Listening for the Intimsphäre: Recovering Berlin 1933 through Hans Pfitzner’s Symphony in C-sharp Minor

Abstract

On 23 March 1933 Hans Pfitzner’s Symphony in C-sharp Minor, Op. 36a, an orchestral transcription of his String Quartet, Op. 36 (1925), was premiered in Munich. The concert took place during the very early weeks of the Nazi administration, coinciding with the date the Enabling Act was passed, when Adolf Hitler’s political powers became total. A week later, on 30 March, it was performed again by the Philharmonic Orchestra in Berlin. This article tells the story of that second performance at the Philharmonie, a concert where the effects of new Nazi policy and persecution could be felt in an immediate way, and yet one that has completely slipped from our historical consciousness. According to a witness account of events, ten days prior to the Pfitzner concert the Nazi authorities had threatened scenes of violence at the concert hall if Jewish conductor Bruno Walter’s regular concert with the Berlin Philharmonic—part of the “Bruno Walter Series”—were to proceed as usual, triggering Walter’s immediate political exile.1 His replacement by Richard Strauss, who donated his fee to the hard-up orchestra, has been well rehearsed in the secondary literature,2 but it was certainly not the only concert affected by Walter’s exit. Due to conductor “reshuffles” (as they were described in one review) between many of the major north-German concert venues in the wake of Walter’s departure,3 at the 30 March Pfitzner concert the composer himself unexpectedly took to the podium at short notice to conduct his new symphony. Although he was not directly stepping in to cover Walter—Eugen Jochum had been on the original billing but was needed at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus to cover the position Walter’s exile now left unfilled—the last-minute switch made Walter’s absence from the concert circuit plainly apparent.