. Bing to BW, May , ; BW to Bing, June , (BWP I.).
. Undated typescript (probably from ) of an interview with Walter,apparently
submitted for Walters approval by Elizabeth Sloper (BWP IV.). Walter in fact
objected to several ideas attributed to him in the interview, but the passages
cited were not among those he rejected and are in keeping with ideas he ex-
pressed elsewhere.

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. The performance of Mahlers Fourth from Aug. , , one of Walters finest
readings of the score to be preserved, was issued on CD by MCA Classics
(MCAD-). The Stockholm performance of Schuberts Symphony no. in
C Major has appeared on AS Disc (AS ). Hunt Productions issued a record-
ing of most of the Berlin Philharmonic Program of Sept. , (HUNTCD
), while the footage from the Mozart symphony has been issued on video in
Botschafter der Musik (PCV ) by Parnassus Records.
. Der Studentenrat des Stdtischen Konservatoriums to BW, Oct. , (BWP
I.).
. Georg Solti (BBC Walter Omnibus).
. BW to Stresemann, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Donald Keys to BW, Dec. , ; BW to Keys, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. The performance of the Brahms Double Concerto with Corigliano and Rose
has been issued by Nuova Era (), while the broadcast of the Second Piano
Concerto with Hess has appeared on AS Disc, Bruno Walter Rarities (AS
). The Brahms First Piano Concerto has circulated privately.
. NYT, Feb. , .
. See Robert Tuggle, Clouds of War, Opera News , no. (July ): ,
esp. .
. Bing to BW, Dec. , (Met Archives).
. BW to Bing, Dec. , (Met Archives).
. BW to Clayburgh, June , (BWP I.).
. Lehmann to BW, Saturday, after the broadcast [Mar. , ] (LLP).
. BW to Lehmann, Mar. , (BW Briefe, ).
. Wilhelm Furtwngler to BW, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Michael Gaszynski, July , (BWP I.).
. BW to Dimitri Mitropoulos, Mar. , ; Mitropoulos to BW, Mar. ,
(BWP I.). See also William Trotter, Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri
Mitropoulos (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, ), .
. Interview with Martin Ormandy, Feb. , .
. Interview with William Vacchiano, Dec. , .
. Interview with Walter Hendl, Sept. , .
. BW to Zirato, Dec. , (NYPA).
. Carl Schuricht to BW, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Schuricht, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Zirato, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Ren Nicoly, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Arthur Judson, Dec. , (NYPA).
. Judson to BW, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. Undated internal memo, ca. (Sony Music Archives).
. Interview with David Oppenheim, Jan. , .
. An excellent transfer of the Immolation Scene from Mar. , , was issued
in on New York Philharmonic Special Editions (NYP ). The We-
sendonk-Lieder are available on Music and Arts (CD-).

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. BW to Isao Uno, June , (BWP I.).
. Uno to BW, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Uno, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Uno, July , (BWP I. ).
. Uno to BW, June , ; BW to Uno, July , (BWP I.). Koho Uno has
since published books and articles in Japanese on Walter.
. The performance of Apr. , , was issued by Cetra in (CDAR ).
. Georges Sbastian to BW, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Sbastian, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Le Figaro, May , .
. Bruno Walter, Farewell, in Kathleen Ferrier, : A Memoir, ed. Neville
Cardus (London: Hamish Hamilton, ), .
. The recording is currently available on Decca Records (Decca ).
. The performance of Mahlers Fourth has been issued as part of the six-disk set
Fifty Years Holland Festival: A Dutch Miracle (Globe ).
. BW to Eric Oldberg, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Fritz Rieger to BW, Nov. , ; BW to Rieger, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Mason to BW, Nov. , (DGMP; also BWP I.).
. BW to Mason, Dec. , (BWP I.). See also Mason to Goddard Lieber-
son, Dec. , ; to BW, Dec. , ; to David Oppenheim, Jan. , (all in
DGMP).
. Interview with Frances Yeend and James Benner, May , .
. Interview with David Lloyd, Oct. , .
. Interview with Loren Glickman, Feb. , .
. The Mozart recitals by Lily Pons () and Ezio Pinza ( ) have been
reissued, along with Mozart recitals by Steber () and George London ()
and the Mozart Requiem (), by Sony Classical in its Legendary Interpreta-
tions series (SMK ).
. Eleanor Steber to BW, [fallwinter, ] (BWP I.).
. BW to Steber, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Steber to BW, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with George Neikrug, Mar. , .
. BW to [Elinn] Hoffman, July , (BWP IV.).
. BW to Raymond Swing, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau,Reverberations,trans.Ruth Hein (New York: Fromm
International Publishing Corporation, ), .
. Ibid., .
. Issued in Japan on King Records Seven Seas (KY ).
. BW to Mali Pfitzner, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. Fischer-Dieskau, Reverberations, .
. Hermann Obermeyer to BW, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. Rudolf Serkin to BW, [Sept. ] (BWP I.).
. Heinrich Kralik to BW, Nov. , ; BW to Kralik, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Bruno Walter, Farewell, .

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 . A. F. Schmidt to BW, Jan. , (BWP I.). The performance has been is-
sued by AS Disc (AS ).
. BW to Schmidt, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Arturo Toscanini, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. Toscanini to BW, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Lieberson to BW, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Lieberson, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. Invitation from Mrs. Arnold Schoenberg (BWP I.).
. BW to Mrs. Arnold Schoenberg, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Oppenheim, Dec. , (BWP I.). Sony has issued compact-disc
recordings of the Brahms Double Concerto with Stern and Rose (a studio per-
formance) in vol. of The Isaac Stern Collection (SMK ) and Ein
deutsches Requiem in Bruno Walter: The Edition (SMK ).
. At least one live recording of the Bartk Andante (as well as the rest of the con-
cert of Dec. , ) is preserved in the Sony Archives.
. Interview with Theodore White, Mar. , .
. Draft, probably for a telegram, from BW to Frau Professor Wilhelm [i.e., Elisa-
beth] Furtwngler, n.d. (BWP I.).
. The photograph, dated , is marked as having been taken in Berlin, though
it may date from the Salzburg Festival (BWP XI, box ).
. For an overview of those whom Furtwngler helped during the war, see Sam
Shirakawa, The Devils Music Master (New York: Oxford University Press,
), ; Shirakawa addresses the issue in detail through much of his
book.
. Walters tribute is taken from the English translation that appeared in Furtwn-
gler Recalled, ed. Daniel Gillis (Tuckahoe, N.Y.: John de Graff, Inc., ), .
. BW to Toscanini, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. Fischer-Dieskau, Reverberations, , .
. Program for Thomas Manns eightieth birthday (BWP I.).
. BW to Erika Mann, Aug. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Charles Munch, May , (BWP I.).
. MC, Dec. , .
. Interview with Loren Glickman, Feb. , .

Mostly Mozart
. Andr Mertens to BW, Feb. , ; BW to Mertens, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Bruno Zirato, Feb. , (NYPA).
. Interview with William Warfield, Apr. , .
. Interview with Lopold Simoneau and Pierrette Alarie, Sept. , .
. Jennie Tourel to BW, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. Martin Bookspan and Ross Yockey,Zubin (New York: Harper and Row,),.

