Karl Muck
Encyclopedia
Karl Muck was a German-born conductor of classical music. He based his activities principally in Europe and mostly in opera. His American career comprised two stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra
. He endured a public outcry in 1917 that questioned whether his loyalties lay with Germany or the United States during World War I
. Though he was a Swiss citizen, he was arrested and interned in a camp in Georgia from March 1918 until August 1919. His later career included notable engagements in Hamburg
and at the Bayreuth Festival
.
, Germany, Muck's father, a senior court official and amateur musician, moved the family to Switzerland in 1867 and acquired Swiss citizenship. Karl Muck acquired Swiss citizenship when he was 21. Muck studied piano as a child and made his first public appearance at the age of 11 when he gave a piano solo at a chamber music recital. He also played the violin in a local symphony orchestra as a boy. He graduated from the gymnasium at Würzburg
and entered the University of Heidelberg at 16. In May 1878 he entered the University of Leipzig
, where he took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy in 1880. While there studied music at Leipzig Conservatory. He made his formal debut as a concert pianist on February 19, 1880 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus
in Xaver Scharwenka
's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor with Arthur Nikisch
conducting.
He began his conducting career in comparatively minor provincial cities, starting in 1880 as Second Conductor (Zweiter Kapellmeister) in Zurich (Aktientheater), moving to Salzburg (k.k. Theater) in October 1881 as Principal Conductor (Erster Kapellmeister), where he served until April 1882. He then held appointments in Brünn (Stadttheater: October 1882 to June 1883) and Graz (1884–1886). His first position in a major musical center came in Prague as Principal Conductor at Angelo Neumann's Deutsches Landestheater, starting with a performance of Die Meistersinger on August 15, 1886, and ending in June 1892. He also conducted Neumann's traveling opera company, appearing at Berlin and in 1888–1889 conducting Wagner's Ring cycle in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He left Prague to become principal conductor in October 1892 of the Berlin Court Opera (Kgl. Oper — today the Berlin State Opera
, where he was appointed Chief Musical Director (Kgl. preussischer Generalmusikdirector) on August 26, 1908. He remained in Berlin until 1912, conducting 1,071 performances of 103 operas. He also conducted the Royal Orchestra in concerts there.
He took other assignments during his tenure in Berlin. He was guest conductor at the Silesian music festivals in Goerlitz between 1894 and 1911. In May and June 1899 at London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden, he conducted Beethoven's Fidelio and several of Wagner's operas (Tannhäuser, Die Walküre, Die Meistersinger, Der fliegende Höllander and Tristan und Isolde). He devoted many summers to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth where he became principal conductor in 1903, after serving as a musical assistant since 1892. He succeeded Hermann Levi
as the conductor of Parsifal
there. As war approached in the summer of 1914, Muck insisted on performing Parsifal on August 1, 1914 to close the Festival, which was not revived until 1924. Muck conducted Parsifal at all of the fourteen Bayreuth festivals held between 1901 and 1930, and also conducted Lohengrin there in 1909 and Die Meistersinger in 1925, becoming a close friend of the Wagner family. The American music critic Herbert Peyser (1886-1953) thought Muck's interpretation of Parsifal the greatest he had ever heard: "the only and ultimate Parsifal; the Parsifal in which every phrase was charged with infinities; the Parsifal which was neither of this age nor that age but of all time." He led the Vienna Philharmonic from 1903 to 1906 and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
from 1906 to 1908, and took visiting assignments in other cities, including Paris, Madrid, Copenhagen, Brussels.
Muck was offered the Metropolitan Opera House podium in New York at a reputed $27,000 a year, but declined. From 1903 to 1906 he alternated with Felix Mottl
as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. At the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition held in San Francisco May 14-26, 1915, Muck conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 13 concerts of music of all nations.
called Muck: "a very great master, whose reliability, maturity and selfless dedication are not equaled by any living artist." Paderewski
called him "an ideal accompanist". In physical terms, his conducting style required minimal movement, only small gestures with the tip of his baton. In areas of interpretation he was one of the first modernists. Though old enough to be part of generation known for taking liberties with the score and indulging in flexible tempos, he was by contrast disciplined and direct, less concerned with placing his personal stamp on a score than on demonstrating fidelity to the score and ceding a certain interpretive anonymity. By contrast with his conducting style, orchestra players found him impatient, explosive, nervous, and impulsive. He showed no casual or relaxed side of himself at concerts, rather "he dominated the orchestra and the audience and the occasion." The Austrian conductor Karl Böhm
said in a 1972 interview: "Karl Muck by chance heard me direct Lohengrin, and he invited me to study all Wagner's scores with him. He was the first and greatest influence on me ... Muck told me where the orchestra should be more prominent, how to handle the Bayreuth acoustics, and so on."
