When a concert with works by Alois Hába, Wilhelm Grosz and Ernst Krenek took place in Donaueschingen on July 31, 1921, nobody suspected that this would be the founding act of a musical company that is now one of the internationally renowned festivals for contemporary music and can now celebrate his centenary next October. The "Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the Promotion of Contemporary Music" - that was the name of the concert series at the time - pursued the goal of providing a podium for the young generation of composers, for whose works there were hardly any performance opportunities three years after the end of the war.
A program committee, consisting of the Reger pupil Joseph Haas, the pianist Eduard Erdmann and Heinrich Burkhard, choir conductor and archivist in the Fürstlich Fürstenbergische Musikaliensammlung in Donaueschingen, had put together a program for three concerts from the scores submitted by one hundred and thirty-seven composers; an international honorary committee, including Ferruccio Busoni, Richard Strauss, Franz Schreker and Arthur Nikisch, gave the company the higher orders.
The fact that the initiative came about at all was thanks to Prince Max Egon II zu Fürstenberg, who resided in Donaueschingen, who acted as a patron of the classic style and gave the artistically responsible full freedom.
That was anything but a matter of course in a time of revolutionary upheaval, in which a nobility whose existence was threatened had other concerns than financing new music festivals.
The driving force was the young musician Heinrich Burkhard.
He was involved in the founding of the civil society of Musikfreunde Donaueschingen, which is still a co-organizer of the Musiktage, and acted as an organizational link between the ducal house and the urban bourgeoisie.
The role of the nobles
From a musical point of view, the early history of the festival is well documented in the volume "Spiegel der neue Musik: Donaueschingen" by Josef Häusler from 1996, a basic work on the performance history of new music. The opposite perspective - the view of the Princely House on the founding years of the festival - is presented in the book “Max Egon II. Zu Fürstenberg - Prince, Soldier, Patron” (Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2019, 464 pp., 45 euros). The lavishly illustrated volume of three kilograms in weight, edited with scientific thoroughness, was edited by Max Egon's great-grandson, Heinrich Fürst zu Fürstenberg, and by Andreas Wilts, head of the Fürstenberg collections.
It is more than just a biographical work about a powerful and influential nobleman who grew up in the late period of the German Empire and who knew how to defend the interests of his house with skill and intelligence, even under republican conditions. With the breadth of the historical horizon and the detailed description of the political and economic developments in which the Donaueschingen prince actively participated, the volume also provides a fascinating insight into an important piece of contemporary history.
Max Egon, who came from the Bohemian line of the Fürstenberg family and did not settle in Donaueschingen until 1897, acted as an unofficial mediator between the German and the Habsburg empires until 1918 by virtue of his origins and went in and out of the Austrian and German emperors.
He was an intimate friend of Wilhelm II, had him a dozen times as a guest in Donaueschingen, from the fox hunt to the wedding of his daughter, and accompanied him on week-long trips to the Mediterranean.
In the letters from these trips to his wife, which are stored in the Fürstenberg archives, a mosaic-like psychogram of the emperor emerges, who is also once quoted as saying that the Germans are “the most ungrateful subjects”.
The role of the nobles
Max Egon himself appears in the book as a down-to-earth man of the world, as a salon lion of the highest quality and a successful person with sympathetic human features. As a young lawyer he got a bloody nose with speculative transactions, but later showed a high sense of responsibility in dealing with his social obligations. Unfortunately, this did not save the seventy-year-old in 1933 from the political stupidity of joining the NSDAP and making himself available to the Nazis as a model nobleman. Perhaps his inclination towards operetta-like productions and rituals made him susceptible to it. The fact that this dark spot is being worked out for the first time and with unreserved clarity is to be credited to the present portrayal of life, which is also a self-portrayal of the Princely House.
A detailed chapter written by the editor Wilts is devoted to the Donaueschingen chamber music performances from 1921 to 26.
They fit seamlessly into the prince's sometimes adventurous life, and a flamboyant trait makes him the generous host he is praised as in the testimonies of the invited musicians.
However, some of their statements border on submission.
Arnold Schönberg, personally invited by the prince, feels in his reply letter published here for the first time by the “wonderful enterprise” reminded of bygone times, “when the prince stood protectively in front of the artists and showed the mob that art - a matter of Prince - evades common judgment. "
The Donaueschingen prince finds his amusement above all in the sociable accompanying programs, the round tables and the jokes of the musicians. He listens to the works himself with calm equanimity and occasionally writes down in his notes: “Very good visitors, good mood. Great operation. ”This is another way of writing music history.