Culture Under Tyranny: Three Musicians Who Did Not Survive the Dictatorships

Three remarkable musicians died under brutal regimes in the twentieth century. Their stories, buried for decades, have resurfaced through recently discovered recordings. Oswald Kabasta collaborated with the Nazi regime to advance his career, only to end his life by suicide. Alfred Hoehn suffered a fatal heart condition while trying to preserve musical sanity inside the Third Reich. Oskar Fried defected to the Soviet Union and may have been murdered on Stalin's orders. These figures left behind recordings and writings that reveal the depth of their artistic and personal struggles.

Works preserved on this collection

Beethoven: Leonore Overture no. 2, performed by Oswald Kabasta and the Munich Philharmonic, recorded around 1944.

Brahms: Piano Concerto no. 2 in B-flat, op. 86, I: Allegro non troppo, with Alfred Hoehn as pianist, the Leipzig Radio Orchestra, and Reinhold Merten as conductor, recorded in 1940.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (complete), performed by Oskar Fried and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, recorded around 1937.

The total duration of the released recordings is 1 hour, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds.

The machinery of gleichschaltung

The Nazis implemented a program called gleichschaltung, an electrical term for synchronizing or switching elements so they become compatible within a circuit. In political terms, it described the coordinated forcible realignment of all ideas and institutions under National Socialist ideology. The movement gathered strength when, in 1920, the party relaunched the failed Völkischer Beobachter newspaper. With a respectable pseudo-intellectual veneer, the paper gradually reshaped the German public's perception of culture and history. Every major figure—Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Beethoven, and ultimately Wagner—was recast as a proto-Nazi prophet. Rembrandt's contemplative self-portraits were twisted into expressions of what the regime called "visionary fanaticism." Propaganda drowned out the free press, and society was relentlessly manipulated. Kabasta thrived in this new order; Hoehn and Fried remained outsiders whose artistic integrity survives.

The rise of Oswald Kabasta

Oswald Kabasta's ancestors came from German-speaking Prague, where the German language had forcibly displaced Czech tongues. In 1926, following a recommendation from Karl Muck, Kabasta became conductor of the Graz State Opera Orchestra. A November review praised his phrasing, describing him as holding "streams of revolutionary blood" in his veins and stating that "the music that he makes resounds in his heart and therefore sounds good to the ear." By 1938 he had added the RAVAG Orchestra (Austrian Radio) and the Vienna Symphony to his portfolio.

Kabasta stood in contrast to the conservative Vienna Philharmonic, championing bold new works whenever possible. The Wiener Symphoniker toured Europe in 1936, including a stop in London for a live BBC broadcast on 19 January. The program featured Strauss's Die Schweigsame Frau, Schubert's Symphony no. 3, Enescu's First Romanian Rhapsody, Beethoven's Leonore Overture 2, and Stravinsky's Petrushka Suite — the latter work recently banned inside Germany. Following a return engagement in London that autumn, Benjamin Britten wrote in his diary on 28 October 1936: "After Schmidt's we go to Vienna Symphony Concert at Q[ueens].H[all] under Kabasta. This is a really great orchestra, & it is a miracle to hear real orchestral playing. Perfect ensemble & intonation in the Leonore 2 & Haffner Mozart Symph. A most thrilling virtuoso show of Til Eulenspiegel – a wonderful show. Bruckner's 7th does not convert me."

A 1936 review from Prague observed that the voicing and timbre of the orchestra impressed with a brighter, more vibrant sound from the strings than locals were used to, and that the woodwinds held a distinctively sonorous color. During a visit to Munich in the 1935/36 season, Kabasta's fearless approach impressed the Munich Philharmonic's directors. They considered him a worthy replacement for the directors' assessment of Sigmund von Hausegger as old-fashioned and unable to keep pace with the new music their orchestra required if it was to challenge the Berlin Philharmonic.

