The death penalty for smoking: a post-war detective, accompanied by gunshots, regret, and time-lapse music

Fateful cigarette smoke

It was only after the death of one of the 20th century artists that he had the greatest influence on future generations. Anton Webern, recognized as a composer, is having dinner. Along with him are his wife Wilhelmine, their daughter Christine, her husband Benno Mattel and their three grandchildren.

The 61-year-old artist finds it difficult to lift the loss of his son Peter, who died in a German Nazi uniform at the end of the war. And, therefore, poor health and the small oyster, only 160 cm tall, weighs just over 50 kilograms. The urgent and complicated evacuation of Vienna in the spring, which was first entered by the Soviet army, which had not easily broken through the Germans, also added no force. Still, you can’t and may not want to give up the habit of taking a cigarette after dinner.

In more than one article or textbook on music history, the course of events is as follows: As soon as A. Webern lit a cigarette, three shots were fired: bullets fired by a US soldier fatally stabbed the composer. .

The Austrian is alleged to have violated the curfew order in effect in the region at the time and prohibited him from going outside during the dark hours of the day, which took effect just a few minutes ago during the A. Webern shooting.

The enigmatic circumstances of the event did not give peace to the German musicologist Hans Moldenhauer for many years, who decided to unfold the veil of mystery as much as possible and discover what happened that night in the Mitterzil complex.

The shots were fired by the chef.

Like the files of the US Army. USA They did not open to Moldenhauer, he decided to go the other way. After discovering that the 42nd US Infantry Division. USA Based at Mitterrill at the time, the investigative musicologist himself decided to interview potential living witnesses to the events: relatives of the deceased and later deployed American soldiers in Austria. Interviews with them took place several years after the war and the enigmatic death of A. Webern.

Although some of the nuances of the incident remained unexplained, Moldenhauer managed to get the basic picture: he later described the story in the book “A. Webern’s Death: A Drama on the Documents.”

One thing is very clear: Raymond Norwood Bell shot a very famous man later. In the army there is a chef, and in the homeland, the chef of a restaurant, a man completely harmless at first sight, immortalized in army photos with a modest smile.

And it was no coincidence that he was near the home of A. Webern, who was shot. As Andrew Murray, who was involved in the Bell N. incident, revealed that the two Americans turned to the composer’s son-in-law, B. Mattel, who was an active Nazi party during the war and became involved in the smuggling business in the months. postwar period.

It is unclear if the soldiers who arrived at the house wanted to illegally arrest or cooperate with the smuggler (they had brought cigarettes, drinks, razors and pineapple), the men entered and passed by Webern, who had left the yard a little earlier.

The latter, smoking a cigar, climbed the stairs home when the American soldiers heard the footsteps. Surprised, Murray pretended to arrest the smuggler and, very scared, Bell went out the door to assess the situation and meet an unexpected guest.

What specifically happened a few seconds later and why the chef shot Webern three times will remain a mystery in the story. Only the bullets that have been trapped in the walls of the house so far could testify exactly, but they will remain silent forever. Mrs. Bell, who fired the shots herself, was quick to seek help, but when Weber arrived she was already dead. “Everything is the end”, the relatives remembered the last words of the composer.

Repentance seized

In a soon-to-come report, R. N. Bell claimed to have been attacked, but given the composer’s physical form and the fact that the American was much taller and firmly composed, this variant remains unlikely. In any case, the incident did not cause further resonance at the time, it was covered up and the incident probably took place during the curfew, although witnesses interviewed by Moldenhauer himself did not emphasize this circumstance.

Another fact is clear: the internal demons of R. N. Bell, who returned to his native land, did not flee until his death. It is a strange coincidence that the chef who drowned in the swamp of alcoholism was sunk almost exactly a decade after the incident in Austria on September 3, 1955 in the state of North Carolina.

The nightmares that haunted the former soldier were visually told by Bell’s wife.

“When he returned home after the war, he told me that he had killed a man during his service. I know he survived tremendously because of that. Every time he was intoxicated, he kept saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t have shot that man.” It is clear that this incident led to his illness and rapid death. Raymond was a very good man who loved everyone. And that is a consequence of the war, said the woman. “I can’t even say he was talking to me in the warmth of his runny nose. He was talking to a ghost in the room.”

At that time, A. Webern’s own wife hinted a few years after the event that the composer seemed to have felt his death. In the summer, sitting on a bench near the Mitrezil church, one night he said, “I would like to be buried here someday.” Surrounded by the Alps, the artist and relax for eternal rest.

Based on testimonies collected by H. Moldenhauer and a libretto by J. D. McClatchy, the premiere of the one-act opera Webern’s Death, composed by composer Michael Dellaire, took place in New York in 2013.

Creativity – “cultural Bolshevism”

As already mentioned, the importance of music created by A. Webern himself and its uniqueness were recognized only after the composer’s own death. Together with their teacher Arnold Schönberg and colleague Alban Berg, they are considered to be at the heart of the Second Vienna School Circle, although neither man escaped experimentation, Webern’s music was rated “more radical”, “more rebellious “and unusual for many. and a century after its creation, it is difficult to do.

