Elly Ney

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Memorial for Elly Ney on the Brahmspromenade in Tutzing April 3, 2009
Monument to Elly Ney on the Brahmspromenade in Tutzing, detail

Elly Ney (born September 27, 1882 in Düsseldorf , † March 31, 1968 in Tutzing ) was a German pianist who was internationally recognized as an interpreter of the classical-romantic repertoire, especially the piano works of Ludwig van Beethoven . After 1933 she actively advocated the National Socialist ideology and, as an artist, allowed herself to be instrumentalized by those in power for their purposes. After the Second World War, this attitude repeatedly led to controversial, public discussions about her person.

Life

1882–1921: youth, beginning of a career as a pianist, marriage

Elly Ney was born on September 27, 1882 as the daughter of Sergeant Jakobus Ney and the music teacher Anna Ney in Düsseldorf. Since her mother did not want to live in a barracks, the father switched to a civil servant position in Bonn . Childhood and youth were shaped by both militaristic and musical parental home; the historian Michael H. Kater calls their upbringing xenophobic .

At the age of ten, the highly talented Elly Ney was introduced to Franz Wüllner , the director of the Conservatory in Cologne, where she was then a student of Isidor Seiß for nine years . At the age of nineteen she won the “Mendelssohn Prize” of the city of Berlin, at twenty she received the “ Ibach Prize” in Cologne . In 1903 she continued her training in Vienna with Theodor Leschetitzky , but soon switched to Emil von Sauer .

After completing her studies in Vienna, Elly Ney was a teacher at the Cologne Conservatory from 1904 to 1907 and at the same time built up a career as a concert pianist.

In 1911 she married the Dutch conductor and violinist Willem van Hoogstraten . The couple lived first in Schlangenbad and later in Bonn. After the outbreak of the First World War , Hoogstraten lost his position as Kurkapellmeister in Honnef . Together with the Swiss cellist Fritz Otto Reitz , the couple founded the first Elly Ney Trio and gave concerts in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. In 1918 the couple had a daughter, who later became actress Eleonore van Hoogstraten .

In 1921 Elly Ney became an honorary member of the Beethoven House Association in Bonn.

1921–1930: Career in the USA

From 1921 on, Elly Ney lived and worked mainly in the USA, where she cemented her reputation as a pianist in her concerts as an interpreter of the classical-romantic repertoire with a special focus on the works of Chopin, Brahms and Beethoven. Numerous reports in the New York Times from the 1920s discuss their concerts in venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York . At her debut concert in the USA on October 15, 1921, she only played Beethoven, in the second concert Brahms, Schubert and Chopin. Hoogstraten led several orchestras and in 1925 became music director of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra . Both as a soloist in orchestral concerts under Hoogstraten's direction and in piano recitals, Ney made guest appearances in almost all major cities in the USA, for example in Hollywood in 1929 as part of a series of open-air concerts, Symphonies under the Stars . Her first recordings were made in the USA in the 1920s. In 1928 she married the coal works director Paul Allais (1895–1990) from Chicago, who had previously followed her for several years to her concerts in the USA and whose character and love for music impressed her very much. The marriage soon ended in divorce, but they remained friendly. Although no longer married, Ney continued to live with her first husband Hoogstraten and celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1961; they have a common grave in Tutzing.

Elly Ney also remained active in Germany in the 1920s. For her contribution to the particularly brilliant success of the Beethoven Festival in 1927 and for her international career, which also helped her hometown Bonn to gain respect, she was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Bonn in the same year.

1930–1945: The time of National Socialism

From 1930 she relocated her artistic sphere of activity back to Europe. With the violinist Wilhelm Stross and the cellist Ludwig Hoelscher , she founded another trio in 1932, which acted internationally as the Elly Ney Trio.

In 1933 Elly Ney, who was stateless after her divorce, applied for re-naturalization in Germany. In view of the prominence of the applicant, the question whether “the applicant should be recognized as a valuable population growth in national terms” was answered positively by the responsible officer. She was active as an artist in the German sense, although her marriage to an American would in itself speak against a good German attitude, so the judge of the city of Bonn about its honorary citizen.

