Judging Performance, Performing Judgments: Race and Performance in Weimar Germany

The past has become more important than before. We are in search of authenticity. The crucial thing is that the productive artist is no longer in control, and hence the growth of importance of the reproductive artist. --Wilhelm Furtwangler ([1928] 1989: 31; emphasis in the original) In the summer of 1930, the pianist John Flaffith concertized throughout Europe and astounded audiences with his vivid interpretations of a varied repertoire, ranging from Debussy and Stravinsky to Bach and Mozart. In Poland, the Kurjer Polski raved: "Yesterday John Flaffith played before a wild audience. What this great artist understands and brings [to the music] can only be appreciated still more by the expert. The present author, who has heard the great masters of the piano play and can be regarded as the quintessential critic has only this to say: John Flaffith was better than them all." (1) In Budapest, the Magyarorszag reported, "It brings us great pleasure to report on the enormous success [enjoyed] by John Flaffith, who played the most difficult pieces with great technique and the most intimate feeling for the piano." But, as the article went on to say, what most astonished concertgoers "is that Mister Flaffith is a Negro! [One] infused with the soul of Beethoven and Liszt. In short: a phenomenon who should serve as a model for the white piano player" (Harrer 1930: 735). (2) Alas, Flaffiths success did not last. Just prior to an engagement before a packed house in Germany, Flaffith was confronted by a crazed fellow artist who shouted "I want us white artists to be free of the black menace!" before pulling out a revolver and shooting Flaffith in the shoulder. As stagehands scurried to get medical attention, Flaffith's agent was heard to cry out "No water, no water!" It was not long before the sentiment behind this curious aversion was revealed, for no sooner had one stagehand put a wet washcloth on Flaffith's forehead than loud cries were heard throughout the hall: "Flaffith is no Negro, he is white!" (Harrer: 735). (3) Months later, Flaffith found himself fully recovered but unable to secure even a single engagement. Eventually, he revealed to a German reporter the inspiration behind his successful, if short-lived, ruse: It was not my idea, but rather that of my wife ... After we had married I played in a bar in New York, which went rather badly. But I lost the position because my playing was too serious. Anny, who always gave me encouragement, said that I should try being a piano virtuoso. It came to nothing. A Negro film, which we saw together during this time, suddenly gave Anny the idea that I could try doing things as a Negro artist. The last of our savings brought us across the ocean. In the beginning I tried to concertize in several cities as a white pianist, but had no success. But if I appeared as a Negro, I found myself enthusiastically welcomed; in short: I was soon a true great known the world over. (Harrer 1930: 737) (4) The story is likely fictional: no trace of John Flaffith can be found in other contemporary sources. But its underlying claim--that musical performance has never been purely about the music itself but rather has found itself bound up in larger questions surrounding what is performed, when and by whom--is a concern which loomed large in the minds of music critics of the interwar period. And yet, scholars of Weimar Germany have been surprisingly slow in turning their attention toward performance to see what it can tell us about the larger socio-historical context in which it is produced. There is a robust historiography outlining the culture wars fought over the nationalist inclinations and legacies of composers and the extent to which they and their music could be said to reflect or anticipate conservative, liberal, socialist, and nascent national-socialist ideals (on Handel, see Potter 2011. For Beethoven, see Dennis 1996. For a recent account of the Nazis' appropriation of Mozart, see Levi 2011). …