Harp Column Blogs: Samuel MilliganArchive

I have been absent for a few weeks, because I very foolishly let my virus protection expire, thinking that I would get around to renewing it, but failing to do so. I am now a wiser but poorer man.  Not only was there the price tag of a bit over $450 for a new hard drive, but the loss of some files, both music and text.

But the burnt child shuns the fire, so I now have every protection possible.

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I last wrote about ethical conduct among harpists, and the subject is still very much on my mind.  For instance, I have a problem with Wagner.  It is a sad pity that one of the greatest--and most influential--composers of all times should be so shamelessly racist, and over the years I have questioned various Jewish musicians about how they feel when obligated to play it.  The responses have varied from "I just don't let myself think about it," to "Well, he's dead and we have the music!"

Of more direct concern to me as a harpist is the music of Alfred Holy.  My teacher, Laura Newell, was a student of his at the New England Conservatory just after the First World War.  She utterly despised him, mainly because of his snide and open anti-Semitism.  Later his racism was more forcibly brought to mind when his student, Artiss de Volt, published his memoirs in 1985.

Included on page 79 is a letter from Holy, by then living in Vienna, to a colleague, Theodore Menzel, written a few days before Christmas in 1940.  It contains the following appalling paragraph:

"I had a strange harpistic experience a short time ago.  In the government auction house they were auctioning off a perfect Erard concert harp (with a stylized column) from Jewish owners."

(All Jewish assets were seized by the German government and sold to raise money for the Third Reich.  The owners were sent to the concentration camps.)

The letter continues:  "35 minutes before the beginning I was already there.  And then, when the turn of the harp came, a young lady approached me and told me with a lot of apologies that she had been waiting for years for such a bargain, because she did not have the means, etc., etc..  In short after waiting 2 1/2 hours (preceded by days of trying out the harp), I left the field to the young conservatory student and she acquired the harp for the unusually low price of 360 marks.  For days afterward, the scent of a beautiful bouquet of roses reminded me of the gratitude of the young artist.  This event contributed to my more joyful anticipation of Christmas this year, which is an exception (my family will especially enjoy their presents this time).  In other years, I used to be depressed at Christmas time, remembering my sad youth."

What is particularly horrifying about this incident is the obvious pride that Holy felt in generously letting a student get an affordable instrument, with no concern whatever about the fate of the Jewish owners.  And that what he felt to be his generosity brightened his "joyful anticipation of Christmas" is particularly ghastly. 

And did de Volt think that this would go unnoticed?  I believe that if I were publishing the letters of my teacher and came across such a sickening account, I would certainly try to save his reputation by suppressing it.  What could she have been thinking?

So what has all this to do with me?  For one thing, I will never knowingly go to any recital where Holy's music is to be played, and if in ignorance I find myself in such a place, I will unobtrusively leave.  I'm certain that the recitalist will not notice my absense, and in any case a noisy protest would not be my aim.  No.  It's just that I couldn't abide listening to music by a man who I think was truly evil.

Not that I will have the opportunity.  In all my years of hearing harp recitals, I don't recall anyone ever programming any piece by Holy.  Just as well, I think.

Brooklyn, NY