In 1933 Elly Ney became enthusiastic about Adolf Hitler and turned to National Socialism. In a letter to Willem van Hoogstraten from March 1933, she wrote:

“Hitler just heard 45 minutes speak. I am deeply shaken. A tremendous amount of violence. Read the speech! ... That is the truth of a deeply feeling and inflamed human soul. Hitler spoke to me about art from my soul. ... It is finally being said and the way is clear. "

On April 20, 1937, she was appointed professor by Hitler, and on May 1, 1937, she became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 6.088.559). For her participation in the 1936 Olympic Games, Hitler awarded her a commemorative medal in 1937. Ney was a member of other National Socialist organizations, including an honorary member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), and gave speeches to young people in which she interpreted Beethoven and "Nordic music" in the spirit of National Socialism.

During the Second World War in 1941 Elly Ney also made guest appearances in the General Government of Poland in Krakow , where the “Philharmonic of the General Government” was established at that time. She proved her missionary approach to music in 1942 in Görlitz, where she left the second performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana under protest, described the work as a “cultural disgrace” and achieved a local performance ban. During the war, Ney increasingly played concerts in military hospitals and hospitals. In 1943 she was awarded the War Merit Cross 2nd Class for Troop Support. In 1944, at the end of the war, Hitler added her to the list of irreplaceable artists who had been gifted by God .

In the initial phase of the Nazi era, she gave numerous free concerts for organizations of the NSDAP and complained to the Reich Ministry of Propaganda about too few government commissions as an honorary artist. Later it was apparently paid more frequently, because for 1943 it reported income of around 190,000 Reichsmarks.

In 1937 Elly Ney relocated to Tutzing in Upper Bavaria . From 1939 to 1945 she led a piano class at the Salzburg Mozarteum .

1945–1968: old age, death

Beethovenhalle in Bonn 1959 after reconstruction
Grave of honor for Elly Ney in Tutzing (April 3, 2009). Her first husband and daughter are also buried in the same tomb.

After the end of the war, units of the American occupation force are said to have invited Elly Ney to concerts. As far as is known, she played for German prisoners of war in mid-1945 on the manor in Sierkshagen (British zone near Neustadt / Holstein), which was set up as a prisoner of war camp. In the manor's barn she gave a four-hour concert for the prisoners.

Because of her National Socialist involvement, Elly Ney, who had played a key role in the design and development of the Beethoven Festival in Bonn in the 1920s and 1930s and was the dominant musician of these musical events with the Elly Ney Trio and as a soloist, left the city Bonn was banned from performing in the post-war period until 1952.

Despite her National Socialist past, Elly Ney, just like other artists whose proximity to National Socialism was known and who continued her career, was able to start an old age career in the 1950s that lasted until a few weeks before her death. She gave concerts in prisons and refugee camps, published an autobiography in 1952 and made donations for the new Beethoven Hall in Bonn . However, after the press had spread that she was close to the right-wing extremist German cultural work of European Spirit , she stopped her payments. In their estate, however, a savings account was found with the purpose of “donations for the reconstruction of the Beethovenhalle”, which had received donations up to 1959. The amount of approx. 75,000 DM was used in 1995 for renovation work on the Beethoven Hall. Also in 1952 she received honorary citizenship of the municipality of Tutzing in Bavaria because of her services to music and her musical and cultural activities in her then place of residence.

She continued to go on extensive tours and, between the ages of 79 and 86, recorded a large part of her repertoire as a soloist or under her partner Willem van Hoogstraten as conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra on stereo records. She also made film and television recordings. On February 6, 1965, she gave a house concert for Ludwig Erhard and selected guests in the Chancellor's bungalow. Other important politicians of the post-war period such as Theodor Heuss and Kurt Georg Kiesinger also attended Elly Ney concerts and paid tribute to their art. In autumn 1964 she took part as a soloist at the age of 82 on a 19-day tour of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under C. A. Bünte through the Federal Republic of Germany. On her 85th birthday, the city of Bonn gave a reception, which was also attended by the then Federal President Heinrich Lübke .

Elly Ney was a teacher for renowned musicians such as Franz Hummel .

She died in 1968 at the age of 86 in Tutzing and was buried in the New Cemetery there next to her first husband and later life partner Willem van Hoogstraten, who died in 1965. The then Lord Mayor of Bonn, Wilhelm Daniels , gave a funeral speech.

