The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler

The phrase ‘Something nasty in the woodshed’ has become proverbial, a form of shorthand denoting psychic trauma. Whatever that something was, it was seen in her youth by Great-Aunt Ada Doom in Stella Gibbons’ satirical parody of rustic fiction,
Cold Comfort Farm,
a book whose popularity threatened to discredit rural novels altogether—but not, be it noted, supernaturalist ones. Although it may seem appropriate that Reggie Oliver should be Stella Gibbons’ nephew (he paid tribute to her in a biography called
Out of the Woodshed),
his gifts for parody and pastiche being akin to hers, in his macabre tales he none the less leads us firmly back into that woodshed, and does so with a detached aplomb worthy of his aunt’s heroine Flora Poste (although displaying a good deal more empathy with his material than she did).

Oliver’s handling of his chosen subject matter is always level-headed, inventive and humane. Such an approach may well reflect his experience as a playwright; but he is in any case a born storyteller. Some of his tales, ‘The Blue Room’, for example, or ‘The Skins’, begin with a confident kick-start; other openings are more elaborately informative, but in each one we embark upon a narrative that propels us unerringly toward an inexorable and enigmatic close. Such stories tread the borderline between the recognisable and the seemingly impossible, between plausibility and the jolt of the unexpected; and in doing so they question the simplistic outlook that regards external appearances as wholly objective and reliable.

All writers who work in the supernaturalist tradition subvert the idea of such a norm, employing a wide diversity of methodologies in order to do so, methodologies which in turn reflect the author’s temperament and sensibility. It is accordingly understandable that they should attract the investigative attentions of psychoanalytic biographers and critics: by its very nature their work invites deconstruction and decoding. Even so, it generally eludes such attempts at exegesis, elusiveness no less than illusion being integral to this particular art. A writer like Robert Aickman, for instance, can legitimately obstruct every effort towards precise interpretation
,
for his narratorial technique embodies an awareness of a mystery that by its very nature must remain unplumbed.

Reggie Oliver is not a writer of this kind. In his case we are less interested in the teller than the tale. His style is direct, unmanipulative: it aims at persuasion rather than enchantment, is the essence of ‘cool’. His work is full of literary stylistic echoes and cross-references, exploring familiar supernaturalist themes from a twenty-first century standpoint. Lacking the open-endedness of an Aickman story, Oliver’s are not so much evocations of the dormant terrors of the mind as records of events that indicate the presence of an abyss that lurks beneath the surface of material reality and draws its victims down helplessly into indifferent, mysterious depths.

Some of these stories have a strong and most convincing ‘period’ flavor (the world of the 1890s, of eighteenth century France, of seventeenth century London, for example); others evoke the worlds of provincial theatre, of religious communities, of English public schools: all are the product of a cultivated and well-informed intelligence steeped in a feeling for the past, but in touch also with computer technology and present day social pressures and concerns. Oliver’s various narrators are correspondingly diverse. They include actors, a clergyman, a playwright, an academic, even a giddy social debutante: he is a master of capturing the inflexions of the individual human voice. So too he provides variants on werewolf, vampire and doppelgänger themes, and on the Dickensian fable; there are glimpses of the workings of the commercial art world; nightmare fantasies in the manner of Franz Kafka; and a scathingly grotesque account of a witches’ coven. No one story is like another.

The last-referenced tale (‘A Nightmare Sang’) highlights another element in Oliver’s work distinguishing him from most practitioners in the genre: he is both morally and critically engaged with the phenomena he describes. For instance, one story calls into question the wisdom of an aspect of the spiritual teaching of the poet-novelist Charles Williams; in another, the self-serving exploitation of a haunted room comedically recoils upon the manipulator. (There are times when Oliver’s work reminds one of the jocular outrages perpetrated in Matthew Lewis’s notorious Gothick shocker,
The Monk.)
Indeed, there is a good deal of tart humour in these tales, and with it at times a sardonic detachment which, along with frequent references to contemporary preoccupations and to currently famous public personalities, render their impact as bracing as it is disconcerting. However, when he wishes to, Oliver can arouse not only powerful sensations of dread but unpleasantly convincing causes for it—as he does in ‘The Time of Blood’ or, more palpably, in ‘The Babe of the Abyss’, the ending of which contains a minatory twist that drives the story’s point discomfitingly home. In another tale the terrors attendant on old age are treated with a certain relish, in which horror and laughter are so closely combined as to invite a hysteria that is only partially cathartic.