Navigating the regime

Donald Wesley Ellis, writing in Music in the Third Reich: National Socialist Aesthetic Theory as Government Policy, notes: "Reviews of [von Hausegger's] concerts were uniformly favorable if reserved. He seemed even to inspire respect in the music editors of the Völkischer Beobachter, who said of him that he kept Munich from being a hot-bed of international atonality." Choosing Kabasta raised concerns because he included composers like Bartók, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev—artists the regime disapproved of. Despite his tendency to sneak banned French and decadent composers onto programs, his appointment was confirmed. In 1938, with behind-the-scenes help, he programmed Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, and even Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. The latter piece stunned Willi Graf (1918-1943), an anti-Nazi member of the White Rose resistance who was later tortured and executed for refusing to inform on colleagues. Graf observed in his diary how rare it was to hear someone as "safe" as Kabasta risk including Bartók, which kept many listeners alert and wondering about his defiance.

Tension grows with the party

In early 1939, a functionary named Mayerhofer voiced explicit displeasure to the Munich Philharmonic board over the upcoming winter season. Kabasta's proposal again included Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, Stravinsky's Petrushka, Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, Ravel's Bolero, and Debussy's Three Nocturnes, alongside the standard fare of Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, Haydn, and Mozart. Mayerhofer believed that such foreign programming would spotlight Munich but threatened reputations with the foreign office. He questioned whether presenting foreign works over recent German compositions was wise. A second briefing described an incident in which Kabasta refused even to look at new compositions by Gottfried Ruedinger, asked to act as an internal reviewer, stating, "As far as I can see, Kabasta has busied himself with the old war horses and foreign musicians that are contrary to the precepts of National Socialist musikpolitik."

'I insist that I will not allow any meddling in artistic matters nor will I accept anyone's tutelage.'

An angry Kabasta shot back: "I don't understand why the Society presented my suggestions for the 1939/40 season to [Mayerhofer] in the first place. In my first year as conductor of the Munich Philharmonic I have proved that I'm trustworthy and loyal to both the Cultural Office and to Mayor Fiehler. But I insist that I will not allow any meddling in artistic matters nor will I accept anyone's tutelage."

Mayerhofer doubled down, stating Kabasta was blissfully unaware of his committee's powers and asked the mayor to decide "whose position is correct in the era of National Socialism" in so far as the conductor believed himself "some sort of sovereign in his post."

The final years and suicide

After the Tonhalle concert hall in Munich was destroyed by bombs in 1944, Kabasta held out, only to be hospitalized with a heart condition in 1945. While recuperating, he learned the occupying forces had tagged him as "borderline" in their denazification classification—someone who applied for membership but was not a party member proper. The allied intelligence chief concluded Kabasta's denial of Party involvement could only be disproved or cleared through extensive investigation, so he could not continue conducting. David Monod writes in Settling Scores: "The city [of Munich] continued to pay Kabasta's salary and to negotiate with the Americans for his reinstatement. But this became a virtual impossibility when Kabasta admitted to having applied to join the Nazi Party as a precondition for getting his job, even though he added that he had never been issued a membership number and had always been 'inwardly' anti-Nazi (the conductor neglected to tell the American that six years before he [1939] he had also applied for membership in the Austrian Nazi Party.)" The Americans blacklisted him permanently, dismissing his repeated appeals. Discharged and devastated, Kabasta stayed in a Kufstein hotel room, composing a vainglorious farewell to the Philharmonic, begging they think of him while playing Bruckner's Eighth. Two days later, at 50 years old, he and his wife consumed lethal amounts of veronal—the same method used by German Jews avoiding capture. She survived at first, then succeeded months later on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Surviving test discs recorded around 1942-44 showcase his high-strung musicality in Beethoven's Leonore Overture no. 2. One London critic wrote that while previous commentators had found the overture flawed compared to Leonora III, the "lovely dross" from an earlier conception remained welcome in this fine, warm performance.

The disciplined idealism of Alfred Hoehn

Alfred Hoehn was quite another type of musician. His program for an Amsterdam recital on 24 November 1921 shows remarkable breadth: Bach's Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro; Couperin, Scarlatti, Beethoven's last sonata; Chopin; Liszt; Debussy; and Reger. Critics praised his interpretation of Debussy's Homage à Rameau "special precise clarity and elegance of conception, so pure and richly multi-colored, so intimate and reverently played as I have yet to hear from a German pianist." A testimony from Hoehn's forward-thinking publications shows how the pianist blatantly ignored regime objectives, instead focusing appreciation for French impressionist technique well after suspect composers were frowned upon.