Elly Ney's estate is in the Bonn City Archives.

Audio documents

Thirteen works for piano that Elly Ney had recorded for the Welte-Mignon reproduction piano were published between 1907 and 1930 , undoubtedly the oldest known recordings of her.

Piano playing as an art and abuse

Elly Ney was a highly talented pianist who, after her training, especially with Emil von Sauer, gained recognition and fame as an interpreter, thanks to her international concert activities, even before the Nazi era. So your career was not only due to advocating the ideas of National Socialism. An artist of her rank would have received offices and honors under different political circumstances. The importance of Beethoven's music for National Socialism and the racial laws of 1936, which prohibited Jews from performing Beethoven's works, supported her career in the 1930s. There is no evidence whatsoever of these entanglements in her memoirs. This also applies to the writings that were dedicated to the artist after the Second World War. They are examples of a hagiography that avoids anything that could weigh the revered person's reputation with any blame. Above all, Elly Ney's efforts are emphasized to convey the values ​​of art to those who had little or no opportunity to come into contact with art, in addition to in the established concert business also through numerous appearances in prisons, hospitals or schools. Particular emphasis is placed on the large circle of admirers who were recruited from all strata of the post-war elite and who, according to current knowledge, lacked the will to come to terms with the crimes that had occurred.

Autograph Elly Ney 1965

The music critic Joachim Kaiser wrote about her piano playing, which, like that of their contemporaries Edwin Fischer or Alfred Cortot , was committed to the style of interpretation of the 19th century and which differed significantly from the piano playing of later generations : “Always again she tried ... to get out what dazzling pianists would like to get over: the intimacy. ”A characteristic feature of her piano art, especially in the later years, was the simplicity and naturalness with which she played. They contrasted with their ceremonial, solemn demeanor. Despite the age-related decline in strength, she still worked in old age on improving her technique and exhausting the creative possibilities of the piano. This work also included the most difficult works in piano literature.

Elly Ney often gave introductions to the music she played in her concerts, with Beethoven's works being a special focus. The connection between word and music, a form of performance that she already used in her early years as an interpreter, did not serve to explain the works performed in terms of music theory, but rather was intended to bring the listener closer to the composer's environment and living conditions in an artistic way that led to the work of art in order to clarify its mental and emotional content. This approach of understanding and portraying the life and work of the composer as a unit remained one of Elly Ney's central concerns throughout her entire career as a pianist.

The artist in concert, 1920
oil painting by Fritz Discher

The musicologist Siegfried Mauser , former rector of the Munich University of Music and Theater , dates the peak of Elly Ney's performance to the 1920s and rates her later achievements as those of an average pianist. Mauser describes Ney as a representative of an art-religious Beethoven style of interpretation, which the National Socialists abused for their purposes in a similar way to Wagner's music, which on the other hand enabled Ney to extend her career. According to Mauser, the quality of Ney's musical interpretations after 1930 is lower than that of pianists such as Artur Schnabel or Edwin Fischer .

“There is nothing higher than to approach the deity more than others and from here to spread the rays of the deity among the human race”, is the closing words of Elly Ney's lecture How I came to Beethoven . This proves the religious and missionary aspect of their musical interpretation.

At her first concert in the USA, Elly Ney played three piano sonatas by Beethoven, No. 29 ( fortepiano ), No. 23 ( Appassionata ) and No. 14 ( moonlight sonata ) as well as six variations for piano and andante favori . The New York Times wrote:

“Mme. Ney as a neo-classicist, is no stickler for the letter of the law, Beethovenian or otherwise, but she had ideas about the music, chosen at risk of monotony and anti-climax, and she created a mood unconventional but not inappropriate to the spiritual titan of sculpturesque sounds whose works rank with Angelo and Rodin. "

“As a neoclassicist, Ms. Ney is not an advocate of the pure teaching of Beethoven or others, but she had her own ideas about music, even at the risk of monotony and lack of enhancement. It created an unconventional mood, which however corresponded to the spiritual titan of chiseled sounds, whose works are on a par with Michelangelo and Rodin. "

