New Yorker Music Critic Delivers Elson Lecture on Wagnerism

UPDATED: April 20, 2018 at 6:30 a.m.

Alex Ross ’90 delivered this year’s Louis C. Elson Lecture entitled “Wagner, Hitler, and the Cult of Art” at the John Knowles Paine Concert Hall Thursday evening.

Established in 1944 by Bertha A. Elson in memory of her late composer husband, the annual lecture—which is sponsored by the Department of Music—has invited lecturers ranging from Yo-Yo Ma ’76 to Laurie Anderson in past years.

A former English concentrator, Ross is now a classical music critic at the New Yorker, where he began writing shortly after graduating summa cum laude from the College in 1990. During his time at Harvard, Ross was a classical music disc jockey at the WHRB radio station.

Suzannah E. Clark, the chair of the Department of Music, introduced Ross prior to the lecture.

“What makes [Ross] unique as a critic is that he seeks out music along the full spectrum of venues,” she said. “He is a preeminent voice in the world of music.”

During his lecture, Ross focused on the cultural and political role German classical composer W. Richard Wagner played in the Nazi regime, and the legacy of Nazi Wagnerism in subsequent decades.

“This is a massive subject, because Wagner may be, for better or for worse, the most widely influential figure in the history of music,” Ross said.

“Of the Wagnerisms, the one with which people are most familiar is the ‘Nazi’ version. The single thing that the man or the woman in the street knows about Wagner is that he was Hitler’s favorite composer,” Ross said.

Ross added that he believes despite the common associations between Wagner’s work and Nazism, Wagner’s historical place in Nazi culture and the “pantheon of high art” was much less secure.

“My aim...is to find a way of envisioning Wagner’s influence without falling prey to this kind of teleological, goal-directed thinking, and to restore, in some way, the complexity and contingency of this history and recapture the majestic confusion once meant to be Wagnerian,” Ross said.

Ross pointed out several differences between Wagner and Adolf Hitler, whom Wagner is thought to have deeply influenced.

“Wagner was a vicious anti-Semite, but anti-Semitism in itself is not a political program. Nor is Wagner’s anti-Semitism the same as Hitler’s. Although he helped to popularize biological racism, he never completed the transition from religious anti-Semitism to scientific anti-Semitism,” Ross said.

Ross acknowledged that “Hitler’s literacy as a Wagnerian assisted his rise,” especially among wealthier individuals and groups at the time. One such individual was Ernst F. Hanfstaengl, Class of 1909, with whom Hitler “formed a crucial bond.” Hanfstaengl played Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger” for Hitler, who, according to Ross, was delighted.

“When he visited Harvard for his 25th anniversary in 1934, the editors of The Crimson said [Hanfstaengl] should be awarded an honorary degree,” Ross said.

In addition to mentioning Wagner’s influence on Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will,” Ross discussed his influence on American films ranging from D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” to Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”

“Although that I personally feel that Wagner’s responsibility [for Nazism] has been greatly overstated...I am not trying to wag my finger and say it’s wrong," Ross said. "In any case, there is no dislodging the association. Instead, I’m inclined to think about how the cult of art resonates in our own time and how we might learn from its persistence."

Ryan Zhang ’21 attended the event and was impressed by Ross’s “very nuanced thesis that Wagner during the Nazi era wasn’t as widely popular as his legacy makes him out to be.”

“When we think of Wagner in Nazi Germany, we think that everyone loved Wagner, but it’s interesting how Wagner, even then, was mainly a tool for the upper echelons of the party,” Zhang said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: April 20, 2018

A previous version of this article incorrectly indicated that the Elson Lecture was established in 1994. In fact, the lecture was established in 1944.