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 . Maria Stader to Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky, Feb. , .
. Victor de Sabata to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. BW to Victor de Sabata, two drafts for telegrams [May ] (BWP I.).
. BW to Rudolf Mengelberg, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Eric P. Swenson, Apr. , (BWP II.).
. From an unpublished typescript essay, written for the Mozart bicentennial year
(BWP I.).
. MM, , .
. BW to Rudolf Bing, May , (BWP I.).
. Rudolf Steiner, Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der hheren Welt? (Berlin, ),
trans. by Christopher Bamford as How to Know Higher Worlds (Hudson, N.Y.:
Anthroposophic Press, ); further references are to Bamfords translation.
In Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie, BW mentions the book as one of the first
works by Steiner that he read (); he also recommended the book in a letter to
Count R. Bethusy-Huc, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. Steiner, How to Know Higher Worlds, , . In a letter of May to Al-
bert Schweitzer on his article about Die Zauberflte, Walter said he was con-
vinced that it was the trial by fire and waterthat is, the mystical process of ini-
tiationthat drew Mozarts soul, which strove for purity, to Schickaneders
libretto (BW Briefe, ).
. Rudolf Steiner, Das Lukas-Evangelium, trans. by D. S. Osmond with the assis-
tance of Owen Barfield as The Gospel of St. Luke (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthropo-
sophic Press, ), .
. Ibid., , , .
. Originally published as a pamphlet in German entitled Vom Mozart der Zauber-
flte (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, ); then as an article in the Saturday Review (Jan.
, ), trans. Ruth and Thomas P. Martin; finally incorporated into MM as
chap. .
. MM, , .
. Irving Kolodin, The Metropolitan Opera : A Candid History (New
York: Knopf, ), .
. NYT, Feb. , . The broadcast of Mar. , , has circulated on AS Disc
(AS /).
. Interview with Jerome Hines, Nov. , . Further quotations are from this in-
terview.
. A visual record of Hines singing this aria,which he performed on television dur-
ing the run at the Met (May , ), is preserved on The Voice of Firestone:
Jerome Hines in Opera and Song (VAI ).
. Preserved on The Voice of Firestone: Roberta Peters in Opera and Song, vol.
(VAI ).
. Interview with Roberta Peters, Apr. , . Further quotations from Peters are
from this interview.
. Interview with Laurel Hurley, June , .
. Josephine Antoine does in fact omit the high F in her performance of the first

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 aria in the broadcast of Dec. , , singing (perhaps at Walters suggestion)
B-flat, C, D rather than Mozarts B-flat, D, F. The performance has been issued
on compact disc by Walhall (WHL).
. MM, .
. Interview with Lucine Amara, Nov. , .
. NYT, Feb. , .
. BW to John McClure, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Sandra Warfield, May , . Further quotations are from this
interview.
. BW to Bing, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Theodor and Jean Uppman, Feb. , ; subsequent quota-
tions are from this interview.
. BW to Theodor Uppman, Apr. , (courtesy of Theodor Uppman).
. Anne Polzer, unpublished memoir (courtesy of Rolland Parker).
. Interview with Hines.
. The Strauss waltzes have been reissued on CD by Sony Classical (SMK ).
. Interview with Loren Glickman, Feb. , .
. BW to Fritz Rauch, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Zirato, Apr. , (NYPA).
. BW to Zirato, Oct. , (NYPA).
. Mario Labroca to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Labroca, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Arnold Michaelis, Feb. , . (The LP had the catalogue
number BW .)
. The typescript of Lehmanns essay is entitled Bruno Walter, Musiker und
Mensch, probably delivered on Sept. , (BWP I.). The Masterworks
recording of tributes (not for sale) had the identification numbers LP and
.
. Toscanini to BW, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. These symphonies were first issued together by Columbia (ML ) and have
been reissued as part of Sonys Bruno Walter Edition (SMK ). In the same
telegram Toscanini also admired a rendition of Mahlers songs, perhaps refer-
ring to the recording of Kindertotenlieder with Ferrier, which was reissued in
America in April .
. David Walter to BW, Nov. and , ; BW to David Walter, Dec. ,
(BWP I.).
. Constance Hope to BW, Jan. , (BWP I.). Walters response is not
among the Bruno Walter Papers.
. BWs statement on the death of Arturo Toscanini (BWP I.).
. Walters performance of the Eroica with the Symphony of the Air has been
preserved on Music and Arts (CD-).
. Rolland Parker to BW, Sept. , ; BW to Parker, Oct. , (courtesy of
Parker; both letters are now in the Carnegie Hall Archives).
. Interview with Felix Galimir, Oct. , .

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. Interview with Maureen Forrester, Dec. , .
. Interview with Theodor Uppman.

Columbia Symphony Orchestra
. BW to Katia and Erika Mann, Apr. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to Alma Mahler Werfel, May , (BWP I.); BW to [Bruno Zirato],
July , (NYPA).
. See BW to Emil Bock, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Wolfgang Stresemann, Dec., (BWP I.), in a passage omitted from
the version in BW Briefe (); interview with Stresemann, Oct. , .
. BW to Alma Mahler Werfel, July , (BWP I.).
. MM, .
. Bruno Walter,About Anton Bruckner[] (BWP I.).We have not been able
to locate the Italian publication in which Walters essay was to have appeared.Wal-
ter also expressed interest in reincarnation,without saying openly that he believed
in it, in a letter to Anna Gertrud Huber, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Ferdinand Rauter, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Emil Bock, Bruno Walter: Bekenntnis zum Geist aus reifster Lebensleistung,
Christengemeinschaft , no. (): , esp. . See also TV, .
. Bock, Bruno Walter, ; BW to Bock, June , (BWP I.); TV, .
. See Maria Horch to BW, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Eric Bravington to BW, Mar. , , with BWs typed draft of a response (BWP
I.).
. BW to [Bravington], May , (BWP I.).
. Herbert von Karajan to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. BW to Bruno Zirato, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Zirato, Apr. , (NYPA).
. See Wolfgang Stresemann, Herbert von Karajan: Ein seltsamer Mann . . .
(Frankfurt: Ullstein, ), .
. New York Post, Feb. , .
. BW to Zirato, Sept. , (NYPA).
. Interview with David Lloyd, Oct. , .
. Rudolf Firkusny to BW, Aug. , ; BW to Firkusny, Aug. , (BWP
I.).
. Released on video as Bruno Walter: The Maestro, the Man (VAI ).
. Irving Kolodin, Saturday Review, Aug. , .
. Ernst Friedlander to BW, Sept. , ; BW to Friedlander, Aug. , (BWP
I.).
. BW to Stresemann, July , (BWP I.; also in BW Briefe, ).
. John McClure, An Education and a Joy, High Fidelity (Jan. ): .
. Ibid., .
. BW to David Oppenheim, Aug. , (BWP I.).