“In the sympathy expressions of the Ney believers, it was discreetly overlooked that the playing of the aged pianist is no longer able to withstand objective criticism, not to mention subjective artistic judgment. Elly Ney's major pianistic performance in the Third Reich has long been discreetly forgotten. Experienced Ney and Beethoven connoisseurs do not deny that the old master occasionally inadvertently omits entire passages in her devotion to playing. "

- Peter Stähle : Die Zeit, 1965

“As the last bars of Arietta faded, there was astonishment at the artist's mental and physical capacity. But when Elly Ney shook encores up his sleeve for 45 minutes, the cheers were endless. Among the outstanding phenomena of our time, Elly Ney is one of the most remarkable. "

- Weser-Kurier, 1967

“Elly Ney's piano playing was known worldwide for its excessive temperament combined with esprit; like the famous Argentinian pianist Teresa Careño once, she was able to make the inherently brittle piano sing; her brilliant piano technique, especially the legato octave playing in pianissimo, was testified in many reviews. "

- Hans D. Hoffert : quoted in Pro Classics

“Here a grande dame of the piano pays homage to her household gods Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert so impressively that one is inclined to ignore the political transgressions of her life. For critically reflective listeners, this is a dilemma that can hardly be resolved even under less strict historical and moral standards. And this dichotomy tends to increase with each bar - this piano playing seems so unique and profound. ... This unbroken creative power is almost inexplicable in the Beethoven record, which contains the mighty Adagio from the "Hammerklavier Sonata" as a highlight. ... This is a great, yet completely unpretentious art, the magic of which one can hardly escape. "

- Christian Wildhagen : in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on a re-publication of Elly Ney's late recordings in 2003

“As the head of the trio named after her (alternating with Florizel from Reuter and Max Strub as violinist, with violist Walter Trampler and cellist Ludwig Hoelscher) Ney knows how to convince - especially with composers who are not called Beethoven : in a deeply beautiful rendition of Schumann's Piano Quartet in E flat major from 1938, in an almost exhilarated Haydn rondo three years earlier. In Beethoven's ghost trio, on the other hand, all the idiosyncrasies of their playing are bundled again, the priestly immersion in the score, the freezing and lingering on vertical sound pedestals, the relentlessly slow tempos beyond all tension laws and dramaturgical contexts. "

- Christine Lemke-Matwey : at the time of a new release of chamber music recordings in 2004

Evidence and evaluations on Elly Ney's active advocacy for National Socialism

  • On June 23, 1935, Elly Ney said in her address at the start of the 5th Popular Beethoven Festival in Bonn:

“We have the most wonderful role model in our Führer, in whom every word and every action is a reflection of the most sacred conviction, of unshakable faith. We want to preserve and strengthen this faith in us, it is our star, to which we want to remain loyal, it is our source from which the divine music of our master sprang. ... What is clearer, truer, truer than the music of our Beethoven? It is precisely this music that we need today, the music of the fighter and winner for those who fight and win. This is the source that lies hidden in the heart of our people as a divine gift, which redeems us from the spell of the hostile, stranger, which leads us to reflect on our duties for our people, our youth. "

  • After she had been appointed professor by Hitler on April 20, 1937, she wrote a thank you telegram to Reichskulturwart Hans Hinkel from the Propaganda Ministry:

"It will continue to be my ardent endeavor to bring our youth closer to the unity of the mighty events through our guide with the sublime creations of our masters."

  • In a telegram to Adolf Hitler dated December 17, 1938, it says:

“My Fuehrer, after my Schubert evening in Berlin at the Philharmonie, my dearest wish lived up again to be able to play Schubert for you, my Fuehrer. For years it has been my greatest wish to let my dearly revered Führer take part in this moving language of the Ostmark. "

  • In 1938 she said in a labor camp run by the Reich Youth Leadership:

"The youth trust their leaders unconditionally because they have adopted the idealistic goals prescribed by Adolf Hitler."

