MUSIC AND THE NAZIS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22390, 2 May 1938, Page 8

MUSIC AND THE NAZIS

Effect of Policy in Vienna

DANGER SEEN BY EMINENT VIOLINIST

“Although it may have to be admitted that the German control of Austria may be beneficial economically I cannot help feeling that something beautiful may be in danger,” said Professor Felix Winternltz, formerly a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, a friend of Fritz Kreisler, and himself a well-known violinist, who is In Christchurch during a tour of the Dominion. He studied with Kreisler as a boy in Vienna, and has since regularly visited the city. “You can’t have the free and easy life which produces music and makes money and be regimented in the way the Nazis are doing it,” he said to a reporter last evening. He did not think the Nazi organisation was favourable to the arts. Their aim was to produce “Aryan art," and already, he had been told by ah Austrian official who had to leave the country, 60 members of the Philharmonic Orchestra had been expelled. They were all Jews. Such a policy would do a great deal of harm, for the orchestra might easily be losing its best players. Art was something that belonged to au people, whatever their nationality. Vienna had produced the greatest musicians, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, and many others, but it seemed that now the atmosphere would be totally changed., . , , . “Of course, if there is really genuine talent it may eventually break through, but I feel that there is a great danger to music, he said. Professor Winternitz said that America was making great developments in music. It was attracting musicians from Europe because # it was able to pay for them, but he did not think that it was taking the position of Europe as the centre of the musical world. If was still lacking in creative work. .