A Place in the Pantheon: A new biography of Willem Mengelberg reveals a flawed genius, says Chris Walton

Review of Frits Zwart, Conductor Willem Mengelberg, 1871–1951: Acclaimed and Accused, tr. Cynthia Wilson (Amsterdam University Press, 2019).

March 2020, Volume 14, Number 1, 94–6.

Consider the case of a conductor from the first half of the 20th century, celebrated everywhere as a brilliant heir to the rubato tradition of Nikisch. He’s a champion of music new and old, but renowned above all for his interpretations of the great Austro-German repertoire. A rivalry with Toscanini in New York in the 1920s proves problematic; and then, under the Nazis, our conductor acquiesces in the removal of Jewish and modern composers from the repertoire (albeit after some protestation). He courts leading members of Hitler’s government, and continues to perform at home and in occupied Europe. He flees to Switzerland before the end of the war, and remains resident there till his death just a few years later. Although the postwar authorities clear him of any major wrongdoing, and despite being proven to have helped numerous Jewish musicians escape persecution, his former proximity to the Nazis leaves an indelible stain on his reputation.