(BSO) from 1906 to 1908 and then again from 1912 to 1918 (with a yearly salary of 28,000 dollars as the New York Times reported on March 26, 1918). Initially he had to work to expand his repertoire from the operas and German music he concentrated on in Europe. Olin Downes
later wrote that "his repertory was unequal to the demands of his audience" so he relied on members of the BSO for coaching in French works. Contemporary works were not his strong suit, though he dutifully programmed music that was not to his own taste, such as the American premiere of Schoenberg's
Five Pieces for Orchestra
. He also introduced some Sibelius
symphonies and many works of Debussy
to Boston. Despite his restrained style, he occasionally revealed his romantic side in a work like Liszt's
Faust Symphony
. On his death the New York Times said that in Boston "he built a virtuoso orchestra."
Why he chose to work in America is unknown. In Berlin he was on close personal terms with Kaiser Wilhelm, but American gossip held that he preferred his freedom and for that reason refused the post of director of the royal opera in Munich
in 1911. His life in Boston appeared unremarkable. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
music fraternity made him an honorary member in 1916. and he judged a piano competition in the spring of 1917. On October 2-5, 1917, he led the BSO in historic recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company
in Camden, New Jersey
. The sessions included works by Tchaikovsky, Wolf-Ferrari, Berlioz, Beethoven, and Wagner.
Philip Hale
, music critic of the Boston Herald during Muck's years there, wrote: "He stands there calm, undemonstrative, graceful, elegant, aristocratic; a man of singularly commanding and magnetic personality even in repose. The orchestra is his speech, the expression of the composer's music as it appeals to the conductor's brain, heart and soul."
, the orchestra’s founder and financer, declined it and instead signed Muck to another five-year contract. Muck had fears for his own safety, but Higginson gave him assurances that as an artist he had nothing to fear. Thereafter he became very sensitive to avoid giving offense. The orchestra's publicity manager later wrote: "A good and patriotic German, he had become greatly attached to this country, and altogether he was a thoroughly unhappy man." Nevertheless, he programmed all-German concerts on his first tour of American cities following U.S. entry into the war, which some found not at all sensitive to the public's mood in wartime.
In the fall of 1917, some orchestras like the New York Orchestra Society started performing "The Star-Spangled Banner
" at all their concerts. Members of the BSO management team discussed programming the anthem for weeks, but without any sense of the issue's importance. Moreover, the orchestra's manager, Charles A. Ellis, did not want to embarrass Muck by asking him to do it, given Muck's close attachment to Germany and his personal relationship with the Kaiser.
The BSO performed regularly at Infantry Hall in Providence, Rhode Island
, where the Providence Journal
had been attacking Muck for his ties to the Kaiser. The BSO's managers anticipated there might be trouble during their October 1917 visit. One member of the management team later said that Major Higginson, the BSO's chairman, was "pugnacious" while Ellis, the manager, was "rather nervous" as they joined the orchestra on the trip. Higginson took measures to protect Muck in case of serious trouble.
On October 30, 1917, the day of the concert, the Providence Journal published an editorial that said "Professor Muck is a man of notoriously pro-German affiliations and the programme as announced is almost entirely German in character." It called for the BSO to perform the National Anthem that night "to put Professor Muck to the test." About to leave Boston for Providence, Higginson and Ellis received two requests, one from a local patriotic organization and another from the heads of local music clubs, asking the BSO to play the anthem. Muck never saw the request, but Higginson and others viewed it as the work of John R. Rathom
, editor and publisher of the Providence Journal, whose motto was "Raise hell and sell newspapers." They dismissed the request without much consideration and the concert went off without incident. Muck only learned of the petition on the orchestra's train ride back to Boston that same night. Shocked and somewhat fearful, he said he did not object to playing the anthem, that it was fitting for him as a guest to accommodate the wishes of his hosts.
Now that the BSO had failed to play the anthem, Rathom created the false story that Muck had refused to perform it, accused Muck of treason and called him a spy and a hater of all things American.
The story had a life of its own, however. As the orchestra publicity manager wrote years later of Muck, "his fate, so far as America was concerned, was settled that night in Providence because of the short-sighted stubbornness of Henry L. Higginson and Charles A. Ellis." The American Defense Society
called for Muck's internment. The Orchestra found its November Baltimore engagement canceled, with even Cardinal Gibbons adding his voice to denunciations of Muck. Theodore Roosevelt denounced the maestro. A rival conductor, Walter Damrosch, Music Director of the New York Symphony Society (later the New York Philharmonic
), said that Muck's "cynical disregard of the sanctity of our national air" showed disrespect for the emotions of his audience and led to a disrespect for the great heritage of German music.