N P

. BW to McClure, Apr. , (BWP I.). Other planned recordings included
Mendelssohns Hebrides Overture and incidental music to A Midsummer
Nights Dream; the Funeral Music and Siegfrieds Rhine Journey from
Wagners Gtterdmmerung, as well as the overture to Rienzi; Schumanns
Manfred Overture; the overtures to Webers Freischtz, Euryanthe, Oberon, and
Abu Hassan; Berliozs Carnaval romain Overture, Benvenuto Cellini Over-
ture, and selections from La Damnation de Faust; Mahlers Fourth and Fifth
symphonies; Haydns symphonies nos. and ; and Beethovens Leonore
overtures nos. and , as well as the Egmont and Creatures of Prometheus
overtures.
. BW to Zirato, Sept. , (NYPA).
. BW to Erwin Ratz, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. Ratz to BW, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Heinz Unger, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Alfred Ros to BW (June , ), and BW to Ros, June , (BWP I.).
. BW to Goddard Lieberson, Nov. , ; Lieberson to BW, Dec. , (BWP
I.).
. BW to Lieberson, Dec. , (BWP I.). The Mahler piano rolls have re-
cently been issued on Golden Legacy (GLRS ).
. BW to Zirato, Dec. , (I.).
. Van Cliburn to BW, Dec. , ; BW to Cliburn, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Van Cliburn to BW, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. LAT, Mar. , .
. LAT, Nov. , .
. Sony Classical has reissued the Columbia Symphony Orchestra recordings of
Schuberts Ninth (SMK ) and Bruckners Ninth (SMK ). Columbia
had taped a live performance of Bruckners Ninth with the New York Philhar-
monic under Walter in December , but the recording was never released
commercially.
. BW to Joseph M. Ganster, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Rudolf Bing to BW, May , (Met Archives).
. Bing to BW, May , ; BW to Bing, May , (Met Archives).
. BW to Bing, Jan. , (Met Archives).
. Bing to BW, Feb. , (Met Archives).
. Interview with Rolland Parker, Oct. , . The Verdi Requiem broadcast of
Mar. , , has been issued by AS Disc (AS ).
. Erich Leinsdorf, Cadenza: A Musical Career (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ),
.
. NYHT, Mar. , ; NYT, Mar. , .
. Douglas Duer to BW, Dec. , ; BW to Duer, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Oppenheim, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. The remaining three symphonies were recorded by the end of January ; all
are available on Sony Classicals Bruno Walter Edition, SMK (Symphony
no. ), SMK (nos. and ), and SMK (no. ).

N P

. BW to McClure, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Lieberson, Nov. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Loren Glickman, Feb. , .
. BW to Zirato, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. Rudolf Gamsjger to BW, Mar. and June , (BWP I.).
. BW to Gamsjger, June , ; Gamsjger to BW, June , ; BW to Gams-
jger, July , (BWP I.).
. BW to Gamsjger, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Heinrich Puthon to BW, Aug. , ; BW to Puthon, Sept. , (BWP
I.).
. TV, .
. BW to Alice Strauss, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Internationale Mitteilungen Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft (Aug. ) (BWP
I.).
. BW to McClure, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Nicolas Nabokov, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Maureen Forrester, Dec. , .
. BW to Forrester, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Forrester, Dec. , .
. Interview with Ernst Haefliger, May , .
. Ibid.
. Interview with Mildred Miller, Oct. , .
. Ibid.
. Interview with McClure, Oct. , .
. BW to McClure, May , (BWP I.).
. Interview with Miller, Oct. , .
. BW to Egon Hilbert, Mar. , (BWP I.) and Mar. , (BW Briefe,
).
. Bruno Walter: Farewell Concert in Vienna, Music and Arts CD .
. BW to Stresemann, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. LAT, Dec. , .
. Personal communication with Van Cliburn, Nov. , .
. BW to Zirato, June , (NYPA).
. LAT, Dec. , .
. BW to Edward Neill, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. Leopold Hager to BW, June , (BWP I.).
. Ratz to BW, Aug. , ; BW to Ratz, Aug. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Stresemann, Sept. , (BWP I.).
. Paul FitzGerald to BW, July , ; BW to FitzGerald, July , (BWP
I.).
. BW to Schuyler Chapin, Oct. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Otto Klemperer, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Klemperer to BW, May , (BWP I.).
. J. C. Knappe to BW, Feb. , (BWP I.).

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 . BW to Knappe, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. Artur Holde,Bruno Walter (Berlin: Rembrandt-Verlag,).In the organ-
ist and critic Bernard Gavoty published his pamphlet Bruno Walter, based on
Theme and Variations, which included many photographs taken by Roger
Hauert of Walter in his later years (Geneva: Ren Kister, ); originally written
in French, it appeared also in German, Italian, and English translations.
. Martin Mayer, Bruno Walter: The Working Musician of Beverly Hills, Har-
pers Magazine, Feb. , .
. Ibid., .
. BW to Mayer, Apr. , (BWP I.).
. TV, .
. Schuyler Chapin, Leonard Bernstein: Notes from a Friend (New York: Walker,
), .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Interview with George Neikrug, Mar. , .
. The Ninth Symphony, along with the rehearsal segment, has been issued on
compact disc by Sony Classical (SMK ).
. Interview with McClure, Oct. , .
. Interview with Thomas Frost, Jan. , . Frost also recounts this story, with
some other details, in Bruno Walters Last Recording Session, HiFi/Stereo
Review, Dec. , .
. BW to McClure, June , (BWP I.).
. BW to Karl Bhm, July , (BWP I.).
. Bhm to BW, Feb. , ; BW to Bhm, Mar. , (BWP I.).
. BW to McClure, Oct. , (BWP I.); Bing to BW, Oct. , (BWP
I.).
. BW to McClure, Dec. , (BWP I.).
. Irmgard Mller to BW, Dec. , ; BW to Mller, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. Leonard Bernstein Collection, box , folder (Library of Congress); Zubin
Mehta had written a thank-you note to Walter on Nov. , , for his kind
words about Mehtas performance of Mahlers First Symphony (BWP I.).
. BW to Stresemann, Jan. , (BWP I.).
. BW to Mihly Meixner, Jan. , (BW Briefe, ).
. BW to George Korngold, Jan. , (copy courtesy of Gregor Benko).
. BW to Mali Pfitzner, Feb. , (BWP I.).
. The time of death given on the Certificate of Death.
. Leonard Bernsteins address, Feb. , (NYPA).
. LAT, Feb. , .
. Delia Reinhardt to Alma [Mahler Werfel], Aug. , (AMWC).

N P

 Index

Abbado, Claudio, Barber, Samuel, , , ,

Abendroth, Hermann, , Barbirolli, Sir John, ,
Aber, Adolf, , , , , Bardi, Giovanni,
Adenauer, Konrad, Bartk, Bla, ,
Adler, Guido, , Bate, Stanley,
Adler, Kurt, Bauer, Louis,
Aitken, Webster, Bauer-Lechner, Natalie, , ,
Aldrich, Richard, Baum, Kurt, ,
Altmann, Gustav, , Baumann, Anton,
Altmann, Wilhelm, Beecham, Sir Thomas, ,
Alvary, Lorenzo, Beethoven, Ludwig van, , ;
Alwin, Karl, Fidelio, , , , , ,
Amara, Lucine, , , , ; Missa
Anday, Rosette, , solemnis, , , , ;
Anderson, Marian, , Piano Concerto in B-flat Major, ;
Andreae, Volkmar, Symphony no. (Eroica), ,
anthroposophy, ; Walters in- ; Symphony no. , , ;
terest in, , , , , Symphony no. , ; Symphony
, no. , , , , , ;
anti-Semitism: in Germany after World Violin Concerto, ,
War I, ; of music critics, , Beinum, Eduard van,
, ; in Vienna, , Bekker, Paul,
; of Richard Wagner, , Bender, Paul, , ,
Auber, Daniel: La Muette de Portici, Berg, Alban, ; Wozzeck,
Auer, Leopold, Bergonzi, Carlo,
Auer, Max, Berkowitz, David,
Berlin Philharmonic: financial difficul-
Bach, C. P. E., ties of, ; Walters conducting ap-
Bach, J. S.: Matthus-Passion, , pearances with, , , ,
, , , , , ; , , , , , ; Wal-
Walter on music of, ters piano performances with,
Backhaus, Wilhelm, Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra,
Badura-Skoda, Paul,
Bahr, Hermann, Berlin Stdtische Oper: Walter as con-
Bahr-Mildenburg, Anna. See Milden- ductor of, , , ,
burg, Anna von ; Walters departure from,
Baldini, Gino,

