| http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/May08/Schmidt_buch_CHSA5061.htm
Posted by Martin Walker on May 13, 2008, 12:37 pm
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With regard to Schmidt's supposed Nazi affiliations, it does seem fair to point out that he was very ill by the time the Nazis fêted him as the great Austrian composer (for obvious reasons), and that he put the work commissioned by them aside uncompleted in the last months of his life to write pieces for Paul Wittgenstein, already an emigré whose music was banned at the time of the Anschluss (for obvious reasons). Both Oscar Adler and Hans Keller (the latter very active in British musical life in the 60s, by the way) stressed his political innocence and human integrity as well as his musical genius.
I can very well imagine how the mortally sick composer was inveigled into making the Nazi salute after the successful performance (by a Nazi conductor) of his great work. In the circumstances, I do not believe that it would serve either his reputation or our musical appreciation to drag the unfinished work out of its obscurity - especially when his great opera Fredigundis is still awaiting a proper recording.
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