The Reception of Austrian Composers in Los Angeles:

1934-1950

Upon examination of any of the literary works concerned with the emigré community of Los Angeles in the years immediately prededing, during and after the second World War, what becomes noticeable is the lack of distinction between the Austrian and German emigrés in most discussions, and the subsuming of one culture, the Austrian, under the larger grouping of the German-speaking, truly "German" culture. It just so happens that the better known and great majority of the emigré writers under discussion are usually of German origin, such as Brecht, Döblin, Feuchtwanger, Bruno and Leonhard Frank, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Markuse and Adorno, all of whom hailed from Germany.

In gathering information together on the American careers of these six Austrian composers, one becomes aware that they are scarcely discussed as a group nor in any depth in the works on the German-speaking exiles of Los Angeles. Because they wrote music rather than words, they only make sporadic appearances in the secondary literature, much like last-minute guests invited only as an afterthought, seated at the various "tables d'honneurs" set for their more prominent literary counterparts.

Because of this state of affairs, the following is an introductory attempt at examining the activities and reception of these six composers during their years of exile in Los Angeles. First I will examine, where possible, their attitudes to exile which, I feel, may shed some light on the reception they were afforded in their new homeland. Further, I shall examine three potential areas for study of the reception of these Austrian composers while they lived in Los Angeles: l) their reception as teachers, 2) their reception by Hollywood or the movie industry, and 3) their reception as mirrored in vehicles of communication other than film -- transmissions to an audience via newspaper, concerthall and radio.

We are given numerous examples, throughout the secondary literature, of the writers' reactions to Los Angeles, which, in most cases, reflect the reception they were afforded by their new homeland. But while we may be informed of Leonhard Frank's hatred "der ewig besonnten, lebensfernen Hölle Hollywood," 1 for example, a statement which hints of neglect and negative reception, we are unaware that in a letter to his former teacher from the Viennese Academy, the composer Zeisl expressed similar emotions concerning his life in Hollywood, which he called "ein blaues, sonniges Grab." 2 Another example, which can be found in almost any compilation on German exile literature, is Alfred Döblin's bitter, autobiographical account of the tortorous feelings experienced by the writer in exile, a moving example of the negative reception and neglect he was afforded in America: "Es gab Emmigrationsgewinnler, gewiß ... Aber wir, die sich mit Haut und Haaren der Sprache verschrieben hatten, was war mit uns? Mit denen, die ihre Sprache nicht loslassen wollten und konnten, weil sie wußten, daß Sprache nicht 'Sprache' war, sondern Denken, Fühlen und vieles andere? Sich davon ablösen? Aber das heißt mehr, als sich die Haut abziehen, das heißt sich ausweiden, Selbstmord begehen." 3

While the medium of composers, due to the universality of musical language, may have appeared more protected from such acute suffering and displacement, as described here by Döblin, in reality this may not have been the case at all. In a letter dated 1934, for example, Arnold Schoenberg expresses similarly deeply-felt reactions to his uprooting, indicating his distress at being bereft of country and language: "Wohl habe ich die Trennung von der alten Welt vollzogen, nicht ohne sie bis in die Knochen gespürt zu haben, denn ich war doch nicht darauf vorbereitet, daß sie mich sowohl heimatlos als auch sprachlos machen werde ... ." 4 It is perhaps due to an awareness of the universality of artistic experience, that Thomas Mann chose a composer rather than an academician to be his Dr. Faustus and Leonhard Frank expressed his reactions to exile in musical terms as well. In his autobiography, Links Wo Das Herz Ist, Frank compares the writer's loss of language to the musician's inability to play good music on inadequate instruments, expressing feelings of frustration and inadequacy through a most poignant comparison: "Er spielte in der Emmigration auf einer Geige aus Stein, auf einem Klavier ohne Saiten." 5