Through their diversity of theme and setting, of type and mood, Oliver’s stories amount to a comprehensive portrayal of how easily the imagination can trespass onto dangerous ground. What exposes some of his characters to forces hostile to their well-being is their moral weakness; in others it is their curiosity or vanity or greed that sets the destructive tide in motion. But if Oliver’s world is as rigorously moral as that of Ruth Rendell, it avoids the logical foreclosures of the well-crafted crime novel, being full of uncontrollable energies, of entrapments and eruptive nightmares. Moreover it exists within a metaphysical context. In the Foreword to his previous collection,
The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini
Oliver writes that ‘What I do believe is that every act and every thought in the world has a metaphysical resonance. . . . Each of these stories is in some way an exploration of these spiritual reverberations.’ It is a sobering concept and one that governs the present book as well.

But we remain in daylight: Oliver eschews the shadowy perceptual uncertainties that distinguishes the narratives of Walter de la Mare and Phyllis Paul, though he achieves something of their poetic quality in what is one of his finest stories, ‘Bloody Bill’. His stories convey a quality of freshness. Their crisp and lucid style enables both author and reader to retain a hold upon a stable world even while that world’s reality is invaded or outraged by an apparently irrefutable contradiction of its laws. One is not so much lured into participation in the characters’ experiences as presented with hypothetical evidence of the continuing strangeness of the material world that we inhabit and are required to take for granted. If one purpose of supernaturalist fiction be to produce cautionary reminders that ‘It ain’t necessarily so’ (to quote the salutary words of Ira Gershwin), in tales as skillful and accessible as those of Reggie Oliver the proviso is brought, quite literally and most pertinently, to book. His stories convey a sense of relevance and linger in the mind. In such competent hands the supernaturalist tradition flourishes to good effect, retaining its power to disturb its readers as well as entertain them.

THE COMPLETE SYMPHONIES OF ADOLF HITLER

Quite absurd how it began, especially when you consider how it seems to be ending. I have to go back to yesterday afternoon—dear God, is it only yesterday? I am walking along Piccadilly, on my way to the London Library to pick up some books on Henry Vaughan (I am giving a seminar on the Metaphysicals to a group of mature students at the North London College), when suddenly the sky turns black and it begins to rain heavily.

The nearest shop is the new Magnum Music Store, just opened, so I turn in there. Not that I need much inducement. Apart from English Literature my great passion is classical music, especially the late Romantics, Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler and the like. You don’t share my interest? Never mind. You’ll find out why this matters soon enough. But I do collect more widely: in fact my collection of CDs is vast. My wife (herself a music teacher) says that it is ridiculous, because I will never have time to listen seriously to every recording I possess. She is right, of course, yet still I collect. It is a kind of disease, an addiction, a lust for the artistic experience. I am particularly interested in out-of-the-way composers, those who for some reason have fallen from favour. They may not be as good as the famous ones, but that doesn’t matter; in fact their very mediocrity has a kind of secret charm for me. For that reason I had, for instance, a complete set of the symphonies of Joachim Raff before I owned all of Dvorak’s or Brahms’s efforts. I am also a great bargain hunter. I object strongly to paying more than £7 for a disc. On the other hand if I see anything that I haven’t heard on sale for less than £4 I will snap it up. I tell myself that one of these days a recording of seventeenth century sacred motets, or a set of piano variations by Sigismond Thalberg on a theme from Meyerbeer’s
Robert le Diable,
might be just the thing I want to listen to.

So that is how I find myself in Magnum Music, sheltering from the rain. There don’t seem to be all that many people about and the light, perhaps in consonance with the dark rain outside, is dim. Never mind that, though. I am bounding up the stairs, past the Rock and Pop and the Easy Listening—I shudder at the phrase!—and I am into the Classical Department. I tell myself that I have half-an-hour’s leisure to spend here before I must move on to the London Library and that I can spend £20 at the most on my passion.

My first search yields little of interest. There are few bargain labels on the covers of discs. Anything new or interesting is at full price which means over £15, and that I am not prepared to pay. Besides, I find the atmosphere slightly oppressive. Apart from one shabby old browser in a heavy overcoat, looking through the section devoted to Early Music (not one of my passions), I am the only customer there. This always makes me nervous, as I feel I am being watched by the staff, in this case a shaven-headed young man, abnormally tall and thin, in a black t-shirt who is leaning over the cash desk and who actually
is
watching me.

