It began with flattery.
In the years before World War II, Nazi Germany wasn’t just building tanks and ideology—it was also wooing Britain with music. Leading the charm offensive was Joachim von Ribbentrop, an ambitious Nazi official (and skilled violinist) freshly appointed as ambassador to London in 1936. Rather than go through official channels, Ribbentrop made a clever move: he targeted Sir Thomas Beecham, Britain’s most influential conductor.
By appealing to Beecham’s ego and artistic pride, he proposed a seductive idea—an exchange of top orchestras between Germany and Britain. On the surface, it was cultural diplomacy. Behind the scenes, it was about softening British views of the Nazi regime. As director of Covent Garden and founder of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Beecham held the keys to Britain’s classical music scene. And Ribbentrop knew exactly how to use that to his regime’s advantage.
Dresden Opera went down a storm in London
Ribbentrop brokered a bold cultural swap: the prestigious Dresden State Opera would perform a short season at Covent Garden, while Beecham and the London Philharmonic Orchestra would tour Germany in return. The deal was sweetened by a promise—the profits from the Dresden shows would cover the LPO’s travel costs. Both high-profile events were set for November 1936, timed to dazzle audiences on both sides of the Channel.
Dresden Opera’s London visit was certainly one of the highlights of British musical life in the 1930s. Over a fortnight, the company presented a spectacular series of productions at the Royal Opera House: Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Marriage of Figaro, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
These productions all sold out many weeks before they took place. Furthermore, they became major society events, attracting many of the wealthiest members of the British aristocracy, several of whom were actively sympathetic towards the Nazis.
An illustrious visitor
Despite a crammed schedule, time was also found for the Dresden Staatskapelle to give three orchestral concerts at the Queen’s Hall (ironically, later destroyed by the Nazis during World War II). Most of the performances were conducted by Karl Böhm, the Dresden Opera’s music director who shared the rostrum with Richard Strauss, the venerable composer having been specially invited to London to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society’s prestigious gold medal.
What made the Dresden Opera’s London visit truly extraordinary was its scale: the entire company—singers, orchestra, technicians—was shipped over, fully funded by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Seven railway wagons were needed just to carry stage sets and technical gear from Dresden to Covent Garden. Adapting these elaborate productions to a new venue wasn’t easy, but Covent Garden’s team worked closely with their German guests to make the transition seamless.
The Germans 'came, saw and conquered'
The press reaction was unanimously positive in both countries. Reporting on the triumphant first night of Rosenkavalier, one Dresden newspaper labelled it a ‘smash hit’ (Bombenerfolg), adding with somewhat unfortunate militaristic connotations that the ‘Staatsoper had come, saw and conquered’. The Daily Mail refrained from such tub-thumping, but its comments were no less effusive.
Under the headline ‘3,000 cheer composer at the opera’, the newspaper noted that a huge audience, ‘including guest of honour Herr von Ribbentrop making his first public appearance since his appointment as German ambassador, prominent members of Mayfair society and people who had queued for 36 hours outside the gallery doors, filled the Royal Opera House for one of the most remarkable exhibitions of musical enthusiasm shown by the British public for a generation.’
When Richard Strauss, who shared a box with Ribbentrop, appeared before the curtain after the second act, the paper noted the ‘audience response reached fever pitch. Clapping went on unceasingly for several minutes, and even people in the boxes and stalls stamped their feet and shouted.’
The London Phil heads out to Nazi Germany
Three days before the end of the Dresden season, Beecham and the LPO embarked on their ten-day tour of Germany, performing in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Ludwigshafen and Cologne. Beecham’s decision to accept Ribbentrop’s invitation, however, caused some unease among the orchestra’s players.
Its Jewish members expressed anxiety about performing in Nazi Germany, as did other players who had served against Germany in the First World War. Beecham assuaged these fears by arguing that the main purpose of the tour was to show their hosts that a British orchestra was perfectly capable of matching and even exceeding the playing standards of any German ensemble.
Furthermore, he declared his total opposition to any external political interference in musical matters. As a symbol of his independent outlook, Beecham proposed to programme Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, knowing full well that the great composer’s music was outlawed in Germany on racial grounds.
Hitler came to the first concert
Beecham soon realised that performing Mendelssohn would be a step too far – during the tour itself, the composer’s statue in Leipzig would be pulled down – and the proposal was hastily withdrawn even before they reached Germany. Nevertheless, he and the orchestra could not avoid the Nazis exploiting the tour for propaganda purposes.
Their opening sold-out concert in Berlin, featuring music by Dvořák, Haydn, Berlioz and Elgar, was given with Hitler, Goebbels and other leading Nazi functionaries in attendance. The performances received a rapturous reception, but a Berlin newspaper claimed that the most significant aspect of the concert was that Hitler was present. It noted that the honours the Führer had paid to Sir Thomas would undoubtedly have been specially appreciated in the influential ranks of the British aristocracy, which had always been the main focus of the Reich’s diplomatic efforts in Britain.
As the tour progressed, the Nazi emphasis on political propaganda, coupled with an almost obsessive desire to exploit the social aspect of the exchange, became increasingly a burden for the London Phil players. One member later recalled that the over-zealous and boozy post-concert receptions, organised in all the cities the orchestra visited, resulted in some players harbouring much stronger feelings against the Nazis than before.
Beecham also became increasingly disenchanted. After his concert in Munich, he complained to the British ambassador that, despite his intention that the tour should to be appreciated from a strictly musical point of view, his efforts were being thwarted. Firstly, by the obligation to meet a seemingly endless number of Lord Mayors and local Gauleiters at each event, and then by festivities organised for the players after each concert which lasted well into the night and only succeeded in tiring out his orchestra.
Though Beecham and the LPO were received enthusiastically everywhere they performed, and the reviews in the German press were extremely positive about their playing, the overt propaganda they encountered was such that further musical exchanges of this kind were no longer deemed viable.
There were a few more attempts to cement Anglo-German friendship through music: a concert of British music was given by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1936, featuring the German premiere of William Walton’s recently composed First Symphony; and the same orchestra made two separate visits to Britain with the great Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had a complex relationship with the Nazi regime, in 1937. But the increasingly unstable political situation in the late 1930s meant the two countries were destined ultimately to make war, not music.
All pics: Getty Images