Could this feeling of frustration, which Frank had described so accutely, not have been felt by the exiled composers, who were equally cut off from their fatherland and mother tongue and who also experienced great difficulties, financial hardships and an unfamiliar, vastly different-cultured audience? What, we might query, might have been the reactions of these musicians when confronted with the uneducated, almost primitive audiences of the native Los Angelinos, who were "not ripe for a sudden musical Renaissance," not prepared to receive "the more intensive and in that sense higher musical culture of Europe." 6

One might assume that Schoenberg's reception here was a very positive and fruitful one when reading of his being seated at the same party table with the well-to-do and well-received Manns or Werfels. An early lecture Schoenberg delivered in Los Angeles at the commencement of his American stay in 1934 seems to support this assumption, for it suggests both a very positive attitude towards America, as well as a warm and dignified reception afforded Schoenberg by his host country. In reference to his emigration to America in 1934, Schoenberg, full of gratitude and optimism, compared his exile to having been granted permission to enter Paradise: "I ... came from one country into another, ... where ... my head can be erect, where kindness and cheerfulness is dominating, and where to live is a joy and to be an expatriate of another country is the grace of God. I was driven into paradise!" 7 Further study, however, reveals that it is quite a different attitude and suggestive of an alarmingly poor reception of this genius, which is expressed in an open letter of Schoenberg's, delivered to friends and well-wishers on the occasion of his 75th birthday in 1949: "Erst nach dem Tode anerknannt werden -----! Ich habe in diesen Tagen viel persönliche Anerkennung gefunden. ... Anderseits aber habe ich mich seit vielen Jahren damit abgefunden, daß ich auf volles und liebevolles Verständnis für mein Werk ... bei meinen Lebzeiten nicht rechnen darf." 8 What are we to understand by these contrastive statements? Was Schoenberg well-received by America or not? Perhaps we may discover an answer to such questions when we delve further into the exile years of Schoenberg and the other composers with whom he shared his "Garden of Eden."

While the recent secondary literature on the emigré community may not have shown much interest in composers' reactions to their uprooting, there nevertheless was substantial interest demonstrated during their years of exile. In 1950, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of three articles, appearing on three consecutive Sundays in May, which dealt with the phenomenon of the transplanted composer. Written by the music critic for the Times, Albert Goldberg, the series was entitled "The Transplanted Composer" and presented large-scale photographs and the views on exile of several emigré composers, among them Schoenberg, Krenek and Zeisl. The fact that the series appeared on a Sunday when the reading audience could be considered the largest, and was written by an American critic for an American reading audience, suggests a readership not only aware of the strangers in their midst, but at least mildly receptive or interested in their attitude and adjustment to their new homeland. "A request was sent to a number of prominent composers," writes Goldberg, "asking them to state frankly the difficulties they have experienced in adjusting themselves to life in a new country --- taking into consideration the different attitude toward creative musicians, the difficulty of obtaining performances, whether separation from the homeland has affected the character and quality of their work, or any other pertinent factors." 9

In the first of the three articles, Schoenberg, admitting to a greater work load and more material difficulties than in Europe, writes in the inimitable style of a man conscious of his uniqueness and genius which, he believed, was destined to have emerged, irregardless of exile: "If immigration to America has changed me --- I am not aware of it. Maybe I would have finished the third act of 'Moses and Aaron' earlier. Maybe I would have written more when remaining in Europe, but I think nothing comes out, what was not in. And two times two equals four in every climate. Maybe I had four times four times harder to work for a living. But I made no concessions to the market." On the second Sunday of the series, Krenek is interviewed, whose stand is similar, though somewhat less self-assured than Schoenberg on the question whether emigré composers had changed to adapt to the new country. Krenek writes, "I do not see any change of style, scope or intention of significance ... Even if some slight changes of emphasis and general character could be ascertained, the question whether they are caused by the new surroundings, or by developments within the personality of those composers, can never be answered with confidence, for we shall never know what they would have written, if they had not come to America." In the third and last series of Sunday interviews, Eric Zeisl provides yet another viewpoint with regard to the possibilities of American reception of Austrian culture, offering his particular, European-formed heritage and experience directly, as if it were a gift, to his host country. Zeisl explains: "I came to America in my early thirties, that is probably still young enough to undergo subtle changes in my personality. On the whole, however, I was a finished product of the old world. I could not change this even if I wanted to; it would only mean that I was trying to create from the surface rather than the core of my memories. America can find in my work ... strong medicines against the ills of fate, which I have learnt to brew and which she may need one day. They are hers."

