In the HBO movie Conspiracy.....

In the HBO movie Conspiracy, Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh), before drinks in the parlor gives praise to an incorrectly accredited adagio of a Schumann quintet in C major. If fact, the Schubert was played. Adolf Eichmann (Stanley Tucci) then correctly accredits the piece as Schubert's quintet in C major, but calls it Vienese shit music.

Was this Kenneth's slip up or is it documented that members of the Nazi were keen on name-dropping high Austro-German culture but not up to scratch on the musical knowledge? Was Heydrich guilty of this?

I saw the movie but don't remember any such mistake in the final credits, or by Branagh. For me what usually sticks out in movies of this sort are the mispronunciations: 'Goe-ring,' 'Goe-bels,' 'Ay-dolf,' etc.

Heydrich is said to have been a pretty good violinist during breaks from his genocidal activities, so he probably knew Schumann from Schubert. I have an ancient Thompson's Musical Encyclopedia that lists Heydrich's father Bruno as a composer.

I have no idea, really, whether or not Heydrich was guilty of THIS, or whether or not he knew much about the music of Schumann or Schubert, but did Kenneth Branagh write the screenplay? I mean, how can you get the idea this may have been Brannagh's slip? If it WAS a slip, it was the

That's the thing with movies, do you do the German accented English (like in Enigma)or do you do plain English - whilst 'acting' German? In that case, Colin Firth was straight out of Bridget Jones's Diary for this one.

I must be Branagh then. He says that the Schumann Quintet Adagio is divine or something to that effect. Near the end of the movie where he flips out the record and plays it. After the day's odious planning.

The Schubert Quintet has a rather Gypsy ending -would have this been to Heydrich's liking ? Maybe he did mean the Schumann. But the movie audio clearly put on a Schubert Quintet. Eichmann clearly calls Schubert, shit music. Or was this part cleverly written so?

Schumann didn't write a string quintet AFAIK

No, five. Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers and Danny

In his memoirs, _Theme and Variations_, Bruno Walter says that Reinhard Heydrich's father had been a tenor who had sung in performances that Walter had conducted...

'Born in the German city of Halle, near Leipzig on March 7, 1904, Reinhard Eugen Tristan Heydrich was raised in a cultured, musical environment. His father founded the Halle Conservatory of Music and was a Wagnerian opera singer, while his mother was an accomplished pianist. Young Heydrich trained seriously as a violinist, developing expert skill and a lifelong passion for the violin.'
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/ heydrich.htm

So the gaff seems rather unlikely.

And yes, most Nazis were wannabe culturati. Albert Speer in one of his books describes them as 'diamonds in the rough'. They'd sit through operas and steal lots of paintings, but their taste was a rather low-brow.

The thesis of a film called The Architecture of Doom is that being mediocre frustrated artists was a key part of the Nazi mindset. The impulse to remake the world, says our filmmaker, was a perversion of the aesthetic impulse, spurred on by the bitterness of failure. It's a trend of totalitarians generally; I think Lenin was a poet, I know Mao was, and look at Kim Jong Il today.

I think Eric Hoffer's book The True Believer has a chapter about frustrated artists as well.

Brian

OT Movie P.S. - You might be interested in Wannseekonferenz and Hangmen Also Die. Both are better than Conspiracy IMHO.

Papa Heydrich was a tenor and a composer, and played double bass. He was also a critic for the Allgemeine Zeitung. Died in 1938.

Oops! My mistake, piano quintets.