Especially striking is a preface Hoehn wrote, published in Nazi Germany in 1938, explaining this art form while completely ignoring the aesthetic or ideological projects of the Reich:

'Naturally, to the creator, interpreter and listener, this indicates a withdrawal from the true center of the musical soul…'

His dedication to this subtle and soulful interpretation—of a famously non-German composer—underlined the vital differences between quiet artistic devotion and political fanaticism.

Oskar Fried and the Soviet ending

Oskar Fried had confounded expectations even earlier, leveraging a radical reputation to work directly for the new Soviet regime as head of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra in Moscow during Stalin's consolidation of power. By programming modernism at his own risk while admiring examples like Prokofiev, Stravinsky—exact same personalities that unnerved the Nazi local-level censorship committees from Berlin to Munich—writers underscore severe constraints under a mutually rigid dictatorial client state, meeting with simply far darker unknowns entirely.

Fried traveled eastwards across the Rhine feeling confident; today most accounts posit assassination.

When Hoehn appeared in London, one critic noted: “He commands a full tone, never pressed to the point of hardness, and singularly beautiful in sustained and lyrical passages. Herr Hoehn’s principal works in this programme were Brahms’s early piano sonata in F minor and Schumann’s Carnaval, both of which, particularly the scherzo and finale of the former, amply displayed the brilliance of his execution.”

Buried within an otherwise routine review lies a rare musical insight, as a critic’s discomfort surfaces when confronted by an old Brahmsian practice that Hoehn had preserved: “The very wayward rubato used in Brahms’s slow movement suggested that the moonlight romance of Sternau’s verse attracted him more than the shapeliness of Brahms’s melody.”

Hans Rosbaud, a celebrated piano student of Hoehn’s who later became a distinguished conductor, frequently collaborated with his teacher. A 1930 Stuttgart program lists Hoehn as soloist in the Brahms Second Concerto, and years later they performed the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto in Frankfurt. Hoehn also appeared with Abendroth, Furtwängler, and Dohnanyi. In a 2 June 1934 letter to music theorist Heinrich Schenker following his Hamburg lecture on Schenkerian analysis, Felix-Eberhard von Cube reported Hoehn’s curiosity about a method the regime disfavored: “I have also enclosed for you the review of a lecture that I gave recently, with the courage of despair. It seemed to me the only possible way of giving voice to the truth, without meeting an a priori objection. The success exceeded my expectation, and even the review— lightly drawing inspiration from me—shows that there are still people who are prepared to bear intellectual responsibility. Strangely enough, the lecture received an echo from, of all places, Frankfurt! From there a Professor Alfred Hoehn (do you know him?) wrote to me, saying that he wanted to learn more about these things. I shall send him a few related notices and a ‘self-drawn’ Ursatz.”

In 1940, while on stage in Leipzig performing the second movement of Brahms’s Piano Concerto no. 2, Hoehn suffered a paralytic stroke. The published excerpt came months earlier, alluding to the last music-making of his life. He died in 1945 from a heart attack, possibly after watching an American soldier billeted at his home throw his piano down a stairway.

Try as one might to follow a wandering conductor who boasted of having no ties to any single orchestra, Oskar Fried’s activities and biography present a stubborn riddle. His elusive trail leads through a labyrinth of countries, riddled with gaps of missing years. Apart from occasional interviews, we have little access to his inner world—much was hidden by temperament and deliberate choice, unlike many colleagues who eagerly cultivated legacies. A casual note in Count Harry Kessler’s diary for 14 December 1905 recounts a conversation as Kessler and Fried visited their close friend, the decadent Hamburg writer Richard Dehmel and his wife: “About [Richard] Strauss and Fried. Where Strauss intends to be sensitive he regularly becomes banal. His strength is in the witty, in the subtle. Mrs. Dehmel said that Fried was superior to him because he naturally commanded a hot passion. Dehmel contradicted quickly; even though perhaps the race agrees with you that Frau Dehmel feels drawn to peace, he, Dehmel, joined in with the totally opposite reaction, I daresay, the dissimilarity of the race from his wife. Furthermore, one must admit, Thank God, for the cool art arising in the world is due to Strauss. We had played on the nerves much too much.”