  • In 1940 she wrote in a letter to the Reich Propaganda Ministry about a trip to the occupied Netherlands:

“I am not very happy that I have to live there in the Hotel Central. However, I hope that there are no more Jews there, as it used to be. "

  • From private letters from her estate in the Bonn City Archives, there are numerous other proofs of her anti-Semitism and her support for the ideology of National Socialism. For example, in May 1933, she informed Willem van Hoogstraten in a letter that she was in favor of the Nazis' book burning. In another letter, she expressed her enthusiasm for the removal of Jewish musicians from government-funded positions and the consequences of calls for boycotts for concerts by Jewish musicians. These are "played out" while their own concerts are sold out. In 1933 Elly Ney found it unreasonable to step in for Rudolf Serkin , who was unloaded after the Reichstag fire on February 28, 1933 under pressure from Berlin for the Reichs-Brahmsfest in Hamburg. She informed her partner Willem van Hoogstraten in a letter: “... but in the meantime I experience how, without acts of violence, Christians were actually oppressed by the Jews for years. … I don't like playing for Serkin in Hamburg. I suffer from it and can only do it when I think of the work alone. ”Elly Ney played instead of Rudolf Serkin at the Hamburg Reich Brahms Festival.

(Rudolf Serkin probably did not know this aversion. He praised Elly Ney's piano playing; the Abendzeitung München quoted him in its obituary for Elly Ney's death.)

There are no indications that Elly Ney harmed other people directly, for example through denunciation. However, there is also no evidence that, like Wilhelm Furtwängler, she used her cooperation with the National Socialists to stand up for persecuted people. Elly Ney had personal dealings with many prominent NSDAP politicians, but only a personal encounter with Hitler is documented.

Based on the available sources, the historian Michael Kater comes to the conclusion that Ney was a fanatical National Socialist and that her incessant anti-Semitism was unique among the outstanding musicians of the time. The historian Hans Mommsen counts Elly Ney among the people who actively supported the Nazi dictatorship and supported it morally.

According to Beatrix Borchard's interpretation, Ney used the Beethoven system to justify the Second World War as a cultural defensive battle against sounds and rhythms, which, like jazz , she saw as inferior and dangerous for the species. Ney often quoted the Heiligenstadt Testament by candlelight before starting her concert. According to reports in the New York Times and the Hamburger Abendblatt , Elly Ney opened her concerts with the Hitler salute.

Kurt Wolff, a childhood friend of Elly Ney who emigrated to New York, wrote to her partner Willem van Hoogstraten in a letter from 1947 that, given her passion and temperament, he understood very well that in 1933 she turned to the "brown gods" had fallen for. But he asked how it could be that she joined the party in 1937 and had meanwhile not noticed what was going on.

The incumbent Mayor of Bonn, Peter Maria Busen , said in 1952 that Elly Ney had verbally informed him during a visit that she had succumbed to the deceptions of National Socialism like others and that she regretted it deeply and honestly. It was with horror that she later realized the pernicious influence of National Socialism and its crimes. After this admission, Bonn withdrew a performance ban. Before that, the FDP parliamentary group in Bonn's city council had repeatedly campaigned for the ban on appearances to be lifted; An advocacy of the Ney admirer Theodor Heuss is suspected.

Wilhelm Hausenstein wrote in his diaries:

“I was credibly told that American officers bring in Nazi artists in a private but (for officers) at least officious form. Elly Ney was taken to a general in the car, in Bad Heilbronn, if I kept it right. She is the specimen of an artistry as stupid as it is talented; their Hitlerism was the imposed stupidity (perhaps mixed with some hysteria) and is, if at all, partly exculpable from the stupidity. "

In her autobiography, Elly Ney did not go into her National Socialist past, no public declaration or distancing is known. This is controversially judged as shame or stubbornness.

Honors

  • Josef Weinträger , Hans von Wolhaben , Heinrich Lersch , Agnes Miegel and Ina Seidel dedicated poems to her
  • 1927 honorary citizen of Bonn
  • 1937 Hitler is appointed professor honoris causa
  • 1937 Silver Olympic commemorative medal for use by Hitler in the 1936 Olympic Games
  • 1937 portrait by the painter Hans Trimborn . (Elly Ney was friends with the painter and musician Hans Trimborn. Unlike Ney, Trimborn was distant towards National Socialism; his expressionist image contradicts the art doctrine of the time. It is unclear whether Ney was not given it for this reason and did not buy it and whether Trimborn wanted to express his criticism of Ney.)
  • In the early 1940s, Elly Ney received the Beethoven Medal from the city of Bonn.
  • 1943 War Merit Cross 2nd class for troop support
  • 1943 Beethoven Medal, on October 17th with Karl F. Chudoba
  • 1944 honorary member of the University of Rostock
  • 1952 honorary citizen of Tutzing
  • 1967 Concert and reception by the city of Bonn on the 85th birthday

