Six Conductors And The Israel Philharmonic

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In this January 22, 1958 correspondence to Dr. Horst Salomon, director of the Tel-Aviv Philharmonic, Otto Nosson Klemperer writes:

I feel compelled to tell you personally how deeply I regret that I have been forced to cancel the concerts in Israel at the moment.

The enclosed letter from the Department of State caused you the greatest embarrassment, and me no less.

All my hope rests in the future. Let me hope that it will be possible to conduct the beautiful Israel Orchestra in the not-too-distant future.

A protégé of the composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, Klemperer (born Klopper, 1885-1973) was appointed to a succession of increasingly senior conductorships in opera houses in and around Germany. Widely regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20^th century with a formidable reputation for austere, monumental performances and recordings of the great German repertoire, he was a master at interpreting opera and the avant-garde. He is less well known as a composer, but he wrote six symphonies, a mass, nine string quartets, and Das Ziel, an opera.

Klemperer had a rather complex Jewish background and history. He was raised in an observant household in Breslau before Nathan, his Orthodox father, failed in business and moved the family to Hamburg, where Nathan found employment in a Christian firm which involved Sabbath work. Family observance lapsed and, though Nathan remained a synagogue member, Otto’s mother Ida, who had grown up in a Sephardic family in the less-observant Jewish world in Hamburg, became an ardent assimilationist. She took her children to a Reform temple, where Otto was bar mitzvahed, but he soon abandoned his faith, converting to Christianity and marrying a Gentile (1919). During Hitler’s rise, Klemperer urged all Jews to be baptized, and he appealed to his Orthodox brother-in-law to convert. Yet, he never missed his mother’s yahrzeit; later converted back to Judaism (1967); and he ultimately became an Israeli citizen (1970), the year of his historic performance of Mahler Symphony No. 9 that he conducted in Jerusalem on August 4, 1970 (at the age of 85!), after which he was formally presented with an Israeli passport by government officials.

Klemperer was deeply affected by the plight of Jews during the Holocaust and was supportive of the State of Israel and Jewish cultural institutions. His decision to conduct the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was partly driven by his connection to his Jewish roots and his support for Jewish causes, but he did not actively engage in Zionist political activities.

The appointment of Klemperer, a Jew, as conductor of the Berlin State Opera (1931) drew strong Nazi opposition, but he continued to urge all Jews to remain in Germany. However, when his cousin, who had become a Lutheran and had married a Christian, was “disappeared” by the Nazis (1933), he left for the U.S., where he became conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and concentrated more on the standard works of the Germanic repertoire that would later bring him greatest acclaim, particularly the works of Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler.

In 1939, Klemperer underwent drastic surgery for a brain tumor, damaging his motor skills and exaggerating his manic-depressive tendencies, and, as a result, he changed his musical priorities, devoting himself intensely to the greatest masterworks in the literature. He had performed in Eretz Yisrael and returned to Israel in 1970 to conduct the Israeli Broadcasting Authority Symphonic Orchestra in two concerts, performing the six Brandenburg Concerti of Bach, and Mozart’s symphonies 39, 40 and 41. He sought to conduct the Israel Philharmonic, but when he was refused on the grounds that his partial paralysis affected his conducting, he turned to the Kol Israel Orchestra (now the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra), which was considered less successful but under his baton attained impressive and surprising heights. Later in his life, he became increasingly concerned about the influence of “Jewish fundamentalism” in Israel – one could only imagine his reaction to the increased political power of the draft-dodging charedim – and about Israel’s foreign policies.

The man Klemperer addresses in the letter, Dr. Horst Salomon, made aliyah in 1936 from Germany, where he was first horn for the Berlin Judische Kulturbund, to become first principal horn of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini. He was also a wrestler and a muscular man who rode the first Harley-Davidson motorcycle in Eretz Yisrael.

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Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951), one of the most important conductors in the United States during the first half of the 20^th century, introduced American audiences to the works of modern Russian and European composers. He championed young American composers and, in this regard, he played a pivotal role in the development of modern American classical music. A virtuoso double-bassist, he was also instrumental as an educator.

Born into a poor Jewish family and raised in a Jewish shtetl about 160 miles northwest of Moscow, Koussevitzky grew up in a pious Orthodox home and attended cheder; yet, in a September 24, 1924 statement to The Jewish Daily Forward, he claimed that his parents embraced Christianity when he was six years old. However, much of his biography is subject to question because he often told conflicting stories and, in this instance, he never explained how his mother allegedly converted three years after her death (when the maestro was age three).