Fried’s talent for appearing at pivotal moments yields a series of close-ups of historic transitions and their repercussions. A year after his 1905 conducting debut, he toured Russia, visiting Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. Fried introduced Petersburg audiences to Mahler’s Second Symphony. On 10 November 1906 he conducted Count Cheremetyev’s private orchestra with members of the Opera chorus and alto Ottilie Metzger-Froitzheim. He had not seen St. Petersburg since his youthful wanderings as an itinerant horn player. Alongside the Mahler premiere came Verklärte Nacht—Fried’s own cantata. Privately, Rimsky-Korsakov and his circle judged Mahler’s symphony “very bad,” feeling it “contained absolutely nothing of genius, far worse than Richard Strauss.” In 1928 Fried recorded a revelatory Scheherazade with the Berlin Philharmonic.

One Petersburg critic praised Fried’s performance as perfect, while another enumerated numerous serious shortcomings in the symphony: “In the first place, the lack of style, and despite the originality of the design and procedures, the lack of musical personality. The remarkable technical procedures become an end in themselves. The orchestration is really exceptional, but, at the same time, its monstrous musical content, this sonorous column of pure delirium, this alternation of exaltation and absurd platitude, the absence of artistic logic, consistency, and perhaps even sincerity, all this pretentiousness, this affectation, useless emphasis and crushing power of the sonority, without a defined musical physiognomy, all this simply exhausts and overwhelms without offering one single genuinely artistic moment. Of course, this symphony is, in every sense of the word, an exceptional work, but … is everything exceptional good?”

Fried is described as “an artist full of temperament, [guilty of] mannerisms and agitation.” A 1907 performance of excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve, sung by Nezhdanova, was held with the composer present. Fried returned in 1909 for a triumphant account of Scriabin’s Symphony no. 3, coinciding with the composer’s long-awaited return to Russia after years abroad. At a subsequent Berlin reading, painter Max Beckmann noted “a dreadfully boring piece by Scriabin, Le Poeme divin,” followed by “a beautiful aria by Mozart sung by a magnificent soprano, and the evening ended with the Meistersinger overture played at the worst possible tempo. I had to sit beside Frau Kolbe. She was very strongly perfumed.”

Soon after giving the first German performance of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain alongside the world premiere of Delius’s Dance of Life with the Berlin Philharmonic, Fried left for Paris in December 1912 to attend the Ballets Russes for Stravinsky’s Petrushka. He joined Kessler, who later dined with Nijinsky, Diaghilev, and Hofmannsthal. Months later Fried returned to Paris after conducting two evenings at Milan’s La Scala that included Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique—a work he kept close, one he identified with throughout his life, along with pieces by Weber, Liszt, and Busoni. On the evening of Wednesday, 28 May 1913, Fried and Harry Kessler met at Larue’s to eat and converse with Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Stravinsky, Ravel, Werth, Misia Edwards (later Sert), André Gide, Bakst, and others, where, Kessler noted, “the common opinion was that tomorrow evening, the premiere would be a scandal.”

