A music theory professor attached to the University of North Texas (USA), Timothy L. Jackson PhD, has written a comprehensive article posted on Whiterose Magazine, entitled “When you cannot create new music: a warning from history” dated 1 April 2024.
The author explores the dark years of Nazi Germany, the improbable musical creation of the period, and the “Nordic Festival” that opened in Lübeck on 8 June 1935, with a speech by Alfred Rosenberg, the ideologue of the National Socialist Party. He fully associates Furtwängler with it, indicating on several occasions that on that day the conductor had led his Berlin Philharmonic in a programme that included Sibelius's 7th Symphony. He even posted the following photo on the site, with a caption differing from the original one on the newspaper from which it was taken, and linking it to a photo of Rosenberg addressing the crowd gathered on 8 June.
No, Furtwängler did not conduct his orchestra in Lübeck on that date and after Rosenberg's speech! He was on tour, on the road from Munich to Stuttgart. It was on June 26 that Furtwängler and his Philharmoniker actually visited Lübeck. All you had to do was consult the BPO archives and the newspapers of the time to write about it.
That Dr Jackson portrays Furtwängler in a less than favourable light, even darkening him, is his absolute right. But for him to arrange facts and dates in order to distort the truth demonstrates a lack of the most elementary probity, a virtue that we would expect from a “Distinguished University Research Professor”. For such is his position.
We pointed this out to him and requested a correction to his article. We haven't even received a reply...