Major Higginson claimed responsibility for the BSO's initial failure to play the anthem, with little effect on outraged press coverage. He visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Department of Justice
where he received assurances that the government had no issue with any member of the orchestra. He tried to present the issue as one of artistic independence, saying he would rather disband the orchestra than allow anyone to dictate its programming. Muck took a similar tack with this statement: "Art is a thing by itself, and not related to any particular nation or group. Therefore, it would be a gross mistake, a violation of artistic taste and principles for such an organization as ours to play patriotic airs. Does the public think that the Symphony Orchestra is a military band or a ballroom orchestra?"
Back in Boston, the BSO found curiosity and support. On November 2, 1917, the crowd that filled a Friday afternoon concert at Symphony Hall
read a program insert announcing that the national anthem would follow every BSO concert and applauded when Higginson appeared. Higginson announced that Muck had once again tendered his resignation so that "no prejudice against him may prejudice the welfare of the orchestra" and Higginson had yet to accept it. The audience then greeted the entry of Muck with a standing ovation and rose to applaud again after he led the orchestra in a performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner".
The New York Times pointed out that the entire affair could have been avoided if Higginson and Muck had had a better sense of the public sentiment. They should have anticipated the request for the anthem and should have programmed it in the first place. The paper blamed the entire affair on Muck and "the then obstinate management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra."
In November, the BSO performed in New York City, where Higginson and Ellis reluctantly gave in to Muck's insistence on playing the anthem. Critics were not completely satisfied and criticized the arrangement Muck used as "cheap" and "undignified" without realizing it was the work of Victor Herbert
, who in addition to his popular Broadway operettas had also written serious symphonic works and conducted both the New York Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony. When the orchestra returned to New York in December, Muck used a new arrangement that proved a critical success. It was the work of BSO concertmaster Anton Witek, "the most pro-German of all the Germans in the orchestra."
until on August 21, 1919, an agent of the Department of Justice put him and his wife on a ship to Copenhagen. The Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
music fraternity that had elected him to national honorary membership in 1916 expelled Muck in 1919 for sympathizing with the Central powers.
Fellow internees had heard that Muck had vowed not to conduct in America again, but they persuaded him that the camp was more of a German village — some of them even called it "Orglesdorf." A memoir of the event written in 1940 recalled the mess hall packed with 2000 internees, with honored guests like their doctors and government censors on the front benches, facing 100 musicians. Under Muck's baton, he wrote, "the Eroica rushed at us and carried us far away and above war and worry and barbed wire."
When sailing from New York on August 21, 1919, Muck told reporters: "I am not a German, although they said I was. I considered myself an American." He said he had "bitter feelings" toward the newspapers for their unfair treatment of him. He expressed doubts that the BSO, then in a sorry state of organization, could recover from the internment of 29 of its German members. After his deportation from the United States, he declined all offers to bring him back to the United States after the war.
Later that year the Boston Post disclosed that Muck had been having an affair with a 20-year-old in Boston's Back Bay and had written her a letter reading in part: "I am on my way to the concert hall to entertain the crowds of dogs and swine who think that because they pay the entrance fee they have the right to dictate to me my selections. I hate to play for this rabble ... [In] a very short time our gracious Kaiser will smile on my request and recall me to Berlin ... Our Kaiser will be prevailed upon to see the benefit to the Fatherland of my obtaining a divorce and making you my own."
in 1922 and made additional recordings. He returned to Bayreuth when the festival was revived there in 1924, the representative of the pre-war tradition. He expressed his devotion to the Festival and Wagner's music in a letter advising Fritz Busch
that all he needed to succeed there was "the unassuming humility and the holy fanaticism of the Believer." He was also engaged in Munich, Amsterdam (Concertgebouw Orchestra
) and Salzburg (Don Giovanni in 1925).
In September 1930, he resigned his position at Bayreuth, much to the distress of Winifred Wagner
, who had just succeeded her late husband Siegfried Wagner
as the Festival's director. He never accommodated himself to being upstaged by Toscanini
, but writing privately to Winifred Wagner, he said he had been committed to serving her husband, but the Festival now required someone other than "I, whose artistic standpoint and convictions, so far as Baireuth [sic] is concerned, stem from the preceding century." He resigned his Hamburg position in 1933, uncomfortable with the Nazi authorities' direction of the city's symphony and opera.
His last noteworthy appearance came in February 1933 at a concert marking the fiftieth anniversary of Wagner
's death, given in Leipzig with Hitler in attendance. His final concert was on May 19, 1933, with the Hamburg Philharmonic. In October 1939, Muck "on his 80th birthday in Berlin received from Adolf Hitler the Plaque of the German Eagle" with the inscription DEM GROSSEN DIRIGENTEN (TO THE GREAT CONDUCTOR).