I decide that this is not the moment to be browsing, that I should collect my books from the London Library and go back to work, so I make for the door of the Classical Department. As I do so, my eye is caught by a pile of boxed sets on a display table. Now I don’t normally go for boxed sets, because it usually means I will be duplicating at least some piece of music that I already possess, but this display has some very tempting-looking bargain labels on show. And there is one boxed set whose title I have to read once, twice, three times before I can believe my eyes, and even then I can’t. I pick it up and scrutinise it minutely, and, no, it’s not an illusion, nor a misreading due to my mild dyslexia. The words are there in thin white lettering on a sepia ground, and I can’t be mistaken:

THE COMPLETE SYMPHONIES OF ADOLF HITLER

The background on which the white lettering has been printed is a faithful depiction of the man himself, with his familiar brooding expression like that of a disgruntled Alsatian, the flat sweep of damp dark hair over his forehead, and the absurd little slug of a moustache. Yes, it is he, and not another of the same name.

Obviously this is some sort of spoof, a curious concept album, so I look on the back of the box, and there the hoax appears to go on. Under the name Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) is a solemn list of nine symphonies with their respective movements and durations in minutes and seconds. I look for some sort of joke, but no. Here, for example, is Symphony Number 1 in E Major: ‘1st Movement,
Allegro Vivace
, 2nd Movement
Adagio Maestoso, Sehr Langsam
,’ and so on. The only joke that I can see is that the 7th symphony, unlike the others, has a name; it is called ‘The Polish’. And all these works, I notice, are played by ‘the Berchtesgaden Symphony Orchestra, Conducted by Anton Heydrich’. I stare and stare, and don’t know what to make of it.

The price on the round bargain sticker is £19.95, just within the price limit I have set myself, and that clinches it. I take it over to the counter and pay with cash. The tall, shaven-headed man barely looks at me as he takes my £20 note.

I remark that the item I am buying is an unusual one, or something like that. I want a reaction; I want him to share my wonder, amusement even, but he looks at me without a flicker of interest in his eyes. He simply puts the box into a Magnum Music plastic bag and hands it to me together with my five pence change. He says not a word.

I descend the stairs of Magnum Music which now seems to be utterly deserted, except for someone who is walking down the steps behind me. I do not look round, but it must be the old man in the heavy overcoat who was looking through Early Music. I go out into the street. It has stopped raining: the sky is now paper white, like the ceiling of a sanatorium. I start to walk towards the London Library, still in something of a daze.

The trouble is, I am so obsessed by my extraordinary purchase that I have no recollection of what I do next. I must have fetched the books from the library and got myself back to my home in Camden Town, because the next thing I remember is taking one of the discs out of the box, that for the first and second symphonies (there are four discs altogether), and putting it on my CD player. I am still expecting some sort of hoax, but I don’t know what. My wife is out and there is a note from her to say she will be late in, something about a choir rehearsal at the school. She gives private piano lessons at home, but she also teaches once or twice a week at the local comprehensive. She likes her job and she likes children. We want children and we’re still hoping; we’ve also talked of adopting, but no luck so far. That’s beside the point. I put on the disc.

Well, it’s not a hoax, at least not an obvious one: no ‘Variations on
The Teddy Bear’s Picnic
in the style of Bach’ or any of that. I hate musical jokes anyway. The music that I hear is curiously, you might say surprisingly, unsurprising. Given what one knows of Hitler’s musical tastes, it
is
the sort of thing he might have written. Wagner is the main influence, of course, but also Bruckner, Hitler’s other favourite composer. Perhaps there is a hint of Richard Strauss in the orchestration, but his lightness of touch is absent. The opening movement of the first symphony begins with a long wailing trumpet call, rather like the opening to Wagner’s
Rienzi
overture. Then there are some portentous chords on the brass, followed by a restless and rather incoherent allegro theme. I take out the booklet which has come with the boxed set. Perhaps this will help.

The booklet, written by someone called Isolde Hoess, is quite useless, as far as I am concerned. It is written in the dullest musical programme note style. As so often with this kind of literature, the obscurity has been compounded by the fact that it has been translated from the German by someone with an unidiomatic grasp of the English language. ‘After the first twenty-four measures, the main theme group is continued by a section expounding a new theme in E minor then going on to be transposed into G minor which leads to a motif of unrestrained violence modulating in steps with a Wagnerian turn, interventions of horn and tuba forming the main element of the movement’s entire concept. . . .’ and so on.

I have been reading the notes about the first symphony itself, and it is only when I turn to the general introduction that I notice the strangest thing of all. It makes absolutely no mention at all of Hitler’s political career, of his persecution of the Jews, or even of the Second World War. The only reference to any historical event is to be found in the statement that ‘the second and third symphonies were written shortly after his return from the war of 1914—1918 while he was recovering from injuries, both mental and physical, in a sanatorium’.