Berlioz, Hector: Symphonie fantas- nor, ; Piano Trio in B Minor, ;
tique, , , Symphony no. , , ; Sym-
Bernhardt, Louise, phony no. , , , ; Sym-
Bernstein, Leonard, , , , phony no. , , ; Symphony
, , , , , , no. , ; Trio for Piano, Violin,
Biber, Heinrich, and Horn,
Biddle, Francis, Brain, Aubrey,
Bienenfeld, Elsa, , , , Brandt, Willy,
Bing, Rudolf, , , , , , Brandts-Buys, Jan,
, Braunfels, Walter, ,
Birthday of the Infanta, The Braunstein, Joseph,
(Wilde), Brecht, Bertolt,
Bischoff, Hermann, Brems, Elsa,
Bittner, Julius: Der Bergsee, , ; Briggs, John,
Das hllisch Gold, ; Mondnacht, Brockhaus, Max, ,
; Der Musikant, ; Die rote Brownlee, John, ,
Gred, Bruckner, Anton, , , ; Sym-
Bizet, Georges: Carmen, , , , , phony no. (Romantic), , ,
, , , ; Symphony no. , ;
Blech, Leo, Symphony no. , , , ,
Bleyle, Karl, Bruna, Otto,
Bloch, Ernest, , , , Bruno Walter in Conversation with
Blois, Colonel, , Arnold Michaelis,
Bloom, Robert, Bruno Walter: The Musician and the
Bock, Emil, , Man,
Bhm, Karl, , , Brussel, Robert,
Bohn, Emil, Blow, Hans von, , ,
Bok, Rosa, Burleigh, Cecil,
Borgioli, Dino, Burmester, Willy,
Borowski, Felix, Busch, Adolf,
Bosetti, Hermine, Busch, Fritz, , ,
Bss, Gustav, , Buxbaum, Friedrich, , , ,
Bosse, Gustav,
Boston Symphony Orchestra, , Cahier, Madame Charles (Sarah Jane),
, , , , ,
Boulanger, Nadia, Caldern, Pedro,
Boult, Sir Adrian, , , , , , Carboni, William,
, Carnegie Hall,
Brahms, Johannes, ; conflict Carnegie Hall (film),
with Wagner, ; Ein deutsches Re- Carpenter, John Alden,
quiem, , , , , Carteri, Rosanna,
; Piano Concerto No. , Caruso, Enrico,
, ; Piano Quartet in A Casals, Pablo, ,
Major, ; Piano Quintet in F Mi- Casella, Alfredo,

I

Cavelti, Elsa, Debussy, Claude, , ; La Mer, ;
Cebotari, Maria, Pellas et Mlisande, ,
Chambers, Madelaine, Della Casa, Lisa,
Chapin, Schuyler, , Delli Ponti, Mario,
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, , Dello Joio, Norman,
, , Demuth, Leopold,
Chotznikoff, Samuel, Denzler, Robert, , ,
Christ, Hanni, Dermota, Anton,
Christoff, Boris, de Sabata, Victor,
Clarke, Cyril, Destanges, Rene, ,
Clemens, Clara. See Gabrilowitsch, Destinn, Emmy,
Clara Clemens Detroit Symphony Orchestra, ,
Clemens, Cyril,
Cliburn, Van, , , , Dickens, Charles,
Coates, Albert, Dillmann, Alexander, , , ,
Columbia Artists Management, , ,
Columbia Record Club, Disclez, Josef,
Columbia Records, , , Dispeker, Thea,
, , , Dollfuss, Engelbert, ,
Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Donizetti, Gaetano: Don Pasquale, ;
, , , , Lucrezia Borgia,
Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amster- Downes, Olin, , , , ,
dam), , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , ,
Conner, Nadine, , , , Dresden, Sem,
Cooke, Deryck, Drinker, Henry S.,
Copland, Aaron, Duer, Douglas,
Corelli, Arcangelo, Duke, Vernon,
Corigliano, John, , ,
Cornelius, Peter, Edelman, Otto,
Cortens, Maria von Hofmann, Ehlers, Paul, , ,
Cossmann, Paul, Ehrenberg, Carl, , ,
Couperin, Franois, Ehrenberg, Paul,
Courvoisier, Walter, , Ehrlich, Heinrich, ,
Covent Garden, Walter as conductor Eichendorff, Josef von,
at, , , , , , , Einstein, Alfred, , , , ,
,
Culp, Julia, Eisenhower, Dwight D.,
Curzon, Clifford, Eisner, Bruno,
Cuvillis, Franois de, Eisner, Kurt, ,
Elgar, Sir Edward, , ,
dAlbert, Eugen, Elias, Rosalind,
Damrosch, Walter, , , , , Elizza, Elise,
Elmblad, Johannes,

I

Enesco, Georges, Fuchs, Robert, ,
Engles, George, Funk, Walter, ,
Erb, Karl, , , , , Furtwngler, Adelheid,
Erlanger, Camille, Furtwngler, Wilhelm, , , ,
Ernster, Dezs, , , , , ; and the
Esser, Hermann, Berlin Philharmonic, , , ,
ethnomusicology, ; as composer, ; controversy
surrounding, ; death of,
Fahsel, Helmut, , ; and the Leipzig Gewand-
Fassbender, Zdenka, , , , , haus Orchestra, , , ,
; tensions with Walter, , ,
Fay, Amy, , ; as Walters defender,
Fay, Maude,
Ferrier, Kathleen, , , ,
, , ; death of, Gabrilowitsch, Clara Clemens, , ,
Feuchtersleben, Ernst von,
Feuermann, Emanuel, , Gabrilowitsch, Ossip, , , ,
Feuermann, Siegmund, , , , , , , , ;
Fidesser, Hans, , , death of, ; and Daniel Gregory
Finck, Henry, Mason, ; on Toscanini, ; Wal-
Firkusny, Rudolf, , ters friendship with, ,
Fischer, Edwin, , Gl, Hans,
Fischer, Franz, Galimir, Felix,
Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich, , Galston, James, ,
, Gamsjger, Rudolf,
Flagler, Harry Harkness, , , Gasco, Alberto, ,
, , , , , , , Geering, Irma, , , ,
, , , Gerhardt, Marie,
Flagstad, Kirsten, , , , Gershwin, George,
Fleisher, Leon, Gheusi, Pierre-Barthlemy,
Foote, Arthur, Giannini, Dusolina, , ,
Forrester, Maureen, , , , Gieseking, Walter, ,
Frstel, Gertrude, , , Gilbert and Sullivan: The Mikado,
Francescatti, Zino, Gilman, Lawrence, , ,
Franckenstein, Clemens von, , , Glenn, John,
, , , Glickman, Loren, , , ,
Franke, Paul, Gloeckner, Willi,
Freud, Sigmund, Gluck, Christof Willibald: Iphigenia
Fried, Oskar, , , in Aulis, ; Orfeo ed Euridice, ,
Friedlander, Ernst, , , , ,
Friedman, Ignaz, Goebbels, Joseph, , ,
Frost, Thomas, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, ,
Fuchs, Anton, Goetz, Julius,
Fuchs, Johann, , Goldberg, Albert, , , ,