Muck's wife Anita (née Portugall), whom he had married in Graz on February 3, 1887, died on April 14, 1921, and their only child, a son, had died young. He spent his last years at the Stuttgart home of Baroness von Scholley, the daughter of one of his oldest friends and fellow internee, who had been German Consul General in New York. Partially paralyzed from nicotine poisoning and immersing himself in Oriental philosophy, he rarely left the house during the last three years of his life. Muck died in Stuttgart
, Germany
on March 3, 1940. Upon receipt of the news of his death, the BSO interrupted a rehearsal to stand in tribute to his memory. Geraldine Farrar
wrote a letter to the New York Times recalling that she sang with him and the Boston Symphony on the night when Muck was "bitterly and unjustly assailed" for not playing the National Anthem and adding: "As your editorial correctly reports, he knew nothing of the request." She continued: "The fortunes of war brought Dr. Muck — as well as other aliens — no disgrace in an internment camp. I saw Dr. Muck several times in later years and I know he counted the years with the Boston Symphony Orchestra among the happiest and most fruitful of his career."
Muck's most important recordings were made at the 1927 Bayreuth Festival for the English Columbia Gramophone Company and in 1927-29 in Berlin for the Gramophone Company (HMV). At Bayreuth sometime between late June and mid-August 1927,he conducted about 30 minutes of excerpts from Parsifal Acts 1 and 2. His control of phrasing in the Transformation and Grail scenes is regarded as unsurpassed to this day. In December 1927 he led the Berlin State Opera Orchestra in an account of the opera's Prelude, one of the slowest on record. A year later, in December 1928, he made a nearly complete recording of the third act of Parsifal, using the Parsifal and Gurnemanz singers from that year's Bayreuth performances. The music critic Alan Blyth described this as "the most uplifting, superbly executed reading of Act 3 ... in the history of recording" and Robin Holloway commented that "It realizes better than any other Wagner performance the idea of endless melody". In all about 40% of the opera's score was recorded over the 2-and-a-half-year period. HMV also recorded eight further Wagner orchestral pieces, including the Siegfried Idyll, with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra in December 1927, May 1928, and November 1929. These have been reissued on various CDs.
A discography of Muck's original commercial recordings, not including reissues. appeared in 1977.
Several radio recordings allegedly conducted by Muck also exist, including a Faust Overture and Trauermarsch (Götterdämmerung) with the Berlin Radio Orchestra and an excerpt from the Adagio of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 with the Hamburg Philharmonic.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
. He endured a public outcry in 1917 that questioned whether his loyalties lay with Germany or the United States during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Though he was a Swiss citizen, he was arrested and interned in a camp in Georgia from March 1918 until August 1919. His later career included notable engagements in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and at the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
.
Early life and career
Born in DarmstadtDarmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, Germany, Muck's father, a senior court official and amateur musician, moved the family to Switzerland in 1867 and acquired Swiss citizenship. Karl Muck acquired Swiss citizenship when he was 21. Muck studied piano as a child and made his first public appearance at the age of 11 when he gave a piano solo at a chamber music recital. He also played the violin in a local symphony orchestra as a boy. He graduated from the gymnasium at Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
and entered the University of Heidelberg at 16. In May 1878 he entered the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
, where he took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy in 1880. While there studied music at Leipzig Conservatory. He made his formal debut as a concert pianist on February 19, 1880 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, Germany. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics. The first Gewandhaus was built in 1781 by architect Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe. The second opened on 11 December 1884, and was destroyed in the...
in Xaver Scharwenka
Xaver Scharwenka
Franz Xaver Scharwenka was a German pianist, composer and teacher. He was the brother of Philipp Scharwenka , who was also a composer and teacher of music.- Life and career :...
's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor with Arthur Nikisch
Arthur Nikisch
Arthur Nikisch ; 12 October 185523 January 1922) was a Hungarian conductor who performed internationally, holding posts in Boston, London and - most importantly - Berlin. He was considered an outstanding interpreter of the music of Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Liszt...
conducting.
He began his conducting career in comparatively minor provincial cities, starting in 1880 as Second Conductor (Zweiter Kapellmeister) in Zurich (Aktientheater), moving to Salzburg (k.k. Theater) in October 1881 as Principal Conductor (Erster Kapellmeister), where he served until April 1882. He then held appointments in Brünn (Stadttheater: October 1882 to June 1883) and Graz (1884–1886). His first position in a major musical center came in Prague as Principal Conductor at Angelo Neumann's Deutsches Landestheater, starting with a performance of Die Meistersinger on August 15, 1886, and ending in June 1892. He also conducted Neumann's traveling opera company, appearing at Berlin and in 1888–1889 conducting Wagner's Ring cycle in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He left Prague to become principal conductor in October 1892 of the Berlin Court Opera (Kgl. Oper — today the Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
, where he was appointed Chief Musical Director (Kgl. preussischer Generalmusikdirector) on August 26, 1908. He remained in Berlin until 1912, conducting 1,071 performances of 103 operas. He also conducted the Royal Orchestra in concerts there.