I try to concentrate on the music, but it eludes me. The general musical style is one to which I respond—as I say, I am one of those people who is not bored by Bruckner—but this music is full of gestures rather than ideas. Even the moods of the piece shift and do not settle; fragments of melody appear and then are swallowed up in storm and stress before they can be grasped. Nevertheless I listen intently because I believe I have gained access to a mind which, after all, shaped our world. There comes a moment when an insistent motif on the woodwind is just about to reveal something to me when the door bell rings. I curse, I switch off the player, I go to the front door.

It is four in the afternoon of a late September day. There is no blue sky, and on the doorstep a man in a heavy, old-fashioned overcoat is standing. His head is hairless, his skin is grey; he looks old but I cannot tell his age. He stares at me with brooding, poached egg eyes. I ask him what he wants and he says he would like to come inside to talk to me about something. The voice is indistinct, monotonous, slightly scratchy, as if it were coming from an ancient gramophone recording. Taking him for a religious nut, I refuse to let him in but he does not move. He stands there, a blot on the darkening landscape of our road. Again I ask him what he wants. He clears his throat, a curious breathy, crackling sound as if he were trying to vacuum the dust of ages out of his throat.

He understands that I bought some music at the Magnum Music Store this afternoon. I nod. He tells me that it was sold to me in error and that it should be returned. I ask him to explain, but he simply repeats what he has just said and insists that I give it to him. I ask him to name the music to which he is referring. He says that it is the music that I bought at Magnum. I ask him what he means when he says it was sold to me in error. He will not explain but demands that I return it. The conversation continues in this way for some minutes, going round in circles, getting nowhere. The man is relentless: he does not tire, but I do. I shut the door in his face.

I am half expecting him to ring the doorbell again, but he does not. I go back to the living room where the CD player is and I draw the curtains. As I do so, I notice that the man is still there, not outside my front door, but in the street facing me as I stand at the living room window. I block him out with the curtains and return to my music. I am tired of the storms of the first movement so I switch to the second: ‘2nd Movement
Adagio Maestoso, Sehr Langsam
.’ It is indeed
sehr langsam
, very slow, an orgy of sorrow, with wailing strings and heavy brass plodding along to an insistent pulse on the timpani. I sit down to listen. It is compelling in its monotonous way. The stifling warmth of self-pity engulfs me. I mourn my lost aspirations, to travel, to be a ‘writer’, rather than a mere academic. I mourn the sterile tedium that has overtaken my marriage. There is a self-indulgent tear or two on my cheek as I drift into a doze.

The doorbell arouses me. I turn off the music, then go to the window and look through the curtains to see if it is the man in the overcoat, but he has gone. Instead, in the dimness, I can make out two men in uniform. I go to the door and when I open it to them they ask to come in. They are policemen and I am suddenly afraid.

It is my wife they have come to see me about: she has had an accident in the car. They offer to take me to the hospital and on the way they tell me she is dead. Her car was hit sideways on by a lorry at a crossing. They say she had gone through a red light. How unlike her. I see her at the hospital, barely recognisable. I return home where the hours are full of dullness and weeping. Once, during some unslept moment of the night, I look out of my window and think I see the man in the overcoat in the street below.

In the morning the police are here again. They want to question me, purely routine you understand, because our car has been examined and there is a possibility that the brakes have been tampered with. This makes no sense at all. Who would want to kill me or my wife? We are utterly harmless and unimportant people. Even my theories about the Metaphysical Poets have aroused no controversy, not even very much interest to be honest. They ask me, purely routine you understand, where I was yesterday afternoon between two and five. I tell them about the London Library and about being in Magnum Music, though I don’t tell them what I bought there. They seem satisfied. When they have gone I have nothing better to do, so I play the third movement of the first symphony. It is not the usual
Scherzo
. After all
Scherzo
means a joke and one cannot imagine Hitler making many of those. It is designated:
Marsch—Tempo,
and that is what it is, a march. It is stirring, defiant and rather relentless. The tune, and there is an identifiable one this time, reminds me of something I have heard before. Is it the third movement of Raff’s
Lenore
symphony? Well, it takes me out of myself and I start to march up and down in the sitting room in time with the music. Then I stop. Good God, my wife has just been killed and I am marching up and down my sitting room to a piece of music written by Adolf Hitler. I must get out of the house.

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