Stravinsky's Music in Hitler's Germany

Abstract

Abstract This investigation of the reception in Nazi Germany of the work (and person) of Igor Stravinsky offers new insights into the issue of modern music in Hitler's Germany. As the most prominent modernist composer of the period, Stravinsky was the chief beneficiary of Germany's desire, after the xenophobic early Nazi years, to rejoin the European cultural community. Thanks to the determination of his supporters, and aided by the greater accessibility of his 1930s works, Stravinsky's music achieved a significant position in the musical life of the New Germany, which it maintained until the outbreak of war. Modern-minded critics articulated the ideological basis for his “rehabilitation”: although rooted in a foreign musical tradition, Stravinsky was an “Aryan” composer with acceptable political views, whose tonally based music revealed suitably “national” qualities. Many foreign composers, including the antifascist Béla Bartók, shared Stravinsky's desire for German performances. Whether they allowed this to temper their modernist tendencies is difficult to determine. What is certain is that their tonally based music allowed many (racially and politically acceptable) foreign composers to find an audience in Nazi Germany. It also made feasible Germany's desire to reconnect with the larger musical world.

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