Debate about honors

Street in Tutzing named after Elly Ney (April 3, 2009). The additional sign "honorary citizen" has been removed
Old lettering of the Elly-Ney monument on the Brahmspromenade in Tutzing. (April 3, 2009) The board was replaced in 2010.
The text on the new panel recalls the pianist's National Socialist past. The reference to honorary citizenship is missing.
Elly Ney memorial on the Brahmspromenade in Tutzing, detail (April 3, 2009). The red paint is the remains of damage caused by strangers after the controversial decision of the Tutzing municipal council not to remove the monument to the artist who was involved in National Socialism.

In 2008 a debate began in the Tutzing community about honoring Elly Ney, which attracted nationwide attention. Elly Ney is an honorary citizen of the community, a street there is named after her and a memorial on a promenade on Lake Starnberg is dedicated to her. Stephan Wanner, who was elected for the first time in the 2008 local elections , had a picture of Elly Ney removed from the town hall, which sparked the debate. Among other things, the chairwoman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch , spoke out against the continued honoring of Elly Ney because of the undoubtedly established anti-Semitic stance. On January 25, 2009, the Evangelical Academy Tutzing hosted a panel discussion on the Ney problem and culture of remembrance, which was broadcast on January 31, 2009 by the Bayerischer Rundfunk television.

Michael Kater, professor emeritus of history at York University in Toronto and author of the textbook The Abused Muse. Musicians and composers in the Third Reich , recommended clear distancing in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung . He rated Ney as a "repulsive figure in German music history". Their anti-Semitism is inexcusable and partly simply selfishly motivated by their annoying competition from Jewish musicians.

Hans Maier , former Bavarian State Minister D. and professor of history and political science, considers the question of whether Ney distanced himself from National Socialism in the post-war period to be decisive. However, the few existing documents on this subject are controversial. Maier is of the opinion that honored artists do not necessarily have to have exemplary qualities in their entire work.

On February 9, 2009, the municipal council of Tutzing decided, against the mayor's request, to leave the Elly-Ney memorial in its place, but to attach an additional sign with information about their National Socialist involvement. There is no need to advise about honorary citizenship , as this expired with her death. In similar cases, other municipalities reacted to this legally correct fact with the symbolic revocation of historical honorary citizenship. At the same meeting on February 9, 2009, the municipal council of Tutzing made use of this possibility of posthumous withdrawal in the case of the former Munich Gauleiter and founder of the Dachau concentration camp, Adolf Wagner , because in his case there was a different level of injustice, while Elly Ney was only “active Follower ”. The forgotten historical honorary citizenship of Wagner in Tutzing became known in the course of the Ney discussion. The honorary grave of Elly Ney in Tutzing is to be maintained at the expense of the community, the term honorary citizen is to be removed from the labeling of the Elly-Ney memorial and Elly-Ney-Strasse. The local council distanced itself from the anti-Semitic statements made by Elly Ney and her support for National Socialism.

The decision was critically commented, for example by the Osnabrücker Zeitung as a “shameful embarrassment”. Gerhard Summer wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “In any case, there is no such thing as a distanced honor - either you stand by someone or you don't.” The Elly Ney memorial statue was damaged on February 11, 2009 by unknown perpetrators; a connection with the decision of the Tutzing municipal council on the monument is suspected.

At its meeting from June 16 to July 7, 2009, the Tutzing municipal council postponed the decision to re-label the Elly-Ney monument, as it was not yet possible to agree on a wording. Among other things, the journalist Heinz Klaus Mertes , who lives in Tutzing, suggested the Augustine quote “Fight the error, not the one who is wrong!”. The municipality of Tutzing announced on its website in July 2009: “Not to let the story in its entirety be forgotten and to warn against being appropriated as a beneficiary of totalitarian systems, is the intention of this board.” The sentence stands up like this the new plaque, whereby the honoring monument tends to be redefined as a memorial.