He took other assignments during his tenure in Berlin. He was guest conductor at the Silesian music festivals in Goerlitz between 1894 and 1911. In May and June 1899 at London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden, he conducted Beethoven's Fidelio and several of Wagner's operas (Tannhäuser, Die Walküre, Die Meistersinger, Der fliegende Höllander and Tristan und Isolde). He devoted many summers to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth where he became principal conductor in 1903, after serving as a musical assistant since 1892. He succeeded Hermann Levi
Hermann Levi
Hermann Levi was a German Jewish orchestral conductor.Levi was born in Gießen, Germany, the son of a rabbi. He was educated at Gießen and Mannheim, and came to Vinzenz Lachner's notice...
as the conductor of Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
there. As war approached in the summer of 1914, Muck insisted on performing Parsifal on August 1, 1914 to close the Festival, which was not revived until 1924. Muck conducted Parsifal at all of the fourteen Bayreuth festivals held between 1901 and 1930, and also conducted Lohengrin there in 1909 and Die Meistersinger in 1925, becoming a close friend of the Wagner family. The American music critic Herbert Peyser (1886-1953) thought Muck's interpretation of Parsifal the greatest he had ever heard: "the only and ultimate Parsifal; the Parsifal in which every phrase was charged with infinities; the Parsifal which was neither of this age nor that age but of all time." He led the Vienna Philharmonic from 1903 to 1906 and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
from 1906 to 1908, and took visiting assignments in other cities, including Paris, Madrid, Copenhagen, Brussels.
Muck was offered the Metropolitan Opera House podium in New York at a reputed $27,000 a year, but declined. From 1903 to 1906 he alternated with Felix Mottl
Felix Mottl
Felix Josef von Mottl was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which Agnes Bernauer was the most successful, as well as a string quartet and numerous songs and other music...
as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. At the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition held in San Francisco May 14-26, 1915, Muck conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 13 concerts of music of all nations.
Conducting
Solo performers praised his work with them. Artur SchnabelArtur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...
called Muck: "a very great master, whose reliability, maturity and selfless dedication are not equaled by any living artist." Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski GBE was a Polish pianist, composer, diplomat, politician, and the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.-Biography:...
called him "an ideal accompanist". In physical terms, his conducting style required minimal movement, only small gestures with the tip of his baton. In areas of interpretation he was one of the first modernists. Though old enough to be part of generation known for taking liberties with the score and indulging in flexible tempos, he was by contrast disciplined and direct, less concerned with placing his personal stamp on a score than on demonstrating fidelity to the score and ceding a certain interpretive anonymity. By contrast with his conducting style, orchestra players found him impatient, explosive, nervous, and impulsive. He showed no casual or relaxed side of himself at concerts, rather "he dominated the orchestra and the audience and the occasion." The Austrian conductor Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
said in a 1972 interview: "Karl Muck by chance heard me direct Lohengrin, and he invited me to study all Wagner's scores with him. He was the first and greatest influence on me ... Muck told me where the orchestra should be more prominent, how to handle the Bayreuth acoustics, and so on."
Boston, 1906–1918
Muck served as music director of the Boston Symphony OrchestraBoston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
(BSO) from 1906 to 1908 and then again from 1912 to 1918 (with a yearly salary of 28,000 dollars as the New York Times reported on March 26, 1918). Initially he had to work to expand his repertoire from the operas and German music he concentrated on in Europe. Olin Downes
Olin Downes
Olin Downes was an American music critic.He studied piano, music theory, and music criticism in New York and Boston, and it was in those two cities that he made his career as a music critic—first with the Boston Post and then with the New York Times...
later wrote that "his repertory was unequal to the demands of his audience" so he relied on members of the BSO for coaching in French works. Contemporary works were not his strong suit, though he dutifully programmed music that was not to his own taste, such as the American premiere of Schoenberg's
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
Five Pieces for Orchestra
Five Pieces for Orchestra
The Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16 was composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:...
. He also introduced some Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
symphonies and many works of Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
to Boston. Despite his restrained style, he occasionally revealed his romantic side in a work like Liszt's
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
Faust Symphony
Faust Symphony
A Faust Symphony in three character pictures , S.108, or simply the "Faust Symphony", was written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and was inspired by Johann von Goethe's drama, Faust...
. On his death the New York Times said that in Boston "he built a virtuoso orchestra."
Why he chose to work in America is unknown. In Berlin he was on close personal terms with Kaiser Wilhelm, but American gossip held that he preferred his freedom and for that reason refused the post of director of the royal opera in Munich
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
in 1911. His life in Boston appeared unremarkable. Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music...
music fraternity made him an honorary member in 1916. and he judged a piano competition in the spring of 1917. On October 2-5, 1917, he led the BSO in historic recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
in Camden, New Jersey
Camden, New Jersey
The city of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey. It is located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 77,344...
. The sessions included works by Tchaikovsky, Wolf-Ferrari, Berlioz, Beethoven, and Wagner.