I

Goldhagen, Daniel, Helm, Theodor,
Goldmark, Karl, Henderson, W. J.,
Gonzalez, Irma, Hendl, Walter, , ,
Gring, Hermann, Hennenberg, Fritz,
Gounod, Charles: Faust, Herbage, Julian,
Graener, Paul, , , , Hess, Myra, ,
Graf, Herbert, , Hess, Otto, ,
Greene, Patterson, Heuss, Alfred, ,
Gregor, Hans, , Heydrich, Bruno,
Grifft, Emil, Hiebel, Friedrich,
Gutheil, Gustav, Hilbert, Egon,
Gutheil-Schoder, Marie, Hindemith, Paul,
Gutmann, Emil, Hindenburg, Paul von,
Hines, Jerome, , , , ,
Haefliger, Ernst, ,
Hggander, MariAnne, Hinkel, Hans,
Haggin, B. H., Hirschfeld, Robert,
Hahn, Reynaldo, Hitler, Adolf, , , , , ,
Hain, William, , , . See also Nazi Party
Halban, Desi, , Hochberg, Count, ,
Hamilton, Hamish, Hofer, Laurenz,
Handel, George Frideric: Acis and Hoffmann, Baptist, ,
Galatea, , ; Messiah, , ; Hoffmann, Elinn,
Samson, Hoffmann, R.,
Hanslick, Eduard, , Hofmann, Josef,
Hanson, Howard, , Hofmann, Julius, ,
Hardy, Thomas, Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, , ,
Harnoncourt, Nikolaus, ,
Harrell, Mack, , , , Holde, Artur,
Harshaw, Margaret, Hollywood Bowl, , , , ,
Hauptmann, Gerhart, , ,
Hausegger, Siegmund von, Hoogstraten, Willem van,
Haydn, Franz Josef: Die Schpfung, Hopper, Hedda,
; Symphony no. , ; Sym- Horch, Franz, ,
phony no. , Horch, Maria,
Hayes, Roland, Horowitz, Vladimir, , ,
Hayward, Marjorie, Hrth, Franz L.,
Heger, Robert, , Hotter, Hans,
Hegg, Verner, Huberman, Bronislaw, ,
Heifetz, Jascha, , , Huismans, Georges,
Heine, Heinrich, Hurley, Laurel,
Heller, Amlie,
Helletsgruber, Luise, Ibsen, Henrik, ,
Hellmesberger, Joseph, Irschick, Oskar,

I

Istel, Edgar, , Klemperer, Otto, , , , , ,
Ivogn, Maria, , , , , , , ,
Klenau, Paul von, , , ,
Klimt, Gustav, ,
Jacob, Heinrich Eduard, Knappertsbusch, Hans,
Jagel, Frederick, , Knopf (publishers),
James, Harry, Knpfer, Paul,
Jancek, Leos, Komorn-Rebhan, Mary, , , ,
Jantsch, Erich,
Jerger, Alfred, , Konetzni, Anny,
Jewish League of Soldiers at the Front, Konetzni, Hilde, ,
Kopsch, Julius,
Jobin, Raoul, Korneck, Elsa. See Walter, Elsa
Johnson, Edward, , , , Korngold, Erich Wolfgang, ,
, ; Much Ado about Nothing Suite,
Johnson, Harriet, ; Der Ring des Polykrates,
Johnson, Thor, ; String Quartet no. , ; Sym-
Jones, Isabel Morse, , , , phony in F-sharp Major, ;
, Violanta, ; Das Wunder der
Judson, Arthur, , , , , , Helian,
, , Korngold, George,
Jugendstil, Korngold, Julius, , , , , ,
Junk, Victor, ; as Walters admirer and critic,
, , , , , ,
Kahgen, Phil, , ; on Walters First Sym-
Kalbeck, Max, phony, , ; on Walters String
Kandl, Eduard, Quartet, ; on Walters Violin
Kanitz, Count, Sonata,
Kansas City Philharmonic, Korngold, Luzi,
Kappel, Gertrud, Koussevitzky, Serge, , ,
Karajan, Herbert von, , , , Kralik, Heinrich,
Krall, Heidi, ,
Kates, David, Krmer-Bergau, Margarete,
Kerber, Erwin, , Krasselt, Rudolf,
Keussler, Gerhard von, Kraus, Ernst, , ,
Killinger, Manfred von, Krauss, Clemens, , ,
Kindler, Hans, Krauss, Fritz, ,
Kipnis, Alexander, , , , , Krenek, Ernst, , , ,
, , , , , , ,
Kleffel, Arno, Kubelik, Rafael,
Kleiber, Erich, , Kullman, Charles, ,
Klein, Fritz, Kurthy, Zoltan,
Klein, Herman, Kurtz, Efrem, ,
Klein, Peter, Kurz, Selma, ,

I

Labor, Josef, marriage of, , ; marriage to
Labroca, Mario, Karl Ludwig Lindt, , ;
La Grange, Henry-Louis de, musical studies of, , ; rela-
Landowska, Wanda, tionship with Walter, ,
Lang, Fritz, Lipiner, Siegfried, ,
Lang, Paul Henry, Lipton, Martha, ,
La Scala: Walter at, , List, Emanuel,
Lawrence, Robert, Lloyd, David, , ,
Leander, Margot, Loeffler, Charles Martin,
Lecocq, Charles: La Fille de Madame London, George, ,
Angot, London Philharmonic,
Legler, Wilhelm, Lopatnikoff, Nikolai, ,
Lehr, Franz, Lortzing, Albert: Die beiden Schtzen,
Lehmann, Lilli, ; Waffenschmied, , ,
Lehmann, Lotte, , , , , Los Angeles, Victoria de,
, , , , , , , , Los Angeles Philharmonic, ,
, , , , , , , , ,
Lothar, Ernst,
Leider, Frida, , , Louis, Rudolf, , ,
Leinsdorf, Erich, , , Lwe, Ferdinand, , , ,
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Lwe, Josef,
, ; financial woes of, Lwe, Theodor, , ,
; Walter as music director of, Ludwig, Leopold,
; Walters departure from, Lueger, Karl,
Lenya, Lotte, Luitpold, Prince,
Leoncavallo, Ruggero: Pagliacci,
Leonhardt, Gustav, Maggio Musicale, , ,
Leroux, Xavier, Mahler (Ros), Justine, ,
Levant, Oscar, Mahler, Alma. See Werfel, Alma Mahler
Levarie, Siegmund, , Mahler, Anna, , ,
Levi, Hermann, , Mahler, Emma,
Lewerenz, Wilhelm, Mahler, Gustav: anti-Semitism faced
Lewis, Richard, , by, ; as conductor, , ;
Lieban, Julius, death of, ; departure from
Lieberson, Goddard, , , , Vienna, ; engagement to
, Alma Schindler, ; as influence on
Lier, Jacques van, Walter, , , , ; Jewish
Lincer, William, elements in music of, ; at the
Lindt, Karl Ludwig, , Metropolitan Opera, , ; and
Lindt, Lotte Walter (daughter, Hans Pfitzner, ; piano rolls of, ,
), , , , , , ; tributes to, , ; Walter
, , , , ; arrest of in as assistant to, , ; on Walter
Vienna, ; birth of, ; career as composer, , , ; Walters
of, ; death of, , ; first admiration of, ; Walters

