Fate at the Door

The booming crescendo of Allied guns in Normandy and central Italy might sound to many European musicians like Beethoven's "Fate knocking at the door."

Last week a mob of anti-Fascist Italians sacked the Roman villa of Beniamino Gigli, famed tenor, who in 1932 quit the Metropolitan and returned to Italy in a huff after refusing to accept a depression pay-cut. Tenor Gigli was accused of friendliness with Nazi officials in Italy.

Others who heard the knocking:

Richard Strauss, generally rated the greatest living composer, a consistent opponent of the Nazis, who nevertheless in 1940 composed and dedicated to the Mikado a piece in honor of the 2,600th anniversary of the Japanese Imperial dynasty.

Arthur Honegger, eminent, Swiss-born modernist composer, who has been touring Germany under Nazi auspices.

Pietro Mascagni, 80-year-old composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, who has long been a favorite of Mussolini's Black Shirts.

Wilhelm Furtwdngler, greatest living German conductor, who, after a tiff with the Nazi authorities in 1934, became the pride of Nazi Germany's concert halls and opera houses.

Walter Gieseking, one of the world's half-dozen greatest pianists, who has been touring Nazi Germany for several years with enormous success.

Willem Mengelberg, famed Dutch conductor and onetime (1922-30) chief of the New York Philharmonic, whose guest appearances with German symphony orchestras continued comfortably after Nazi occupation of Holland.

Clemens Krauss, Vienna born, onetime guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, who rushed to Berlin in 1934 to accept a Nazi contract as conductor of the Berlin State Opera.

Kirsten Flagstad, world's greatest Wagnerian soprano and onetime top star of the Metropolitan, who has conspicuously refrained from appearing in Nazi or Nazi-controlled opera houses, but is living in semi-retirement with her quisling husband Henry Johansen in occupied Norway.

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