In summary, these interviews reflect similar attitudes of the emigrés to their host country. The tone is one of optimism; each expresses an awareness of his potential for contribution to his new homeland. And all seem to share the same desire: to be received by America as they were, to be appreciated for what they were and for what they had to offer.

Turning once again to the six Austrian composers under discussion, we note that all were given teaching posts at the various institutions of higher learning. Schoenberg, as prime example, taught at USC and subsequently at UCLA. He wrote many of his theoretical, teaching texts, during these final years of his life, which today are standard manuals for higher education music classes. Further, a letter of Schoenberg, dated June 2, 1946, to Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator and Chancellor of the University of Chicago, in which he delineates an overall course of study for university-level music departments -- documents at once both Schoenberg's interest in education as well as the reception he was afforded by such leading educators as Hutchins, who considered Schoenberg to be the primary musical educator in America at this time.

Toch, the only European PH.D. of the group, taught at USC. Korngold was on the faculty of the Max Reinhardt Workshop in which capacity he not only composed music for student productions, but also worked with the student actors, preparing them for musical parts. Eisler taught at USC and UCLA. Zeisl and later Krenek both taught at the Southern California School of Music and subsequently at Los Angeles City College.

In the celebrative issue in 1944 of the German language newspaper, Aufbau, commemorating the first decade after the initial wave of immigration from Nazi Germany, 1934, an Austrian emigré writer, Hans Kafka, had an extremely informative article, in English, on the reception of German and Austrian culture in America. Entitled "What Our Immigration Did for Hollywood --- and Vice Versa," Kafka's article discusses in some detail the reception afforded the emigrés by the movie industry during the years 1934-1944. Among the composers mentioned are Hanns Eisler, Erich W. Korngold, Ernst Toch and Erich Zeisl. "Below, we give you a list of ... names [which] have been included in the screen credits of one or more Hollywood pictures," writes Kafka. "It is numerically impressive ... That is what Hollywood did for the immigration. On the other side of the balance there is an equally impressive number of achievements. 1937 was the triumphal year when the Central European immigration cashed in forty percent of the academy awards ... everything, in short, that was good 'over there' ... is [now] being duly appreciated 'over here' ... ."12

Eisler and Korngold were perhaps the most successful of film composers. Eisler, in addition to countless song, stage and film collaborations with Brecht, wrote music for a host of feature films in Los Angeles, among them "Forgotten Village," "Hangmen Also Die," "None but the Lonely Heart," "Spanish Main," "Deadline at Dawn," "A Scandal in Paris," "So Well Remembered," and "Woman on the Beach." Korngold, an innovator of symphonic film scores treated his films like opera without singers. While under contract with Warner Brothers, he adapted Mendelssohn's music for the film "Midsummer Night's Dream," directed by Reinhardt and composed many original film scores, among them "Give us This Night," a collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein, "Kings Row," and "Of Human Bondage." He composed the music for several swashbuckler films, "Captain Blood," and the "Sea Hawk," as well as "The Adventures of Robinhood," starring Errol Flynn, and "Anthony Adverse," both of which won him an oscar. Korngold also wrote the music for several historical subjects, such as "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex," and "Juarez." Judging from his own words on his film career, Korngold seems to have been extremely well received, afforded amenities and allowed considerable freedom as well as held in great esteem by his American producers, directors and musical colleagues, exemplified in the following description of his studio life at Warners:

