American Violinist Guila Bustabo Died in 2002

Jean Sibelius famously quoted her 1937 performance of his violin concerto as “just as I envisioned it when I composed it”.

American violinist Guila Bustabo died on this day, in 2002.

Born in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1916, her musical journey began early, starting violin lessons at the age of two. By the time she was three, she had already showcased her talent to Frederick Stock, the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In pursuit of her musical education, largely driven by her mother, the family relocated to Chicago, where she studied under Ray Huntington at the Chicago Musical College. Before she reached the age of five, she had embarked on studies with Leon Samétini, a protege of the renowned virtuoso and composer Eugène Ysaÿe.

Displaying remarkable skill, she performed with the Chicago Symphony at the age of nine and further showcased her prodigious talent with appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Orchestral Association. Samétini secured a scholarship for Guila to study at the Juilliard School with Louis Persinger, solidifying her place as an extraordinarily gifted violinist.

She gave her Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 15, performing Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2. A year later, she gave her recital debut at Carnegie, to an audience that included famed conductor Arturo Toscanini.

In November of 1934, at fifteen years of age, Guila left the United States with her commandeering mother, Blanche Bustabo, for a European concert tour. Over the next three years, Guila performed in England, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. It was during these years touring that she acquired a Guarneri del Gesu violin.

As World War 2 took hold in Europe, Blanche Bustabo (who had always tightly controlled Guila's career) decided that Guila would settle in Nazi-controlled Paris, and perform in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries. The young star continued to perform throughout Axis territories during the war. She claimed later in life to have performed a concert at which Adolf Hitler was present.

As a newspaper account details, “Her performance record during the war, and specifically those performances under Mengelberg in occupied Amsterdam, led to her arrest in Paris alongside her mother in 1945 at the hands of General Patton with the Allied forces. The United States never prosecuted the Bustabos, and they were released soon after. That September, General Patton recruited Bustabo to perform a three-month series of concerts in Europe for multiple divisions of the Seventh Army. The high-ups of the United States military easily forgave Bustabo for her Nazi associations because of her musical gifts. However, this association with the Nazi party would prove detrimental to Bustabo’s reputation with the American public.”

In 1948, Guila performed with the New York Philharmonic. General Robert McClure wrote to the New York Philharmonic stating: “Bustabo was blacklisted by the [Information Control Division of OMGUS] in fall of 1945 and is still on blacklist. Investigation at that time showed that she had given concerts in Germany and German-occupied countries with special permission of Nazi Propaganda Ministry and had permitted her talents to be exploited for Nazi propaganda.”

While Guila never explicitly voiced her support for the Nazi Party, her many performances with prominent musicians of the regime (Mengeleberg, Furtwängler, Kabasta) and her desire to build her career in Germany and its territories shows a passive permission to be used for propaganda. Because of this situation, a career in the US was essentially closed to her, so Ms Bustabo continued to perform in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1964, Bustabo assumed the role of violin professor at the Innsbruck Conservatory (Austria), making occasional concert appearances. During this era, she traded her Guarneri del Gesu violin for an apartment in Innsbruck.

In 1970, she was forced to retire due to bipolar disorder. Returning to the United States with her mother and husband, she spent five years performing in the violin section of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, occasionally stepping forward as a soloist.

She died in Birmingham, Alabama, in 2002, aged 86, outliving her mother by 16 years. Guila once said, "Menuhin got away from his parents. He was lucky. I never got away from mine." Yehudi Menuhin was one of her Juilliard classmates.

GUILA BUSTABO | SIBELIUS VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MINOR | FRITZ ZAUN & STADTISCHEN ORCHESTRA BERLIN | 1940