Philip Hale
Philip Hale
Philip Hale was an American music critic.An 1876 graduate of Yale University, Hale practiced law upon leaving college, also studying piano with John Kautz and playing the organ in a church...
, music critic of the Boston Herald during Muck's years there, wrote: "He stands there calm, undemonstrative, graceful, elegant, aristocratic; a man of singularly commanding and magnetic personality even in repose. The orchestra is his speech, the expression of the composer's music as it appeals to the conductor's brain, heart and soul."
National Anthem controversy
When the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, Muck offered to resign his position as music director of the BSO. He anticipated that his natural sympathies for Germany, where he was born and spent most of his career despite his Swiss citizenship, might give offense. Henry Lee HigginsonHenry Lee Higginson
Henry Lee Higginson was a noted American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.-Family and Early Life:...
, the orchestra’s founder and financer, declined it and instead signed Muck to another five-year contract. Muck had fears for his own safety, but Higginson gave him assurances that as an artist he had nothing to fear. Thereafter he became very sensitive to avoid giving offense. The orchestra's publicity manager later wrote: "A good and patriotic German, he had become greatly attached to this country, and altogether he was a thoroughly unhappy man." Nevertheless, he programmed all-German concerts on his first tour of American cities following U.S. entry into the war, which some found not at all sensitive to the public's mood in wartime.
In the fall of 1917, some orchestras like the New York Orchestra Society started performing "The Star-Spangled Banner
The Star-Spangled Banner
"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States of America. The lyrics come from "Defence of Fort McHenry", a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy ships...
" at all their concerts. Members of the BSO management team discussed programming the anthem for weeks, but without any sense of the issue's importance. Moreover, the orchestra's manager, Charles A. Ellis, did not want to embarrass Muck by asking him to do it, given Muck's close attachment to Germany and his personal relationship with the Kaiser.
The BSO performed regularly at Infantry Hall in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, where the Providence Journal
The Providence Journal
The Providence Journal, nicknamed the ProJo, is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper, first published in 1829 and the oldest continuously-published daily newspaper in the United States, was purchased...
had been attacking Muck for his ties to the Kaiser. The BSO's managers anticipated there might be trouble during their October 1917 visit. One member of the management team later said that Major Higginson, the BSO's chairman, was "pugnacious" while Ellis, the manager, was "rather nervous" as they joined the orchestra on the trip. Higginson took measures to protect Muck in case of serious trouble.
On October 30, 1917, the day of the concert, the Providence Journal published an editorial that said "Professor Muck is a man of notoriously pro-German affiliations and the programme as announced is almost entirely German in character." It called for the BSO to perform the National Anthem that night "to put Professor Muck to the test." About to leave Boston for Providence, Higginson and Ellis received two requests, one from a local patriotic organization and another from the heads of local music clubs, asking the BSO to play the anthem. Muck never saw the request, but Higginson and others viewed it as the work of John R. Rathom
John R. Rathom
John R. Rathom was a journalist, editor, and author based in Rhode Island at the height of his career. In the years before World War I, he was a prominent advocate of American participation in the war against Germany...
, editor and publisher of the Providence Journal, whose motto was "Raise hell and sell newspapers." They dismissed the request without much consideration and the concert went off without incident. Muck only learned of the petition on the orchestra's train ride back to Boston that same night. Shocked and somewhat fearful, he said he did not object to playing the anthem, that it was fitting for him as a guest to accommodate the wishes of his hosts.
Now that the BSO had failed to play the anthem, Rathom created the false story that Muck had refused to perform it, accused Muck of treason and called him a spy and a hater of all things American.
The story had a life of its own, however. As the orchestra publicity manager wrote years later of Muck, "his fate, so far as America was concerned, was settled that night in Providence because of the short-sighted stubbornness of Henry L. Higginson and Charles A. Ellis." The American Defense Society
American Defense Society
The American Defense Society was a nationalist American political group founded in 1915. It advocated American intervention against Germany during World War I and opposition to the Bolsheviks when they came to power in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917.-Formation:Clarence Smedley Thomas,...
called for Muck's internment. The Orchestra found its November Baltimore engagement canceled, with even Cardinal Gibbons adding his voice to denunciations of Muck. Theodore Roosevelt denounced the maestro. A rival conductor, Walter Damrosch, Music Director of the New York Symphony Society (later the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
), said that Muck's "cynical disregard of the sanctity of our national air" showed disrespect for the emotions of his audience and led to a disrespect for the great heritage of German music.
Major Higginson claimed responsibility for the BSO's initial failure to play the anthem, with little effect on outraged press coverage. He visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
where he received assurances that the government had no issue with any member of the orchestra. He tried to present the issue as one of artistic independence, saying he would rather disband the orchestra than allow anyone to dictate its programming. Muck took a similar tack with this statement: "Art is a thing by itself, and not related to any particular nation or group. Therefore, it would be a gross mistake, a violation of artistic taste and principles for such an organization as ours to play patriotic airs. Does the public think that the Symphony Orchestra is a military band or a ballroom orchestra?"