I

Mahler, Gustav (continued) Marschner, Heinrich August: Hans
biography of, , ; Walters Heiling,
conflict with, ; Walters first Martin, Karlheinz, ,
meeting with, ; and Walters Martin, Ruth, ,
First Symphony, Martin, Thomas, ,
compositions of, ; Kinder- Mason, Daniel Gregory, , , ,
totenlieder, ; Das Lied von der ; Lincoln Symphony, ;
Erde, , , , , , , , Suite after English Folksongs, ,
, , , , , , ; Symphony no. , , ,
, , , ;
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, , Mason, Lowell,
; Symphony no. (Titan), Mason, William,
, , , , , , , , Massary, Fritzi, ,
, ; Symphony no. Mauke, Wilhelm,
(Resurrection), , , , , Mayer, Martin,
, , , ; Symphony Maynor, Dorothy,
no. , , , ; Symphony no. Mayr, Richard, ,
, , , , , , ; Mazaroff, Todor,
Symphony no. , , , ; McCarthy, Joe, ,
Symphony no. (Tragic), , McClure, John, , , , ,
, ; Symphony no. , , ; , ,
Symphony no. , , , , , McCormack, John,
; Symphony no. , , , , McCracken, James,
, , ; Symphony no. Meader, Georges,
, , Mehta, Zubin, ,
Mahler, Max, , , Meixner, Mihly,
Mahler, Otto, Melchior, Lauritz, , , , ,
Maison, Ren, ,
Malko, Nicolai, Mendelssohn, Felix: , Elias (Elijah),
Mann, Erika, , , , ; Hebrides Overture, ; in-
Mann, Golo, cidental music to A Midsummer
Mann, Heinrich, Nights Dream, , , ;
Mann, Katia, , , Octet, ; Song Without Words
Mann, Klaus, , , in F Major, ; Violin Concerto,
Mann, Thomas, , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , Mengelberg, Rudolf, , ,
; eightieth birthday of, ; , , , ,
Lotte in Weimar, ; on Pfitzners Mengelberg, Willem, , , , ,
Palestrina, ; Walters friendship
with, , , Mensi, Alfred von, ,
Manstdt, Franz, Menuhin, Yehudi, , , ,
Marceau, Marcel, Merriman, Nan, ,
Marek, George, Mertens, Andr,
Marschalk, Max, , , , Metropolitan Opera, , , ,

I

 , , , , Concerto in D minor, , ;
, , , ; Walters Prague Symphony, ; Requiem,
farewell to, ; and Die Zau- , , , ; Sym-
berflte, , , , , phony no. , ; Symphony no.
, , ; Zaide, ; Die
Metzger, Alfred, Zauberflte,, , ,
Meyer, Jenny, , , , , , ,
Michaelis, Arnold, Muck, Karl, , , , , ,
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, Mller, Maria,
Miklas, Wilhelm, , , Munch, Charles, , , ,
Milanov, Zinka, , , , , Muntz, Maximilian,
, Music Research Foundation,
Mildenburg, Anna von, , , , , music therapy,

Miller, Mildred, , , National Symphony,
Miller, William, , Nazi Party, , ; in Austria,
Milstein, Nathan, , , , , ; com-
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, posers as members of, ; in
Mitropoulous, Dimitri, , , France, ; interference with Wal-
, , , , , , ters activities, ; Karajan as
, member of, ; and musical value,
Moffo, Anna, ; rise to power, , , ,
Moldavan, Nicolas, . See also anti-Semitism
Molire, , NBC Symphony Orchestra, ,
Moll, Karl, ,
Monte Carlo, Nedhal, Oskar,
Montenuovo, Count, Neikrug, George, ,
Monteux, Pierre, , , Neill, Amy,
Moore, Douglas, , Neill, Edward,
Moore, Gerald, Neppach, Gretel Walter (daughter,
Morena, Berta, ), , , , , ,
Morini, Erica, , , ; birth of, ; illness of, ;
Morpurgo, Bruno, murder of, ; in the Nether-
Mottl, Felix, , , , lands, ; and Ezio Pinza, ,
Mottl-Fassbender, Zdenka. See Fass- , , ; reunited with
bender, Zdenka family,
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, , Neppach, Robert, , ,
, ; bicentennial celebra- Nestroy, Johann,
tion, ; Don Giovanni, , New York Philharmonic: Mozart Festi-
, , ; Exsultate Jubilate, val, ; Walter as conductor of,
; Linz Symphony, ; , , , , ,
Mass in C Minor, ; Le nozze di Fi- , , , , , ;
garo, , , , , , , Walter as music adviser of, ,
; Les Petits Riens, , ; Piano , , , ,

I

New York Symphony Orchestra (or Peyser, Herbert, ,
Symphony Society), , Pfitzner, Hans, , , , , , ,
, , , , , , ; Der arme
Ney, Elly, Heinrich, , , , , ;
Nicolai Concerts, Christelflein, ; condemnation of,
Nicolai, Otto, ; death of, ; Das Herz,
Nifosi, Alex, ; Palestrina, , , ,
Nikisch, Arthur, , , , , ; Piano Concerto, ; Piano
, , Trio in F Major, , ; Die Rose
Nikolaidi, Elena, , , vom Liebesgarten, , , , ;
Nissen, Hans Hermann, String Quartet, ; Von deutscher
Nixon, Richard, Seele, , ; Walters friendship
Noren, Heinrich, with, , , , ,
Novotn,Jarmila, ,, , , Pfitzner, Mali, , ,
Nowak, Leopold, Pfitzner, Mimi,
Pfohl, Ferdinand, ,
Obermeyer, Hermann, Pilzer, Friedrich,
Ochs, Siegfried, Pinza, Augusta,
Ockert, Louis, Pinza, Dolores,
Oehmann, Carl Martin, , , Pinza, Ezio, , , , , ,
Oldberg, Eric, , , ; death of, ; and Gretel
Olszewska, Maria, , , , Neppach, , , ,
Onegin, Sigrid, , Piston, Walter,
Oppenheim, David, , , Polgar, Alfred,
orchestral scores, notation of, Pollack, Egon,
Ormandy, Eugene, , Pollini (Bernhard Pohl), ,
Ormandy, Martin, Polydor records,
Orthmann, Erich, Polzer, Anne,
Pons, Lily,
Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da, Posa, Oskar, ,
Possart, Ernst von,
Paperte, Frances, Prawy, Marcel, ,
Parker, Rolland, , Preetorius, Emil, ,
Patzak, Julius, , , Prieberg, Fred,
Paul, Jean, Pringsheim, Klaus,
Pauly, Rose, Prokofiev, Serge: The Gambler Suite,
Pears, Peter, ; Piano Concerto no. , ;
Peerce, Jan, , Piano Concerto no. , ; Prodigal
Perard-Petzl, Luise, Son Suite, , ; Violin Concerto
Pernter, Hans, no. ,
Perpessa, Harilaos, Proust, Marcel,
Peters, Guido, Puccini, Giacomo: Madama Butterfly,
Peters, Roberta, ; Turandot, ,
Petschnikoff, Alexander, , , Puthon, Heinrich,

