Adolf Hitler's favourite pianist - by Stephen Hough

Most of us spend most of our moral lives in the middle – sitting on a fence much broader then the gardens on either side. Our days are filled with small acts of cowardice and laziness alternating randomly with small acts of generosity and kindness. The big gestures, whether courageous or cruel, usually pass us by – more often through circumstance than through choice. But at certain times in history, circumstance demands of people difficult or demanding choices, forcing them to confront virtue and vice in real situations, when such choices involve life and death … for themselves and for others. There were two female pianists in the last century, both Beethoven specialists and exact contemporaries, who did not sit on the broad fence like most of us, but who stood in the gardens on opposite sides with utter conviction and determination.

Elly Ney (1882-1968), it is said, was a “fanatical supporter” of Hitler. She voluntarily joined the Nazi party in 1937, participated in ‘cultural education camps’, became an honorary member of the League of German Girls, and wrote adoring letters to “mein Führer”. According to the pianist Edward Kilenyi, who was a captain in the US Army at the time, she would read extracts of Hitler’s writings and soldiers’ letters from the concert stage; and in Salzburg, where she taught during the war, she used to honour Beethoven’s bust with a Nazi salute. After the war she was banned from performing in Bonn, and a request in 1952 for this ban to be lifted was refused. Her career, which had flourished in the earlier years of the century, never recovered, and just last year the mayor of Tutzing, the small Bavarian town where she died, finally removed her portrait from the Town Hall.

Dame Myra Hess (1890-1965) could easily have escaped safely to America at the outbreak of the Second World War, where she had a huge following, but she chose to abandon her international career and stay at home in central London during the worst of the bombing. After the outbreak of war all public places of entertainment were closed, but she convinced the government to allow her to start a daily series of concerts at the National Gallery which began on 10th October 1939 and continued until 1946. Although all the paintings and sculptures had been removed for safe-keeping, and occasional daytime air raids meant that the audience and musicians had to retreat to the basement, 824,000 people attended 1,698 concerts during London’s darkest days. Dame Myra felt that music could give a genuine moral boost to people facing terror and hardship, and she was prepared to risk her life and livelihood for that cause.

Most of us fall into the middle of these two extremes, and our various shades of moral grey can fluctuate daily, depending on all kinds of varying circumstances. Some artists who left Nazi Germany were courageous, some selfish; some who stayed there were courageous, some selfish. Some began well but descended to evil and collaboration; others began badly but later discovered heroism and humanity. I mean to prove nothing by placing these two formidable ladies next to each other in this way, except, perhaps, to pose the question: is there a moral dimension to music? Can a person who does evil things be a great artist?