Citizens or Children?

When artists get concerned with politics, they act like other citizens. Last week in Modern Music magazine five famous European composers, now in the U.S., tried to answer a purely political question: what should be done to Europe's collaborationist composers?

French Composer Darius Milhaud answered unequivocally: "I don't see why artists should not be treated as ordinary citizens. Jacques Benoist-Mechin is a composer who has written a few works in which you may find a certain gift. He was a minister in the Laval cabinet. Now he is arrested, accused as a traitor, a German spy. I hope he will be shot."

More lenient, Czech Composer Bohuslav Martinu and Italian modernist Composer Vittorio Rieti hedged. So did Austrian Composer Ernst Krenek, who philosophically noted that the great 16th-Century Italian Composer Palestrina "collaborated" with the Pope and the Council of Trent, and that Russian Composer Dmitri Shostakovich is unquestionably "collaborating" with Joseph Stalin. Concluded he: "Anyone called upon for advice will have to search his conscience: does he wish to lend his hand to the political game, or does he prefer to live by the word of the Gospel: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' "

The most tolerant as well as the weariest of all the answers was that of Austria's (now California's) sad-eyed Arnold Schoenberg: ". . . Considering the low mental and moral standards of artists in general, I would say: Treat them like immature children. Call them fools and let them escape."

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