In any case, the exact date of Koussevitzky’s own baptism to Russian Orthodoxy is unknown, but it was sometime before joining the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, which barred Jews. Commentators surmise that, like many Jewish musicians at the time, his conversion was one of career advancement rather than a stark renunciation of his Judaism, a theory supported by his bequeathing his collection of musical instruments to the State of Israel. Interestingly, when Leonard Bernstein first emerged as a gifted and popular figure in the classical music world in 1942, Koussevitzky urged his protégé to change his name from Bernstein to Burns – “Your name is too Jewish, and too ordinary” – but the young Bernstein refused.

Koussevitzky was a close personal friend of President Chaim Weizmann, who is credited with generating his great support for Zionism and interest in Jewish affairs. Visiting Israel, Koussevitzky conceived of a giant festival to celebrate the 3,000^th anniversary of Jerusalem as the Jewish capital, which would take place in 1996, and he approached various Israeli composers with the idea to compose works on Biblical or religious themes. The festival, as envisioned by Koussevitzky, never took place, but composer Paul Ben-Chaim completed the work which he had commissioned, a three-movement symphonic work with soprano solo that premiered in Tel Aviv (1956).

Admitted to the School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, the penniless Koussevitzky was forced to take up the double bass because students seldom chose the instrument, but he soon established himself as master of the instrument to the point that he performed with Tchaikovsky. He joined the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra (1894), where he performed both opera and ballet, and he gave his first solo performance in 1896 in Moscow and became leader of the Bolshoi Orchestra bass section (1901). His successful debut as a conductor came on January 23, 1908 in Berlin’s Beethoven Hall, and he branched out further when he and his wife founded the Russian Music Publishing House (1909), which purchased the catalogues of many of the greatest composers of the age.

After the Russian Revolution, Koussevitzky emigrated to Paris, where he presented important new works by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel, and others. During his long tenure as the legendary conductor of the Boston Symphony (1924-1949), the BSO presented 128 world premieres by Copland, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Gershwin, Stravinsky, Barber, and Schönberg, and the orchestra also showcased the works of American composers such as Copland, Gershwin, and Leonard Bernstein. In the 1930s, he developed the Tanglewood summer concerts and the associated Berkshire Music Centre school (1940), and after his retirement from the orchestra (1949) he guest-conducted in Europe and the Americas.

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In this October 21, 1949 correspondence to Menachem Mahler-Kalkstein, General Secretary of the Israeli Philharmonic, Leopold Stokowski writes:

Your orchestra has been kind enough to invite me to conduct several times, but so far it has not been possible for me to go to Tel Aviv on account of commitments in the United States. I have often thought of younger talented American conductors that I think you might like to have with your orchestra. One of these is Charles O’Connell, 321 South Smedley Street, Philadelphia 3, Pennsylvania. He is not only very experienced in music, but has a delightful personality. I am sure your orchestra and audiences would like him. If you care to invite him to go to Tel-Aviv and conduct I believe you could work out with him some time that would be free for him so that he could make the journey.

With every good wish for the success of your orchestra.

Mahler-Kalkstein (b. Avidom, 1908-1995), a prominent Polish-born composer who made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael (1925), pioneered a popular Israeli nationalist musical style which mixed Mediterranean music rooted in Levantine culture with traditional Western technique. A music educator and active figure in Israeli musical life, his works include ten symphonies and operas, including Alexandra, an opera for which he was awarded the Israel Prize (1961). In addition to serving as secretary-general of the Israeli Philharmonic (1945-1952), he served as director-general of ACUM, the Israeli performing rights society (1955-1980), and as chairman of the Israel Composers League (1958-1972).

O’Connell (1900-1962), an American conductor and recording executive, served as head of the artist and repertoire department of the RCA Victor Red Seal label (1930-1944) and then music director of Columbia Masterworks (1944-1947). He published The Victor Book of the Symphony (1934), The Victor Book of the Opera (1937), and other seminal music works. I have been unable to find any sources regarding whether he ever conducted the Israel Philharmonic.

Stokowski (1882-1977), broadly recognized as one of the greatest conductors of all time, led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; the Philadelphia Orchestra, which he transformed from a provincial ensemble into a world-class orchestra noted for its precision and virtuosity; the NBC Symphony Orchestra; Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; and the Symphony of the Air; and he founded the NYC Symphony and The American Symphony Orchestra. He is famous for developing the “Stokowski Sound,” a sensuous and deep sound. Recognized as a grand showman, his flair for the theatrical included grand gestures such as throwing sheet music on the floor to show that he had no need to conduct from a score; experimenting with lighting techniques in the concert hall, at one point conducting in the dark with only his head and hands lit; growing his hair into an unruly, but stately, “lion’s mane”; and conducting without a baton, which became his signature effect.