I

Rabenalt, Arthur Maria, , Rosenthal, Moriz,
Rachmaninoff, Sergei, ; Piano Ros Quartet, , ; and Walters Pi-
Concerto no. , ; Rhapsody on ano Quintet, ; and Walters
a Theme of Paganini, Piano Trio, ; and Walters String
Radecke, Robert, , , Quartet in D Major,
Rasch, Hugo, , Roswaenge, Helge,
Ratz, Erwin, , Rothschild, Henri de,
Rauch, Fritz, Roussel, Albert,
Ravel, Maurice, , , Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: Walter
Reger, Max, , as guest conductor with, ;
Reichner, Herbert, Walters recordings with,
Reinecke, Carl, Rubinstein, Arthur,
Reiner, Fritz, , , ,
Reinhardt, Delia, , , , , Sachs, Erich,
, , , , , , , , Sachs, Robert,
, , , , ; relation- Saerchinger, Csar, ,
ship with Walter, , , Saint-Sans, Camille, ; Samson et
, , , , , , , Dalila,
; Walters recitals with, , Salvatini, Mafalda,
Salzburg Festival, , , ,
Reinhardt, Max, , , , , , , , , ,
, , San Francisco Symphony, , ,
Reitler, Josef, ,
Renner, Gustav, Sarnoff, David,
Resnik, Regina, , Sauer, Emil,
Richter, Hans, , , Sayo, Bid,
Rieger, Fritz, Schalk, Franz, , , , , ,
Ritter-Ciampi, Gabrielle, , ,
Rockefeller, Mrs. John D, III, Scherchen, Hermann,
Rode, Wilhelm, , Schering, Arnold,
Rodzinski, Artur, , , , Schiedermair, Ludwig,
Rohr, Hans, Schiedt, Adolf,
Rhr, Hugo, Schiller, Friedrich von,
Roller, Alfred, , Schillings, Max von, ,
Roman, Stella, , Schindler, Alma. See Werfel,
Rooy, Anton van, Alma Mahler
Rosbaud, Hans, Schipper, Emil, , , , , ,
Ros, Alfred, , ,
Ros, Arnold, , , , , , , , Schlemmer-Ambros, Amalie,
, , Schlesinger, Bruno. See Walter, Bruno
Rose, Leonard, , , , , Schlesinger, Emma (sister,
Ros, Justine Mahler, , ), , , , ,
Rosenberg, Alfred, Schlesinger, Johanna (mother,
Rosenthal, Harold, ), ,

I

Schlesinger, Joseph (father, Schuricht, Carl,
), , Schuschnigg, Kurt von, , ,
Schlesinger, Leo (brother, ),
, , , , , , Schtzendorf, Gustav, , , ,
Schmedes, Erik, , , , , ,
Schmidt, Franz, , Schwarz, Joseph,
Schmidt, Leopold, , , Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth, , ,
Schmidt-Lindner, August, Schweitzer, Albert, ,
Schmitz, Eugen, Schwickerath, Eberhard,
Schnabel, Artur, , , , , Sciutti, Graziella,
, , Sbastian, Georges, , , ,
Schneider, Alexander,
Schneiderhan, Franz, Secession School,
Schnitzler, Arthur, , Seefried, Irmgard, , , ,
Schnitzler, Olga, ,
Schoenberg, Arnold, , , , , Senius, Felix,
, , , ; Gurre-Lieder, Serkin, Rudolf, , , ,
; Moses und Aron, ; Pel- Sessions, Roger,
leas und Melisande, ; Verklrte Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, ,
Nacht, , , , , ; Walters Shaffer, Peter,
relationship with, , Shepherd, Arthur,
Schffler, Paul, Shostakovich, Dmitri, ,
Schnaich, Gustav, , Sibelius, Jean,
Schne, Lotte, , Siepi, Cesare, , ,
Schopenhauer, Arthur, Simoneau, Lopold, ,
Schorr, Friedrich, Sinatra, Frank,
Schreder, Karl, , Slezak, Leo, , , , , ,
Schreker, Franz, , ; Der ferne Smetana, Bedrich: The Bartered Bride,
Klang, ; Die Gezeichneten, , ; Dalibor, , ,
; Irrelohe, ; Das Smith, David Stanley, , , ,
Spielwerk, Smyth, Ethel, , , , , , ; as
Schubert, Franz, , , , , , conductor,
, , , , , , ; Socit des Concerts dInstruments
Symphony no. (Unfinished), Anciens,
, , , , , , , , Society for Creative Musicians in
; Symphony no. (Great), Vienna, ,
, Soldat-Rger, Marie, , ,
Schueller, Rudolf, Soldat-Rger Quartet, , ,
Schumann, Elisabeth, , , Solti, Sir Georg, ,
Schumann, Robert: Das Paradies und Soot, Fritz,
die Peri, ; Piano Concerto in A Specht, Richard, , , , , ,
Minor, ; Symphony no. ,
(Spring), , , ; Symphony Speidel, Albert von, , ,
no. , , Stabile, Mariano, ,

I

Stader, Maria, , , Stresemann, Wolfgang, , , ,
Stargardt-Wolff, Edith, , , , , , , ,
Steber, Eleanor, , , , , , , ,
Stefan, Paul, , , , Strnad, Oskar,
Steffen, Albert, , Stckgold, Grete, ,
Stege, Fritz, , , Sudermann, Hermann,
Steiner, Franz, Sullivan, Arthur Seymour. See Gilbert
Steiner, Rudolf, , , , and Sullivan
Sullivan, Brian,
Steinitzer, Max, , Svanholm, Set, ,
Stern, Isaac, Symphony of the Air, . See also
Stern, Julius, NBC Symphony Orchestra
Sternberg, Julian, Symphony Society. See New York
Stevenson, Adlai, Symphony Orchestra
Stiedry, Fritz, Sznt, Jani,
Stokowski, Leopold, , Szell, George, , ,
Storm, Theodor, Szigeti, Joseph, , , ,
Strasser, Otto,
Straube, Karl, Tappert, Wilhelm,
Straus, Noel, , , Tauber, Richard,
Strauss, Alice, Taubman, Howard, , , ,
Strauss, Johann, Jr., ; Die Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich, ; Eu-
Fledermaus, , , gene Onegin, , ; Symphony
Strauss, Richard, , , , , , no. , ; Symphony no.
, , , , , ; Alpensin- (Pathtique), ,
fonie, , ; Ariadne auf Thibaud, Jacques,
Naxos, ; Don Juan, ; Don Thomas, Kurt,
Quixote, ; Elektra, ; Die Thompson, Randall,
Frau ohne Schatten, ; Meta- Thomson, Virgil, ,
morphosen, ; Panathenenzug, Thorborg, Kerstin, , , ,
; Der Rosenkavalier, , ,
; Salome, , , , ; Sonata Tibbett, Lawrence,
for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, Tietjen, Heinz, , , , ,
; Symphonia domestica, , ; , , ,
Till Eulenspiegel, ; Tod und Tinlot, Gustave,
Verklrung, , , ; Walters Toscanini, Arturo, , , , ,
feelings toward, , ; as , , , , , , ,
Walters replacement with Berlin , , ; in Berlin, ;
Philharmonic, death of, ; and the NBC
Stravinsky, Igor: The Firebird, ; The Symphony, , , ;
Nightingale, ; Piano Concerto, and the Salzburg festival, ; com-
pared with Walter, , , ,
Strelitzer, Hugo, , ; Walters first meeting with,
Stresemann, Gustav, , Toscanini, Wally,