Ernst Toch, headlined by the studios as Dr. Ernst Toch, worked as a film composer for Paramount Pictures from 1936 to 1940 and for Columbia till 1944. Toch wrote music for such films as "The Children Factory," "Peter Ibbetsen," "The Outcast," "First Comes Courage," and "Address Unknown." And Eric Zeisl also participated in the scoring of film music, providing background music for the majority of the then-popular Fitzpatrick Traveltalk shorts, closing with the familiar phrase "Reluctantly we now take leave of beautiful ... ." Visibly absent from any movie industry productions were Ernst Krenek, whose earlier attempts at securing film work proved to be unsuccessful and Arnold Schoenberg, who refused to compromise or bend to the dictates of the film industry's predilection for easily accessible music.

3) RECEPTION ON RADIO AND IN CONCERTHALL

Another Austrian, Julius Toldi, a musician and friend of the Austrian composers in Los Angeles, was instrumental in bringing into existence a series of radio broadcasts which brought compositions by these Austrian composers to the Los Angeles listening audience. Radio was an extremely important medium of exposure for these composers, because, as was noted in the music section of the Times, July 24, 1949, there were "more than 80 million radios in the USA," and broadcasts were the most expedient way in which to secure the largest possible music audience. In his book, entitled American Kaleidoscope, a fascinating account of an Austrian refugee's vision and America's reception of his ideas on publicizing modern music, Toldi reminisces about his conception and subsequent realization of a radio program devoted to the exposure of contemporary music. In the chapter entitled "From Theory to Praxis," Toldi elaborates on his plan, stating that all that was needed was:

Toldi relates the violent objections and grave doubts of friends as to the possibility for realization and success of his project, and informs the reader that his program was not only launched but was successful, evoking responses which surpassed his most optimistic expectations. Arnold Schoenberg complimented Toldi on the value of his program with the following, most gracious letter, dated September 1949, on the occasion of Schoenberg's 75th birthday. The letter reads: "Dear Friend: Through your four broadcasts devoted to my works you have rendered me a service the value of which I deeply appreciate. I am convinced that should my work still be appreciated later on, this deed will never be forgotten." 15 And the American composer Virgil Thomson, "dean of American music critics," praised Toldi's program series on KFWB with the following words: " ...The radio station KFWB has for over a year now offered the local public one of the very few distinguished modern music programs available on the American air. ...The radio program is called 'Music of Today' ... Its program consists of all the rarest modern chamber music, and its executions are tops. ... I do not know so consistently high-class a program of modern music offered elsewhere on the American air." 16

An examination of the music pages of the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times for the year 1949 not only attests to numerous opportunites for the reception of the music of these Austrian composers, but also verifies the existence of Toldi's "Music of Today" program on KFWB, the station which aired modern music to what seems to have been a receptive American audience. In addition, it provides added information concerning the exposure of these Austrian composers to a listening audience in concert halls in and around Los Angeles at that time. Flecked into the fabric of this most variegated broadsheet on musical events, are consistently found the names, mostly headlined (except for Eisler who had left in 1947), of all of the Austrian composers upon whom we have been focusing. Within a year's span, the L.A. Times draws attention to Schoenberg's name 16 times, spotlights Toch's name 7 times, focuses on Korngold's name 4 times, highlights Krenek's name 8 times and captions Zeisl's name 7 times.

On December 18 is found the last "Sounding Board" message for the year 1949, where Albert Goldberg recapitulates the highlights of the Music Season. We note a marked shift in emphasis from European composers to an interest in the American scene. "Where our music producers have failed us this season," Goldberg writes, "is in bringing to light more work of American composers ... it may be necessary to sound a warning lest we again tend to become dependent upon European sources for our music and forget to develop our own national resources." Thus, in 1949, as Los Angeles music audiences took leave of the old decade, years which had been dominated by European and hence Austrian composers, as is a matter of public record, they were subtely directed to take leave of, to turn away from such "external," or "foreign" influences and asked, instead, to concentrate upon their own, "fellow-American" composers in the new decade of the 50's.