Experimenting with seating plans to obtain the greatest sound clarity, Stokowski is credited as the first conductor to adopt the seating plan used by most contemporary orchestras. Musically, he provoked a lasting controversy about his bombastic symphonic transcriptions of Bach works, which are considered as a sacrilege by all baroque purists, and for making changes to scores of great masters, such as Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Fascinated by recording technology, he embraced each new development and he recorded over 700 pieces of music, his career spanning every technology, except digital, which he just missed. Ironically, though his broad repertoire included many contemporary works and he championed living composers with hundreds of premieres, this giant of music may perhaps best be known as the conductor of Walt Disney’s Fantasia who shook hands with Mickey Mouse (1940).

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In the October 10, 1946 correspondence on his Cleveland Orchestra letterhead exhibited here, George Szell writes to the “Musician’s Committee” in Tel Aviv sending his regrets regarding an invitation to conduct a series of concerts in Eretz Yisrael. He did later conduct the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1954, which was significant because he brought his renowned precision and musical insight to the orchestra, which was still relatively young at the time.

The Szell family was of Jewish origin, but he converted to Catholicism as a young boy and was a practicing Catholic his entire life. Of course, the Nazis still considered him to be Jewish, so he became a Jewish refugee from Nazi Europe and a fervent Hitler-hater. Szell (1897-1970) is best known for transforming the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra into what was universally considered among the world’s finest and for his fearsome reputation as an intimidating martinet, musical tyrant, and terrifying old-school authoritarian. He stood out primarily because of his precision and he was recognized for uniquely combining the American purity, beauty of sound, and virtuosity of execution with the European sense of tradition, warmth of expression, and sense of style.

Szell was also a composer and a virtuoso pianist before he took up conducting, He retained his superlative piano technique throughout his career, occasionally playing the piano with chamber ensembles and as an accompanist, and he recorded four Mozart sonatas for piano and violin with his Cleveland Orchestra (1967) that astounded critics with his undiminished skills. Although his work as a composer is virtually unknown today, he wrote several original pieces and arranged Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 (from My Life) for orchestra.

Born in Budapest, Szell was an infant prodigy, playing a Mozart piano concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at age ten, composing several solid chamber and orchestral works as a child, and conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in a program that included one of his own compositions at seventeen. He rose through the conducting ranks in the traditional way of the period with a series of opera positions, beginning with an appointment with the Royal Opera of Berlin (1915-1917), where he was befriended by its Music Director, Richard Strauss, and conducted part of the world premiere recording of Strauss’s Don Juan. Positions at Strasbourg, Prague, Darmstadt, and Düsseldorf followed before he assumed his first prestigious post when he was named first conductor of the pre-Hitler Berlin State Opera (1924). He moved on to become general music director of the German Opera and Philharmonic in Prague (1929-1937).

Szell, who made his American debut as guest conductor of the St. Louis Symphony in 1930, was marooned in New York in 1939 by the outbreak of World War II, and he remained in the U.S. through the war. After his New York debut as guest conductor of Toscanini’s NBC Symphony (1941), he became a regular conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was especially praised for his Wagner performances. He became an American citizen in 1946, the same year he was appointed music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, a post he held for 24 years until his death. He was also the New York Philharmonic’s music advisor and senior guest conductor during the last two years of his life.

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Though Walter Damrosch (1862-1950) is perhaps best known as a conductor of Richard Wagner, he was also a pioneer in the performance of music on the radio and in adapting music appreciation for children, and, as such, he became one of the chief popularizers of classical music in the United States. Although now remembered almost exclusively as a conductor, before his radio broadcasts he was equally well-known as a composer, writing operas based on stories such as The Scarlet Letter (1896), Cyrano de Bergerac (1913), and The Man Without a Country (1937) (see exhibit). When he took his New York Symphony to Europe (1920), it became the first American orchestra to be heard there.

Damrosch’s paternal grandfather and father were Jewish, but his mother was Lutheran and therefore he was not Jewish. Nonetheless, there is one important time when Damrosch “stepped up to the plate” for the Jewish people: when the World Jewish Congress, appreciating the news value of German-Americans protesting against Germany, sponsored a full-page ad in The New York Times denouncing Hitler’s cold-blooded extermination of the Jews of Europe (1942), he was out front as one of the fifty prominent German-American signatories.