Count Harry Kessler’s diary entry on the Rite of Spring’s debut: “A completely new choreography and music. Nijinsky’s dancing style as different from Fokine’s as Gauguin’s from ______. A thoroughly new vision, something never before seen, enthralling, persuasive, is suddenly there, a new kind of wildness, both un-art and art at the same time. All forms laid waste and new ones emerging suddenly from the chaos. The public, the most elegant house I have ever seen in Paris—aristocracy, diplomats, the demimonde, was from the beginning restless, laughing, whistling, making jokes. Here and there some stood up. Stravinsky, who sat with his wife behind us, raced outside like one possessed after scarcely five minutes. Suddenly a stentorian voice cried out from the gallery, ‘Okay, whores of the Sixteenth (the Sixteenth Arrondissement, that of the elegant world), are you going to shut up soon!’ The reply came from a loge: ‘Voilà those who are ripe to be annexed.’ At the same moment D’Annunzio and Debussy in [Gabriel] Astruc’s box got into a quarrel with a neighboring loge, screaming into their faces, ‘What a bunch of imbeciles!’ Now the commotion became general. Astruc was heard crying ‘Wait for the end, you can whistle afterward!’ and as a reply from the orchestra: ‘How long?’ whereupon Diaghilev replied, ‘In five minutes.’ Pautrier behind me shouted, ‘Play a tango for them’; Marie Murat had a loud argument with her brother Gide, Ghéon, the entire Nouvelle Revue Française stood like a phalanx at the entrance to the loges, bottling up with shouts; the orchestra and loges of the Polignacs, Rohans, Murtas, etc. And above this crazy din there continued the storm of salvos of laughter and scornful clapping while the music raged and on the stage the dancers, without flinching, danced fervently in a prehistoric fashion. At the end of the performance, the monde and demimonde went at it until frenetic applause triumphed so that Stravinsky and Nijinsky had to come on stage and take repeated bows.

“We went to Larue’s and had a late supper, the usual crowd, and in addition, Diaghilev, Nijinsky, Bakst, Cocteau, and I took a taxi and did a wild tour through the city at night, looking almost dead under the moonlight, Bakst waving his handkerchief on a walking stick like a flag, Nijinsky in tails and a top hat, silently and happily smiling to himself. The dawn was breaking as the wild, merry party set me down at my Tour d’Argent.” Fried, an ardent Bolshevist, spent part of World War I in Switzerland where he may have met Lenin in Zurich. Kessler was engaged as a German diplomat and briefed Fried to carry out political missions under the guise of cultural activities. Kessler noted the mingling of his conductor-friend with writer Fritz Unruh and René Shickele, an Alsatian poet who would later document the conflict between France and Germany in 1918, at a lunch in Bern on 6 January of that year:

“Shickele said that it was time that a great offensive be undertaken in all countries against the military. What he chiefly accuses them of is their misuse of spiritual values—that is, artists, writers, luminaries—for their ends and thereby devaluing them, by throwing dust in their eyes, somehow bribing them, and directing them into false paths. He, Schickele, does not want to be misused in this fashion because he believes that he could offer something more worthwhile precisely because he has a firm confidence in Germany’s future leading role intellectually speaking.”

Lenin invited Fried to become the first visiting artist to perform in the new Soviet Union. When Fried arrived on a Berlin-Moscow express in 1922, the leader himself met him at the train station. Fried’s only recorded trip to the United States, in February 1928, coincided with Ravel’s. Both Fried and Ravel were engaged to conduct the New York Symphony. At Eva Gauthier’s they gathered to celebrate Ravel’s birthday; an eager George Gershwin had also been invited. A curious reporter from the Christian Science Monitor got more than he anticipated from Fried, producing one of the most informal media glimpses we have, revealing Fried’s offhand spontaneity and pointed wit, as he casually wove keen observations into his speech.

(Ann Gautier’s birthday party for Maurice Ravel at her New York apartment in 1928, seated; Oskar Fried on the left with monocle and cigar; George Gershwin on far right.)

The Brass Tacks of Conducting.

Oscar Fried is confessedly temperamental, being susceptible to all sorts of things of the actual now, even to the temperature. From the passing instant, he tackles instances, and from the immediate moment catches momentum.

“This is fine weather,” he remarked to me the day after his arrival here, and he had more ways of expressing the idea—attitude, gesture, laughter, sparkle of eye and ring of voice—than I could count. “Beautiful,” I admitted, “the best time of the year in this part of the world.”

“Brilliant sun,” he added: “invigorating air.”

“Glorious,” I conceded; “but I’m not interested in the weather. I want you to talk to me about conducting.”

“But I’m not interested in conducting.”