In conclusion, it may be noted that these Austrian composers who lived in Los Angeles had a definite impact on the American musical scene while they lived there. Although they may not have attained long-lived success and popularity with Los Angeles audiences, and while they, with the possible exception of Schoenberg, were unable to sustain their dominance of the musical scene in Los Angeles for little more than two decades, our studies reveal that their music was frequently performed by American musicians, received by American audiences, and reviewed by American journalists. Furthermore, their intellectual interests, creative energy, cultural explorations and pioneering, which, we have demonstrated, resounded in classrooms, in movie theaters, in concerthalls and over the radio, cannot but have inspired and effected a renewal of culture. There can be no doubt that the undaunted spirit and exemplary courage of these creative artists, who never lost the will to express themselves, the desire to be heard, to be understood and to be accepted, despite the greatest obstacles of displacement, language and cultural barriers, and financial distresses, 17 must have had a very positive impact and beneficial results for the foster country which had welcomed and subsequently adopted them.

1

Erna M. Moore, "Exil in Hollywood." In John M. Spalek and Joseph Strelka, Deutsche Exilliteratur seit 1933 (Bern: Francke, 1976), p. 28.

2

Malcolm Cole, Armseelchen: The Life and Music of Eric Zeisl (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1984), p. 45.

3

Egon Schwarz and Matthias Wegner, eds. Verbannung: Aufzeichnungen Deutscher Schriftsteller im Exil (Hamburg: Christian Wegner, 1964), p. 303.

4

Arnold Schoenberg, Briefe. Erwin Stein, ed. (Mainz: B. Schott's Söhne, 1958), p. 206.

5

Leonhard Frank, Links Wo Das Herz Ist (München: Nymphenberger, 1952), p. 191.

6

Mark Brunswick, "Refugee Musicians in America." In: The Saturday Review of Literature, New York, January 26, 1946, p. 51.

7

Leonard Stein, ed. Style And Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg (London: Faber & Faber, 1975), p. 502.

8

Arnold Schoenberg, Briefe, p. 301.

9

Albert Goldberg, "The Sounding Board," in the Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1950. The following citations by Krenek and Zeisl are dated May 21st and May 28, respectively.

10

Who Is Who In Music, 1941 ed. (New York, Lee Stern, 1941), p. 26.

11

Writers' Congress. The Proceedings of the Writers' Congress Held in October, 1943 (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1944), pp. 353-354. For further information concerning the beneficial effects of the teaching of Americans by emigrés, see Laura Fermi, Illustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Migration from Europe 1930-1941. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971; M. Brunswick, "Refugee Musicians In America." In: The Saturday Review of Literature, New York, January 26, 1946.

12

Arnold Schoenberg, Letters. E. Wilkins and E. Kaiser, Translators (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965), pp. 240-241.

13

Hans Kafka, "What Our Immigration Did For Hollywood -- And Vice Versa," in Aufbau, Friday, December 22, 1944, pp. 40-41.

14

John Russell Taylor, Strangers In Paradise . The Hollywood Emigrès, 1933-1950 (London, Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 89.

15

Julius Toldi, American Kaleidoscope (New York: Philosophical Library, 1960), p. 361-362.

16

Toldi, pp. 365-366.

17

Toldi, p. 365.

18

The situation of these composers as a group is most aptly summarized by Schoenberg in 1944: "They all had to abandon their homes, their positions, their countries, their friends, their business, their fortunes. They all had to go abroad, try to start life anew, and generally at a much lower level of living, of influence, of esteem; many even had to change their occupation and to suffer humiliation." Arnold Schoenberg, "On Artists and Collaboration" in Modern Music, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Nov. - Dec. 1944, p. 4.