A member of one of America’s foremost families of musicians, Damrosch was the youngest son of Leopold Damrosch (1832-1885), a distinguished composer and conductor. He studied piano and composition in Germany before immigrating with his family to the United States (1871), where he served as assistant conductor for his father at the Metropolitan Opera (1884-1885). He made his Met debut conducting Wagner’s Tannhäuser after his father was stricken by pneumonia (1885) and, after Leopold’s death, succeeded his father as Wagnerian director for the Metropolitan Opera (1885-1891). He also conducted the New York Symphony and the Oratorio Society of New York, producing a popular series of Wagner operas at Carnegie Hall (1893-94). He founded the Damrosch Grand Opera Company (1895); became Met staff conductor (1900); and reorganized the New York Symphony (1903-1927).

Damrosch commissioned Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F and, with Gershwin as soloist, led the New York Symphony in the work’s premiere (1925); he also later conducted the American premiere of Gershwin’s An American in Paris (1928). As musical consultant to NBC, he produced the Music Appreciation Hour, a radio series for schoolchildren (1928-1942), becoming the first composer-conductor to actively introduce children to classical music; his presentations were marked by singing silly lyrics that he would fit to well-known classical pieces in an effort to help children remember them.

Some asides in Damrosch’s very interesting life: first, he should be credited with the building of Carnegie Hall. In 1887, he traveled to Germany, to study conducting under Hans von Bülow, who was then at the height of his career as a pianist and conductor. Aboard the steamship to Germany, he met Andrew Carnegie, whom he later convinced to build Carnegie Hall as a rehearsal and performance venue for the New York Symphony and Oratorio Societies. Having conducted the American premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony on February 1, 1890, Damrosch invited the great Russian maestro to New York in honor of the Hall’s opening on May 5, 1891.

Second, Damrosch married the daughter of James G. Blaine, then Secretary of State, but also a former presidential candidate (he had lost to Grover Cleveland).

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In this April 24, 1978 correspondence on his National Symphony letterhead, Mstislav Rostropovich writes to Elchanan Bregman, cellist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, about a concert in honor of Leonard Bernstein:

On August 25, 1978, at Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, the National Symphony Orchestra and I will present a gala concert upon the occasion of Leonard Bernstein’s sixtieth birthday.

Such friends of Maestro Bernstein as Isaac Stern, Claudio Arrau, Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim and others are donating their talents for this concert. Others – those who cannot participate directly in the concert because of previous commitments – and people who are involved in the non-performing arts, have asked to be able to join in this celebration. To this end we have decided to form an Honorary Committee for the concert. I write to ask if you wish to be a member of this committee.

In forming this committee we have attempted to indicate the scope of Leonard Bernstein’s contribution to the music world. His massive contributions to the music of our time have cemented relationships throughout the world. Yours is a part of the worldwide network of his friendships and your name should be a part of any celebration for him. The Honorary Committee will be listed in the concert program….

Bregman was a cellist (like Rostropovich) who specialized in Yemenite music. The highlights of this historic tribute concert included Copland conducting Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 (“Jeremiah”) and Bernstein himself conducting the legendary performance of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Menuhin, Previn, and Rostropovich on cello.

During his lifetime, Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007) was widely considered the world’s greatest cellist. His vast repertoire ranged from the baroque through the classical and romantic periods to the avant-garde, and in repertoire of all eras, he was renowned for his commanding technique and his intense, visionary playing. As one of the most sought-after recording artists in the world, he recorded virtually the entire cello repertoire, and he also inspired many famous composers to create works especially for him, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev. In a lifetime of countless memorable performances, he gave the premieres of Prokofiev’s Second Cello Concerto (1952), Shostakovich’s two Cello Concertos (1959, 1966), Britten’s Cello Symphony (1964), and Bliss’s Cello Concerto (1970).

In 1961, Rostropovich made his conducting debut in Gorky and went on to win outstanding acclaim as a conductor, appearing with most of the world’s leading orchestras and conducting and recording many operas, including Queen of Spades, Eugene Onegin, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Tosca. He served as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington (1977-1994).

Rostropovich was also one of the world’s most outspoken defenders of human and artistic freedoms. He actively supported the banned novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn not only by allowing him to live in his dacha outside Moscow, but also by writing an open letter to Brezhnev in 1970 protesting against Soviet restrictions on cultural freedom. These actions resulted in the cancellation of his concerts and foreign tours, a Soviet media black-out, and the cessation of all recording projects. In 1974, Rostropovich and his family left the Soviet Union, and four years later he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship (the decree was rescinded in 1990). He subsequently devoted much time and gave numerous performances to support humanitarian efforts around the world.

Rostropovich was not a Zionist per se, in the political or ideological sense. However, as a supporter of human rights and individual freedoms, he was closely aligned with the interests of Jewish musicians and with the State of Israel; as such, his support for Israel was based on his broader commitment to freedom and justice rather than any specific political ideology. He conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on several occasions, and his appearances with the orchestra were highly anticipated and well-received.