“As you like. Down it goes.”

“When I sailed into New York harbor yesterday morning, the scene, as I looked toward town from the deck of the ship, was a perfect Fata Morgana. The city, hidden in mist, was a fairy picture. After a time, the contours of the shore and the outlines of the buildings began to emerge in fantastic forms. It was like a drawing by Doré. I never would have believed that what I saw was reality there, and I would not have been surprised if it had all disappeared from before my eyes. And now let me tell you what happened. The moment I stepped upon the pier, the illusion was gone.”

Romance and Fact

“What,” interrupted I, “are you talking about, if not music? Go right on, please!”

“Yes; romance and fact; and lately I illustrated the contrast by presenting the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven and the Sacre du Printemps of Stravinsky on the same program. In Paris, they shook their heads. The Ninth Symphony has an epic quality; it has idealism and it has passion. The Sacre, on the contrary, makes no epic discourse and it conveys no epic disclosure and it conveys no notion of idealism or of passion. And still, the two works, though opposite in what they express, are together in what they accomplish. The Ninth Symphony is a preparation for all the music that has followed until today, and the Sacre is a preparation for what will come until we cannot tell when. Beethoven opens the door for Wagner and Strauss; Stravinsky for the next composers. I should like an opportunity to make this Beethoven-Stravinsky illustration before an American audience, and I may yet have it.”

“What will you offer, when you direct the New York Symphony?”

“An all-romantic program. I have just arranged it in consultation with Walter Damrosch [the symphony’s conductor]. A great chance Mr. Damrosch gives visiting conductors; an orchestra perfectly trained, audiences alert and hospitable.”

An All-Romantic Program

“And your all-romantic program comprises what?”

“Weber’s Euryanthe Overture, nature seen ecstatically; Brahms’s Symphony No. 1—nature comprehended by effort; Stravinsky’s Firebird—nature in eccentric, exaggerated, distorted view; and Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe—nature serenely contemplated. All the different manifestations of romanticism. Weber, born to it; Brahms, fighting to subdue it; Stravinsky, picturing Russian life and thought by means of it; Ravel, refining it and getting at its essence.”

“You have almost made a definition of romanticism.”

“Then let me stop. I don’t like to define the romantic; nor could I if I tried. For romanticism is universal. It is sun, air, light. It is felt, not explained; and the same is true of the classic, if we were to go into that subject.”

“All right, thanks, for what the composers say, from Beethoven to Stravinsky. Would you mind giving me a word or two on their means of saying it? To think of the matter from the quantitative standpoint—does the expanded orchestra belong, in your opinion, to the past, and will a reduced scheme of instruments be the rule hereafter?”

“The orchestra in recent years has been developing backward; that is, growing smaller. But that was for economic reasons chiefly. Nevertheless, I think the necessity has proved beneficial. We have seen that an amateur at composing may write with some success for a big aggregation of sonorities, and that only a great composer can write with effect for a little group.”

The Technique of Conducting

“Thanks again, Mr. Fried; but now the brass tacks of your profession. Does conducting progress? Has it a technique that improves?”

“If you look at conducting on the average, the answer to that would be Yes. Look at it, however, in its higher aspects, and the question hardly arises at all. Every conductor of extraordinary gifts forms his own technique. So you ought not, really, to call this man’s conducting good and that man’s better; rather, you should make distinction between good and not good. You would never think, in that case, of describing the conducting of a Mahler as better or worse than that of a Nikisch; you would only remark that the conducting of the one type was different from that of the other. Nor would you speak of the Mahler school or the Nikisch school of conducting.”

“Can conducting be taught?”

“It both can and should be. I have long hoped to take part in the establishment of conducting as a craft.”

“Masters and apprentices?”

“By class methods; 20 or 30 students, the teacher and an orchestra to work with. Show them directly how to do things. Under present conditions, those who want to learn seldom have a chance to do so except by hearing and observing from a distance.”