Back in Boston, the BSO found curiosity and support. On November 2, 1917, the crowd that filled a Friday afternoon concert at Symphony Hall
Symphony Hall, Boston
Symphony Hall is a concert hall located at 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by McKim, Mead and White, it was built in 1900 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which continues to make the hall its home. The hall was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1999...
read a program insert announcing that the national anthem would follow every BSO concert and applauded when Higginson appeared. Higginson announced that Muck had once again tendered his resignation so that "no prejudice against him may prejudice the welfare of the orchestra" and Higginson had yet to accept it. The audience then greeted the entry of Muck with a standing ovation and rose to applaud again after he led the orchestra in a performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner".
The New York Times pointed out that the entire affair could have been avoided if Higginson and Muck had had a better sense of the public sentiment. They should have anticipated the request for the anthem and should have programmed it in the first place. The paper blamed the entire affair on Muck and "the then obstinate management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra."
In November, the BSO performed in New York City, where Higginson and Ellis reluctantly gave in to Muck's insistence on playing the anthem. Critics were not completely satisfied and criticized the arrangement Muck used as "cheap" and "undignified" without realizing it was the work of Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, who in addition to his popular Broadway operettas had also written serious symphonic works and conducted both the New York Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony. When the orchestra returned to New York in December, Muck used a new arrangement that proved a critical success. It was the work of BSO concertmaster Anton Witek, "the most pro-German of all the Germans in the orchestra."
Internment
Muck was arrested on March 25, 1918 just before midnight and therefore the BSO's performances of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion on March 26 and April 2, which Muck had been preparing for months, had to be conducted by Ernst Schmidt. Government officials were free to ignore the fact that he was a Swiss citizen and bearer of a Swiss passport, since the law sanctioned the arrest of those born anywhere in Germany before the founding of the German Empire without respect to citizenship. Boston police and federal agents also searched Muck's home at 50 Fenway and removed personal papers and scores. They suspected the conductor's markings in the score of the St. Matthew Passion were code indicative of pro-German activity. He was imprisoned at Fort Oglethorpe in GeorgiaFort Oglethorpe (Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia)
Fort Oglethorpe was an Army post established in 1902 and opened in 1904. It served largely as a cavalry post for the 6th Cavalry. During World War I Fort Oglethorpe was home to 4,000 German Prisoners of War and civilian detainees. During World War I and World War II, it became a war-time...
until on August 21, 1919, an agent of the Department of Justice put him and his wife on a ship to Copenhagen. The Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia is an American collegiate social fraternity for men with a special interest in music...
music fraternity that had elected him to national honorary membership in 1916 expelled Muck in 1919 for sympathizing with the Central powers.
Fellow internees had heard that Muck had vowed not to conduct in America again, but they persuaded him that the camp was more of a German village — some of them even called it "Orglesdorf." A memoir of the event written in 1940 recalled the mess hall packed with 2000 internees, with honored guests like their doctors and government censors on the front benches, facing 100 musicians. Under Muck's baton, he wrote, "the Eroica rushed at us and carried us far away and above war and worry and barbed wire."
When sailing from New York on August 21, 1919, Muck told reporters: "I am not a German, although they said I was. I considered myself an American." He said he had "bitter feelings" toward the newspapers for their unfair treatment of him. He expressed doubts that the BSO, then in a sorry state of organization, could recover from the internment of 29 of its German members. After his deportation from the United States, he declined all offers to bring him back to the United States after the war.
Later that year the Boston Post disclosed that Muck had been having an affair with a 20-year-old in Boston's Back Bay and had written her a letter reading in part: "I am on my way to the concert hall to entertain the crowds of dogs and swine who think that because they pay the entrance fee they have the right to dictate to me my selections. I hate to play for this rabble ... [In] a very short time our gracious Kaiser will smile on my request and recall me to Berlin ... Our Kaiser will be prevailed upon to see the benefit to the Fatherland of my obtaining a divorce and making you my own."
Later career, 1919–1933
Muck returned to a different Germany. The recent German Revolution of 1918–1919 made him "a man in marked disfavor with the republican government." Muck eventually took the helm of the Hamburg Philharmonic OrchestraPhilharmoniker Hamburg
The Philharmoniker Hamburg is a German symphony orchestra based in Hamburg. Its current Music Director is GMD Simone Young. It is also the orchestra of the Hamburg State Opera....
in 1922 and made additional recordings. He returned to Bayreuth when the festival was revived there in 1924, the representative of the pre-war tradition. He expressed his devotion to the Festival and Wagner's music in a letter advising Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch was a German conductor.Busch was born in Siegen, Province of Westphalia. He held posts conducting opera at Aachen, Stuttgart and Dresden. In 1933 he was dismissed from his post at Dresden because of his opposition to the new Nazi government of Germany...
that all he needed to succeed there was "the unassuming humility and the holy fanaticism of the Believer." He was also engaged in Munich, Amsterdam (Concertgebouw Orchestra
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is a symphony orchestra of the Netherlands, based at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1988, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra...