Completely renouncing all the manifestations of melodicity typical of the Romantic era, the Austrian composer took the test, set out on the path of radical atonality and twelve-tone music, as if to show direction to the creators of avant-garde music of the future.

Most of Webern’s works are extremely short, which can be confusing due to the unusual use of instruments and voices and sound (the phrases are short, the “melody” is divided into timbres, separated by pauses): it is not surprising that some of the first nights of premiere, to put it mildly, was unsuccessful. Both for him and for other reformers of classical music.

Here’s the 1913 concert by A. Schönberg’s students in Vienna, which also played music by A. Webern, ended in a scandal: when the incomprehensible and angry audience got mad, the event had to be stopped by the police.

A similar event took place in the same year in Paris, where the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Holy Spring ballet premiered. In the future, this work began to be performed in theaters around the world and was considered a masterpiece.

When the Nazis came to power, Webern’s music was generally freed from “cultural Bolshevism” and “degenerate art”: his works were banned, and the composer lost his job as conductor.

He praised the Nazis, rescued the Jews.

He was taken to the ideological margin only because he belonged to the circle of friends of the Jew A. Schönberg, not to mention the nationality of the teacher, the vision of the defenders of Nazi art did not correspond to the work of A. Webern from afar. Attempts were made to engage him and his Austrian colleague, Mr Berg, in various ways, with a Nazi official possibly deliberately introducing them as a Jewish composer on Bavarian radio in 1933, preventing him from obtaining works in Vienna, which had deeply breathed the weather Nazi.

Admittedly, in terms of Webern’s long relationship with the Nazis and the artist’s attitude towards the person of Adolf Hitler himself, a certain paradox can still be seen, and opinions differ.

According to some contemporaries, in 1933, during private classes, he criticized Nazi ideology, which was already widespread in Germany, and his approach to culture. However, later, perhaps in an attempt to protect himself and keep his family at peace, he often reacted positively, and sometimes even gloriously, to Hitler and the decisions he made. During the war, he helped get a job “outside the profession.”

Particularly angry at Webern’s approach, another well-known German composer, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, returned to his home in Germany. In 1942, at the height of World War II, the two men met in Vienna and went together to the opera house, spending several afternoons talking. The German, fascinated by the talent of the creator of A. Webern, was surprised that the Vienna audience, a well-known composer among professionals, did not know him in an elementary way: A. Webern was like an ordinary theater visitor.

And soon a heated dispute arose between the two musicians, which K. A. Hartmann described in one of his letters to his wife. “The conversation turned to politics, I didn’t have to listen to it. The fundamental problem was Anton’s conviction that any force in power at that time should be recognized and supported in every way. He is a stranger to me, no we are on the way “, K. Hartmann was angry with A. Hitler for his followers.

Still, as mentioned, the stick has two ends. According to Louis Krasner, a violin virtuoso at the time, at the end of the war, Webern and his family risked their lives immensely, allowing Gorgi and his family, a Jew of Schönberg Jewish descent, to hide in the cellar and receive food for she. Thus, in the name of survival, faithful to the Nazis in words and in constant fear, A. Webern was able to express a different vision of the nightmare events in Europe at the time.

After death: a new approach

That the events of 1950 in New York attest that it is not easy for the reformers and creators who have taken an unusual path to reach the hearts of the spectators. During the concert of the local philharmonic orchestra, the symphony by A. Webern op. 21, which was heard by famous American composer Morton Feldman.

Sergei Rachmaninov’s work was supposed to be played on the show, but M. Feldman did not expect it, he left the room angry due to the disrespectful reaction of the audience. In the hallway, Feldman met John Cage, who will soon become a true American music legend, leaving the room for exactly the same reason. The coincidence of A. Webern’s music caused both men to make friends, expand their circle of acquaintances: in the future, inspired by this friendship, many innovative musical masterpieces were born that became classics in their style.

In Europe, Webern’s music was of great interest to the famous French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who decided to start an audio session of all oyster compositions. Even after the discovery of an archive of works not published anywhere during the life of A. Webern, absolutely all the music he created (for orchestra, choir, ensembles, etc.) fits on just 6 CDs due to the unique brevity of The compositions.

Without going into the stylistics of A. Webern’s work, we would like to point out that several of the 20th century have entered their own way of composition, search for forms and experiments intuitively indicated. Composers: In addition to the names already mentioned in this story, the style of creating oysters cut with oysters had a great influence on the works of Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, Gyorgy Ligeti and others.

Webern diamond mine

The cigar smoked by A. Webern in fatal circumstances was one of the causes of death of a talented nonsense person, once again illustrating the importance of fragility of being and coincidence factor. It is the reflections on these aspects that constantly evolve in the difficult context of current reality that have contributed to the birth of this text, along with the desire to tell more about what has not been told.

It is empty speculation whether the Austrian in poor health would have managed to obtain moments of public “rehabilitation” from his work, or whether his fate would have prepared him for other macabre jokes.

However, as I. Stravinsky, who has visually asserted that he is world famous while alive, A. Webern’s stubbornness in not deviating from the unpopular path chosen sooner or later had to be recognized: “whose ways of mine he knew perfectly well.