—Winthrop P. Tryon. 10 March 1928

Fried spoke to the New York Times about Stravinsky’s recent Oedipus Rex as the most significant and important composition of recent years: “It opens up tremendous new possibilities in opera, for in it, Stravinsky has utilized modern technique and orchestration to revivify the old opera forms. He has breathed a new spirit into an old body, creating something that is refreshingly different without being eccentric. I feel it cannot help but influence future operatic composition.” Fried then insisted on the importance of Berg’s recent Wozzeck. “The new conductor has for many years appeared exclusively in Europe as a guest, a position which he points out prevents any given public from ‘tiring of him.’” The Times covered Fried’s debut:

Oscar Fried Has Ovation.

When a German conductor of long reputation in his native land comes to America and opens a program with the Brahms C minor Symphony, the common supposition is that he will prove a tried and true interpreter of the classics. Last night, at the concert given by the New York Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, Oscar Fried, guest conductor for a pair of concerts of that body, proved to be nearly everything which is the reverse of the characteristics just mentioned. By the testimony of a single concert he had all the qualities of the virtuoso or, it might be better to say, prima donna conductor, who has showmanship of a personal kind, experience and authority over the players, the passion for effects at any cost to more substantial musical qualities, and the unquestionable ability to make an orchestra “sound.”

Chagall brought over the meal, serving it with careful precision, and Oskar Fried systematically devoured his share. I could not take my eyes off him, drawn by an electric current of anxiety I sensed in him, almost telepathically. Oskar Fried! The legendary conductor, whose name was known throughout the musical world only yesterday and the day before, when special receptions were held for him in the most elegant salons, and his concerts at the Salle Pleyel were attended by the Parisian elite. It was impossible to approach him then, to even speak with him — he was like a Duke in his court. Once, when I came to meet him at the house of the Princess de Polignac, where he was staying, I had to wait for hours because . . . the house barber had labored all that time to give him a head massage. And now, here he was — frightened and fidgeting, full of anxieties — confiding in me about his ongoing troubles. I beheld the horror of homelessness in his heart and the fear of poverty in his eyes.

As the sun set into a pink horizon, stars began appearing secretively above the dusk, expanding into a darkness that blanketed the garden. In confidence, Oskar Fried suggested we walk through the Champs-Élysées. Paris shone, bestowing something special upon all her people walking along her streets — that feeling of wanting to float in this distinctive atmosphere. “Paris Soir! Paris Soir!” shouted the paperboys, but there was no desire to interrupt the great feeling of walking by peering into the future through newspapers, while Paris dressed herself for the evening. So Oskar Fried and I slowly proceeded along the boulevards, continuing to speak endlessly, almost whispering — he especially, as if trying not to disturb the noise of the Champs-Élysées and the other boulevards. He told me it was now a bargain market — dirt cheap: today you could buy at half price, an end-of-season sale. That is the way we are. That is what we have become. This is a great season in History that, most probably, is coming to an end. And do you know what my wish is now? I would like to go to the land of Israel, to get up and leave, right away. I will agree in advance to the most minimal conditions. I want to form an orchestra and settle down there. I am sure I will find a way in Palestine, and will also conduct the orchestra.” With a sudden movement, he took out his wallet and pulled out some banknotes, demanding in an irritated voice: “Please break these into small coins — but all the coins must be new, shiny, not soiled in any way. Do me this favor: I am collecting new coins.”