) and Salzburg (Don Giovanni in 1925).
In September 1930, he resigned his position at Bayreuth, much to the distress of Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner was an English woman married to Siegfried Wagner, Richard Wagner's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German dictator Adolf Hitler....
, who had just succeeded her late husband Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner
Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930.-Life:...
as the Festival's director. He never accommodated himself to being upstaged by Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
, but writing privately to Winifred Wagner, he said he had been committed to serving her husband, but the Festival now required someone other than "I, whose artistic standpoint and convictions, so far as Baireuth [sic] is concerned, stem from the preceding century." He resigned his Hamburg position in 1933, uncomfortable with the Nazi authorities' direction of the city's symphony and opera.
His last noteworthy appearance came in February 1933 at a concert marking the fiftieth anniversary of Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's death, given in Leipzig with Hitler in attendance. His final concert was on May 19, 1933, with the Hamburg Philharmonic. In October 1939, Muck "on his 80th birthday in Berlin received from Adolf Hitler the Plaque of the German Eagle" with the inscription DEM GROSSEN DIRIGENTEN (TO THE GREAT CONDUCTOR).
Muck's wife Anita (née Portugall), whom he had married in Graz on February 3, 1887, died on April 14, 1921, and their only child, a son, had died young. He spent his last years at the Stuttgart home of Baroness von Scholley, the daughter of one of his oldest friends and fellow internee, who had been German Consul General in New York. Partially paralyzed from nicotine poisoning and immersing himself in Oriental philosophy, he rarely left the house during the last three years of his life. Muck died in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on March 3, 1940. Upon receipt of the news of his death, the BSO interrupted a rehearsal to stand in tribute to his memory. Geraldine Farrar
Geraldine Farrar
Geraldine Farrar was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".- Early life and opera career :Farrar was born in Melrose,...
wrote a letter to the New York Times recalling that she sang with him and the Boston Symphony on the night when Muck was "bitterly and unjustly assailed" for not playing the National Anthem and adding: "As your editorial correctly reports, he knew nothing of the request." She continued: "The fortunes of war brought Dr. Muck — as well as other aliens — no disgrace in an internment camp. I saw Dr. Muck several times in later years and I know he counted the years with the Boston Symphony Orchestra among the happiest and most fruitful of his career."
Recordings
Muck's reputation rests largely on his recorded legacy. In October 1917 he made a series of sound recordings in the U.S.A. with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company in their Camden, New Jersey auditorium. Unusually for the time (when the pre-electric purely mechanical “acoustic” process was in use) the orchestra seems to have been recorded at full strength as the 1919 Victor catalogue refers to "approximately a hundred men". Eight short pieces spread over ten 78 r.p.m. sides were selected, including excerpts from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 and two items from Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust.Muck's most important recordings were made at the 1927 Bayreuth Festival for the English Columbia Gramophone Company and in 1927-29 in Berlin for the Gramophone Company (HMV). At Bayreuth sometime between late June and mid-August 1927,he conducted about 30 minutes of excerpts from Parsifal Acts 1 and 2. His control of phrasing in the Transformation and Grail scenes is regarded as unsurpassed to this day. In December 1927 he led the Berlin State Opera Orchestra in an account of the opera's Prelude, one of the slowest on record. A year later, in December 1928, he made a nearly complete recording of the third act of Parsifal, using the Parsifal and Gurnemanz singers from that year's Bayreuth performances. The music critic Alan Blyth described this as "the most uplifting, superbly executed reading of Act 3 ... in the history of recording" and Robin Holloway commented that "It realizes better than any other Wagner performance the idea of endless melody". In all about 40% of the opera's score was recorded over the 2-and-a-half-year period. HMV also recorded eight further Wagner orchestral pieces, including the Siegfried Idyll, with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra in December 1927, May 1928, and November 1929. These have been reissued on various CDs.
A discography of Muck's original commercial recordings, not including reissues. appeared in 1977.
Several radio recordings allegedly conducted by Muck also exist, including a Faust Overture and Trauermarsch (Götterdämmerung) with the Berlin Radio Orchestra and an excerpt from the Adagio of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 with the Hamburg Philharmonic.
Sources
- Egon Voss, Die Dirigenten der Bayreuther Festspiele, (Regensburg, 1976: Gustav Bosse Verlag)
- Peter Muck, ed., Karl Muck: ein Dirigentenleben in Briefen und Dokumenten. (Tutzing, 2003: Schneider), documentary biography compiled from letters and other documents