I

Toscanini, Wanda, Waack, Carl, ,
Tourel, Jennie, , , Wagner, Cosima,
Tozzi, Giorgio, Wagner, Richard, ; anti-Semitism
Trapp, Max, , of, , ; on conductors, ;
Traubel, Helen, conflict with Brahms, ; Der
Treaty of Versailles, fliegende Hollnder, , ; Gtter-
Treptow, Gnther, dmmerung, , , ; Kaiser-
marsch, ; Lohengrin, ; Die
Ullrich, Hermann, , Meistersinger, , , ;
Unger, Heinz, , , Parsifal, , ; Rienzi, ;
Uno, Isao, Ring cycle, , , , ;
Uppman, Theodor, , Siegfried, ; Siegfied Idyll, ,
Urlus, Jacques, , , , ; Tannhuser, , , ;
Tristan und Isolde, , ,
Vacchiano, William, , , ; Die Walkre, ,
Vancouver International Festival, , ,
Walker, Edyth,
Vaughan Williams, Ralph, , Wallaschek, Richard,
Verbrugghen, Henri, , Wallmann, Margarete, , ,
Verdi, Giuseppe: , Aida, , Walter, Bruno (born Bruno
; Un ballo in maschera, , , Schlesinger, ): on aes-
; Don Carlo, ; Falstaff, ; thetics, ; and anthroposophy,
La forza del destino, , , , , , , ;
, , ; Otello, ; Re- anti-Semitism experienced by, ,
quiem, , , , ; Rigo- , , ; arm ail-
letto, ; Il trovatore, ment suffered by, ; assistance
Vereinigung schaffender Tonknstler given to needy musicians, , ;
in Wien. See Society for Creative on atonality, , ; on Austria un-
Musicians in Vienna der Nazism, ; and avant-
Vienna, Austria: as cultural peak, garde composers, , ; in
; Walter as resident of, , , Berlin, , , ; and the
, , , , Berlin Philharmonic, , ,
Vienna Hofoper: Walter as conductor , , , , , , ;
for, , , , and the Berlin Staatsoper, ; at
Vienna Opera: after the war, ; Wal- the Berlin Stdtische Oper, ,
ter as artistic director, , ; , , , ;
Walters depature from, Bernstein as substitute for, ;
Vienna Philharmonic, , , , biographies of, , ; birth
, , , , , , of, ; at the Breslau Stadttheater,
, , , , , ; on Bruckners music,
Vienna Singakademie: Walter as direc- , ; Blow as influence on,
tor of, , , ; in California, , ,
Vienna Symphony, , ; as champion of new music,
Vlker, Franz, , , , , ,

I

, , ; on new system Mahlers death, ; on Mahlers
in orchestral notation, ; citizen- departure from Vienna, ; on
ship problems of, ; as coach Mahlers music, , ; as
in Cologne, ; on composition Mahlers second-in-command,
in Germany, ; concerns about , , ; on Mahlers Sixth Sym-
political climate in Germany, , phony, ; and Thomas Mann,
, , , ; on con- , , ; marriage of, ;
ducting, , ; conducting debut and the Metropolitan Opera, ,
of, ; conducting methods of, , , , ,
; conducting style of, ; ; in Moscow, ; and the
conflict with Mahler, ; con- Munich Opera, , , ,
version to Christianity, , , , , , ,
; critical reception of, , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , ; on musical value, ; and
, , , , , music therapy, ; and the
, , , , , , Musikalische Akademie, ,
, , , , ; on , , , , ;
critics, , ; daughters born name changed from Schlesinger,
to, , ; death of, ; depar- , ; and the NBC Symphony,
ture from Munich, ; diag- , ; and the New York
nosed with diabetes, ; dis- Philharmonic, , , ,
couragement faced by, ; early , , , , , ,
compositions of, ; early musical , , , , ,
talent of, ; fiftieth birthday cele- ; and Hans Pfitzner, ,
bration of, ; first meeting with , , , , , ; as pi-
Mahler, ; first visit to Vienna, anist, , , , , , , ,
; and Freud, ; in , ; piano debut with the
Greece, ; and Gretels death, Berlin Philharmonic, ; premieres
, ; as guest conductor in conducted by, , , , , ,
the United States, , , , , , , , ,
, , ; heart attacks , , , , , ,
suffered by, , , ; on , , , , ,
jazz, , ; and Elsa Korneck, , , , , , , , ,
; and Erich Korngold, , , , , ; in Press-
, , , ; La burg, , ; on programmatic
Scala debut of, ; and the Leipzig music, ; recordings of, ,
Gewandhaus Orchestra, , , , , , , ,
, , , ; , , , , ,
London debut of, ; at the , , , , ,
London Music Festival, ; and the , , , ,
Los Angeles Philharmonic, , , , , ,
; love of literature, ; in Lugano, , ; at rehearsals, , ,
, , , ; Mahler as influ- , ; and Delia Reinhardt,
ence on, , , , , ; on , , , , ,

I

Walter, Bruno (continued) ion, ; on Beethovens Missa
, , , , ; at the solemnis, ; Concerts and Their
Riga Stadttheater, , , Function, ; Kapelle und
; Russian composers as political Kapellmeister, ; Mahlers
issue for, , ; at the Salzburg Weg, ; Of Music and Music-
Festival, , , , , Making, , , , , ,
, , , ; and , ; On the Moral Forces of
Arnold Schoenberg, , , Music, , ; On Under-
; seventy-seventh birthday standing Art, ; Operndm-
of, ; Stefans biography of, merung, ; Theme and Vari-
; at the Stern Conservatory, , ations, , , , ,
; in Sweden, , ; tensions Walter, Elsa (wife, ), ,
with Furtwngler, , , , ; , , , , , , , ;
compared to Toscanini, ; death of, , ; and Gretels
Vienna as home base for, , , death, ; health problems of, ,
, , , , , ; at ; marriage to Walter, ; as
the Vienna Hofoper, , , singer, , , , ; and
, , , ; and the Vienna Strauss as Walters replacement in
Singakademie, , , ; Berlin, ,
Wagner as influence on, , ; Walter, Gretel. See Neppach, Gretel
at Westminster Choir College, ; Walter
on women in orchestras, ; after Walter, Lotte. See Lindt, Lotte Walter
World War I, ; during World Warfield, Sandra,
War I, Warfield, William, ,
compositions of, , , ; Agnes Warren, Leonard,
Bernauer, ; critical reception of, Watson, Jean, ,
, , , , , , Weber, Carl Maria von: Oberon, ,
; Elfe, , ; Der junge Ehe- , ; Euryanthe, ,
mann, ; Des Kindes Schlaf, ; Webern, Anton,
King Oedipus, ; Die Lerche, Weidemann, Friedrich, , ,
; Liebeslust, ; Meine Mutter Weigl, Joseph,
hats gewollt, ; Musikanten- Weigl, Karl, ,
gruss, ; Piano Quintet, , Weill, Kurt, ,
, , ; Piano Trio, , , ; Weingartner, Felix, , , , , ,
Der Ritter ber den Bodensee, ; , , , , , , , ,
Der Soldat, ; Sonata for Piano Weinstock, Herbert, ,
and Violin in A Major, , , Weiss, Anton,
; songs, ; String Quar- Weissmann, Adolf, ,
tet in D Major, ; Symphonic Wellesz, Egon,
Fantasy, ; Symphony no. Werfel, Alma Mahler, , , , , ,
(D minor), , , , ; , , , , , , ; and
Tragdie II, ; Vorbei, Walter, , ,
writings of: About War and Mu- Werfel, Franz, , ,
sic, ; Art and Public Opin- Westermeyer, Karl, ,

I

Wetzler, Hermann, Wolf, Otto, , ,
Wharton, Edith, Wolff, Julius,
White, Theodore, Wolff, Louise, , , ,
Whithorne, Emerson, Woolf, Virginia,
Wiesenthal, Grete, Wrz, Richard, , ,
Wilde, Oscar,
Willer, Luise, , , , , , Yeend, Frances, ,
Williamson, John Finley, ,
Winternitz-Dorda, Martha, Zemlinsky, Alexander von, ,
Wirthschaft, Gertrud, Zimbalist, Efrem,
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Zirato, Bruno, , , , ,
Wittgenstein, Paul, , , , , , , , ,
Wodehouse, P. G., , ,
Woess, Josef von, Zweig, Fritz, ,
Wolf, Hugo, ; Der Corregidor, , Zweig, Stefan,
,