Critical examination of music culture

In 2008, in memory of the pianist Karlrobert Kreiten , a “Concerto Recitativo” compiled by Hans Christian Schmidt-Banse with the title On this unfortunate May 3, 1943, was performed during the Beethoven Festival in Bonn . Kreiten had expressed himself critically about National Socialism in private circles and was executed after denunciation. The read-out texts contrasted this with the behavior of Elly Ney, who placed herself, her art and Beethoven's music in the service of National Socialism.

Trivia

Elly Ney was also referred to as the imperial piano grandmother , widow of Beethoven and later as Hitler's pianist . This latter epithet is misleading, however, since Ney failed to play Hitler personally despite several attempts; their support related to the National Socialist regime.

In his film Ludwig van, Mauricio Kagel had a caricature depicting Elly Ney play the Waldstein sonata in a satirical sequence and quote Beethoven.

The Vienna-based pianist and puppeteer Norman Shetler , a great admirer of Elly Ney, has a puppet called “Nelly Ei” appear during his performances, which beats a small piano with all his body to the piano sounds of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

Publications

  • with Josef Magnus Wehner: A life for music. Schneekluth Verlag, Würzburg 1952. (2nd and 3rd edition under the title: Memories and Reflections: My Life from Music . Arrangement: Josef Magnus Wehner. Paul Pattloch Verlag, Aschaffenburg 1957)

