'A Windfall of Musicians'
Dorothy Lamb Crawford’s book reveals how escapees from Nazi Germany transformed So Cal’s music culture
By Bliss 02/18/2010
Imagine Igor Stravinsky’s modernist ballet “Agon” never being staged, or Franz Waxman’s “Sunset Boulevard” and “A Place in the Sun” film scores never winning Oscars, because they’d never been written — because their creators were denied the right to exist.
Contemplate Los Angeles without its philharmonic, which might have disappeared if celebrated conductor Otto Klemperer had not arrived to lead the barely surviving orchestra in the early 1930s, or Pasadena Symphony without Richard Lert, whose directorship elevated it into a nationally recognized professional organization between 1936 and 1972.
They were part all of Adolf Hitler’s unintentional artistic legacy, according to Dorothy Lamb Crawford’s engrossing book, “A Windfall of Musicians: Hitler’s Emigres and Exiles in Southern California,” an instructive account of how a particular wave of immigrants transformed local culture in ways that still resonate beneficially today. Composers Arnold Schoenberg and Kurt Weill, singer Lotte Lehmann, violinist Joseph Szigeti, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and pianist Artur Rubinstein are just some of the other artists she profiles.
Fleeing Nazi-controlled Germany and Europe was a matter of life and death for the hugely proud — and proudly German — Klemperer. As “infinitely grateful” as he was to “the great America” for providing refuge for him and his family, he did not ease into life here gracefully, despite enormous support from musicians, audiences and the local press. Says Crawford, who devoted 11 years to researching and writing her book: “All of these people had a very hard time adapting. … They liked the American character, they liked the openness of Americans. But they had to cling together, so émigré circles were very important to them psychologically.”
Crawford tapped contacts developed over 24 years living and working in the Los Angeles area as a musician, teacher and interviewer for the KUSC radio program “Backstage at Royce.” A Getty fellow, she was able to do “a tremendous amount of archival work,” even though she now resides in the Boston area. She was excited by the opportunity to connect with families of her subjects, and to present previously unheard stories.
“There were probably hundreds who had emigrated, because of Hitler, to the area around Hollywood,” she says. “It was mainly because of the Depression and the fact that they hoped to find work in the film studios, [and] the fact that Klemperer had come. It was the only post he could find in the world — he was going to be imprisoned [if he remained in Nazi Germany]. Then the accumulating numbers of them attracted others. So I chose 31 people [who] represent the countries across Europe that Hitler occupied. There aren’t musicologists because they didn’t come to the West Coast, but I tried to represent different aspects of music.”
Dorothy Lamb Crawford discusses “A Windfall of Musicians” at 7 p.m. today, Feb. 18, at Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Info: (626) 449-5320. www.vromansbookstore.com.
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