Tuesday, May 30, 2006
New Music To March To
Ernst Hanfstaengl must rank as one of the most bizarre 20th century composers. Born in Germany and educated at Harvard, he lived in America through the First World War before moving back to Germany where he worked closely with Hitler as chief of the Nazi's foreign press bureau. After falling out of favor he fled from Germany, and settled in America again where he led an anti-Nazi intelligence project for president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hanfstaengl's musical credentials included being personal pianist to the Führer, composing several marches used at Nazi gatherings, including one heard in Leni Riefenstahl's classic fim of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, and writing film music and a monumental choral work. A recording of him playing Debussy and his own compositions, together with a personal message to the Nazi leaders, was recorded by the US intelligence service, pressed on shellac, and parachuted into Germany.
A recently published book tells of the extraordinary life of Ernst Hanfstaengl who died in 1975, and also gives a fascinating insight into Hitler's musical likes, and dislikes - the dislikes included Bach and Beethoven! On An Overgrown Path has the full story at Hitler's court composer was Harvard alumni.
The rarely-seen photograph above of the 1935 Nuremberg Rally comes from the Siegfried Lauterwasser Collection. Read the full story of this extraordinary archive, and see more haunting photographs, in Downfall - and the mystery of Karajan's personal photographer. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
posted by Pliable
5/30/2006
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