literature

Web links

Commons : Elly Ney  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A broader public was recently brought closer to the problem through the repeated broadcast (most recently on March 6, 2016) of a documentary film on television. Moonlight sonata. The popular pianist Elly Ney . A film by Axel Fuhrmann . WDR 2014.
  2. ^ Elly Ney, letter to the Beethoven-Haus association in Bonn, Charlottenburg, February 2, 1921, autograph.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de  
  3. ↑ Elly Ney: Beethoven's romantic pianist . ( Memento from February 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Manfred van Rey : "Beethoven - Bonn - Elly Ney". A difficult relationship. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Volume 51/52, p. 458.
  5. ^ A b Manfred van Rey: "Beethoven - Bonn - Elly Ney". A difficult relationship. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Volume 51/52, p. 457.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ernst Klee: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 432.
  7. ^ Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945. CD-Rom Lexicon. Kiel 2004, p. 4852.
  8. ^ Prieberg: Handbook. P. 4862.
  9. ↑ Communication from your secretariat to the special trustee for professions in the arts of November 19, 1944. 180,708 RM income plus 9,000 RM remuneration for teaching at the Mozarteum.
  10. ↑ stadt-muenster.de: (Details on the show ZeitZeichen , September 27, 2007) ( Memento from January 18, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ Prieberg: Handbook. P. 4866.
  12. ↑ See entry in the catalog of the German Music Archive.
  13. ↑ a b Peter Stähle: Well, Amen, poor Elly Ney. In the time. No. 15, April 9, 1964.
  14. ↑ The psychogram of a mass murderer . In nachrichten.at , accessed on February 4, 2009.
  15. ↑ Michael H. Kater: The abused muse. Musicians and composers in the Third Reich . Europa Verlag, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-203-79004-1 , p. 66.
  16. ↑ Prof. Mauser In: The pianist Elly Ney. Culture of remembrance - How do elites deal with dictatorship? TV broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk , first broadcast on January 31, 2009, 10:30 p.m., in BR Alpha
  17. ↑ The pianist Elly Ney. Culture of remembrance - How do elites deal with dictatorship? TV broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk , first broadcast on January 31, 2009, 10:30 p.m., in BR Alpha
  18. ↑ Quoted from Georg Friedrich Kühn: Romantic at the piano . In: Deutschlandradio Online. September 27, 2007, accessed February 4, 2009.
  19. ↑ Elly Ney makes her debut. In: The New York Times. October 16, 1921, p. 22.
  20. ↑ quoted from The Last Concerts by Elly Ney . ( Memento from May 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ^ Elly Ney - Pro Classics Artist Biography and Discography . In: Pro Classics , accessed February 4, 2009.
  22. ^ Christian Wildhagen: Moral and Magic Late recordings by Elly Ney . In: NZZ Online. April 16, 2003, accessed March 5, 2019.
  23. ↑ Christine Lemke-Matwey: Pianistic poetry album . In: Die Zeit , No. 31/2004.
  24. ↑ Manfred van Rey: "Beethoven - Bonn - Elly Ney". A difficult relationship. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Volume 51/52, p. 465.
  25. ↑ Scan of the telegram from Ney to Reichskulturwart Hinkel (PDF; 104 kB). In: Tutzing community. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  26. ^ Scan of the telegram from Ney to Adolf Hitler of December 17, 1938 (PDF; 251 kB). In: Tutzing community. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  27. ↑ Manfred van Rey: "Beethoven - Bonn - Elly Ney". A difficult relationship. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Volume 51/52, pp. 456-457.
  28. ↑ a b Interview with Michael Kater: Ney saw National Socialism as a weapon against Judaism. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 17, 2009, local supplement Starnberg, p. R2.
  29. ↑ The Reichs-Brahms Festival 1933 in Hamburg - reconstruction and documentation ( Memento of 9 October 2007 at the Internet Archive )
  30. ↑ Interview as part of the reporting "Elly Ney" in ARD Nachtmagazin on February 10, 2009, 12:20 am
  31. ↑ Beatrix Borchard: Beethoven, masculinity constructions in the field of music. In: Martina Kessel (Ed.): Art, Gender, Politics. Campus Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-593-37540-0 , p. 78.
  32. ↑ Views of a friend from New York . Publication of Kurt Wolff's letter. In: Starnberg Mercury. January 24, 2009, p. 12.
  33. ↑ Manfred van Rey: "Beethoven - Bonn - Elly Ney". A difficult relationship. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Volume 51/52, pp. 449-499.
  34. ↑ Theodor Heuss also saw himself as a reconciler, in this case the city of Bonn with its honorary citizen. In addition, the Office of the Federal President received numerous letters from citizens who campaigned for Elly Ney. The FDP parliamentary group in Bonn's city council argued that people who were politically wrong cannot be damned forever. A Communist MP also argued that such political activity, as it is said to be said of Ms. Ney, no longer weighs heavily. He referred to former SS men in the service of the Bonn police. Source: Manfred van Rey: "Beethoven - Bonn - Elly Ney". A difficult relationship. In: Bonner Geschichtsblätter. Volume 51/52, p. 490.
  35. ^ Wilhelm Hausenstein: Light below the horizon. Diaries 1943 to 1946 . Bruckmann, Munich 1967, p. 400.
  36. ^ Johannes CB Janssen: Hans Trimborn. Inaugural dissertation Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn 2002, p. 146.
  37. ↑ Various communications . In: Herbert Gerigk (Ed.): Music in the war . tape 1 , no. 7/8 , 1943, pp. 158 ( archive.org [accessed May 21, 2013]).
  38. ^ General Gazette Bonn. Review of the year 1943, online article with the wrong date December 31, 1998 general-anzeiger-bonn.de accessed on May 21, 2013.
  39. ↑ Active follower, not a criminal . In: Sueddeutsche Zeitung online. February 11, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2009.
  40. ↑ Tutzing's honorary citizen is not deprived of pianist Elly Ney . In: nmz Neue Musikzeitung online. February 10, 2009, accessed February 10, 2009.
  41. ^ Zeit.de: Dispute about Nazi artist - pianist by Hitler's grace
  42. ↑ An application for posthumous revocation of honorary citizenship was rejected in the Tutzing municipal council with 2 to 17 votes. 14 and 5 municipal councilors voted to keep the name Elly-Ney-Straße. The further maintenance of the honor grave at the expense of the community was decided with 11 to 8 votes. 6 municipal councilors voted for the removal of the Ney monument on the Brahms Promenade, while 13 against it. Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Regional supplement Starnberg, February 11, 2009, p. R1.
  43. ^ Tutzing honorary citizenship Ney , In: Presseportal. Retrieved February 11, 2009.
  44. ^ Gerhard Summer: Split appreciation. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Regional supplement Starnberg, February 11, 2009, p. R1.
  45. ↑ In search of the right words. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Regional supplement Starnberg, June 18, 2009, p. R1.
personal data
SURNAME Ney, Elly
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pianist
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 1968
Place of death Tutzing