Oskar Fried loved visiting my studio, where friends were always present. They all came from the music world but never talked about music. That was something that got on his nerves: he did not like it when people talked about music. Instead they ate, and this gave him real pleasure. One day he said: “I will not move from here. I will stay here only until I am able to move to Palestine.” Then he sat down and wrote a letter to my brother, the prominent poet Avraham Shlonksky, in Palestine. Among other things he wrote: “Ich war immer ein Jude, ohne darauf Wort zu wegen.” (“I was always a Jew, without giving it any importance.”) The cramped atmosphere in Paris pushed people away, drove them to escape. Where to? It was difficult to focus. The view in Paris was soothing, making it easier to bear unpleasant thoughts. I walked along the boulevards and little streets until I tired and arrived at the feet of the Eiffel Tower. Suddenly, what did I see under the tower but a Parisian policeman with a palette, busily painting. When he saw my unease, he covered the picture but was very pleasant as he began a conversation. “Where are you from?” When I told him, he said: “Ah, the Jews. The Jews have to stop being Jews and mix — stop existing apart from others. It will end their horrible suffering. It's something terrible that's going on, unbelievable, everything that is happening, and the rule of money. I don’t want to talk about money: salauds! [Bastards!]” “Money [argent]?” I asked with a smile. “Money is part of Nature. Argent is inside the earth.” From one thing to another, the man suddenly said: “I wish all people would understand that the health of the world is metaphysics, that religion is the daughter of Fear, and because of that, we must educate ourselves to change fear into courage. The hope people have in religion will have to be transformed into the security of being sure. Perhaps only then will the bright light of Justice shine through the darkness in which the spirit sank.” With great conviction, he took his painting off the easel and showed it to me, saying: “Look how beautiful this is.” Along wide boulevards with buildings on both sides, in good spirit, my heart slowly returned to my place of work. I wondered about this Greek philosopher standing there, reviewing his life, then thought how lucky I was that I could think about coming home, to Palestine, to the khamsin heat, to be useful there. Others did not have that.

Then I remembered Oskar Fried — I do not know why he suddenly appeared to me. We are in Tel Aviv, 1934, and there is a symphony concert at the Ohel Shem Theater. Among the personnel? Before Huberman and Toscanini, there were a few who knew how to play, a few mediocrities, and a few amateurs playing a Beethoven symphony. All the defects — and they were numerous — were accepted and forgiven. Suddenly, a mistuned chord shook me. I turned to the left and, a few chairs away, saw Oskar Fried sitting among the public. Oskar Fried! He said: “Didn’t I tell you I was going to conduct an orchestra in Palestine? Here is the orchestra that I will conduct!” It felt like a mirage when, shortly after, Beethoven’s Fifth was played in the same place by the same group, with him conducting. Who could have predicted such a thing? I soon met him very frequently. His presence alone elevated the spirit of the music world, but Tel Aviv did not reciprocate. He visited Jerusalem and was enchanted; he caressed donkeys and camels, always saying: “Do not dare desecrate the ancient! Do not bring over Europe’s leprosy. Leave it as it is now. Do not add anything! Stop reading papers — there is nothing left there, nothing but headlines, lies, destruction!”

After that he went to Moscow. Why did we not keep him, Oskar Fried, so he could have stayed among us? Not long passed and he died there, may his memory be blessed. So whenever I walk through an autumn garden and step on the season’s wet leaves, I send my old fishing boat onto the great sea of the past — which will live forever in ourselves, in the continuing future.

— Al Hamishmar, 1945. Translated by Oded Regev.

Chagall wrote Tel Aviv’s mayor Dizengoff about “the first rate German musical artists that have been hurled into France and could find an application for their talents in Palestine.” Upon learning Dizengoff was close to the Philharmonic society, he noted it was “headed by a young conductor. We don’t know him — perhaps he is a talented man, but surely, even for his youth, he is not as experienced as Oscar Fried. The latter wants to go to Palestine anyway. We are trying hard to convince him. Though he is sixty years old, he is in full possession of his strength, which he is eager to give to Palestine.” Fried stayed for a month of concerts in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with a local orchestra — one soon to be expanded by Huberman’s creation of the Palestine Symphony. In Russia, some seventy-five concerts were reported. By the time the twenty-four-year-old Kurt Sanderling arrived in Moscow from Berlin in 1936, he found Fried, whom he termed kaput. Fried’s new Russian wife was a descendant of Glinka. He became irate about the interest in Mahler that snubbed him. Concerts became fewer due to Fried’s declining health. He died in 1941 during the week the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was abrogated and Stalin began murdering all nearby Germans. One report claims he passed away in a hospital during a bombing, his last words curses hurled at overhead German warplanes. Fried’s death remains unsubstantiated — the deathbed defiance betrays the style of a Soviet cover-up. Acquiring Russian citizenship in 1939, his final resting place and true end remain obscure.

©2014 Allan Evans