The Devil's Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwangler
by Sam H. Shirakawa
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sam H. ShirakawaEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1992-07-02
ISBN: 0195065085
Number of pages: 544
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of The Devil's Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwangler
Book Review: Great reading for music lovers
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a substancial research effort from the author, that sets the record straight on Furtwänglers case. The references are extensive, and many personal interviews are reproduced, such as with Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, and many others.
Although extensive and well documented, the book is an interesting reading for the non-scholar and those passionate about music and curious to learn about the turbulent life of arguably the greatest conductor of the 20th century.
The Kindle edition works well, without broken lines or other problems.
Summary of The Devil's Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwangler
From 1922 until his death in 1954, Wilhelm Furtw�ngler was the foremost cultural music figure of the German-speaking world, conductor of both the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras. But a cloud still hangs over his reputation, despite his undeniable brilliance as a musician, because of a fatal and tragic decision. Wilhelm Furtw�ngler remained in Germany when thousands of intellectuals and artists fled after the Nazis seized power in 1933. His decision to stay behind earned him lasting condemnation as a Nazi collaborator--"The Devil's Music Master." Decades after his death, Furtw�ngler remains for many not only the greatest but also the most controversial musical personality of our time.In The Devil's Music Master, Sam H. Shirakawa forges the first full-length and comprehensive biography of Furtw�ngler. He surveys Furtw�ngler's formative years as a difficult but brilliant prodigy, his rise to pre-eminence as Germany's leading conductor, and his development as a musician, composer, and thinker. Shirakawa also reviews the rich recorded legacy Furtw�ngler documented throughout his forty-year career--such as the legendary Tristan with Kirsten Flagstad and the famous performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1942 and 1951.
Equally important, Shirakawa goes backstage and behind the lines to explore how the Nazis seized control of the arts and how Furtw�ngler single-handedly tried to prevent evil characters as Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Luftwaffe Chief Hermann G�ring from annihilating Germany's musical life. He shows how Furtw�ngler, far from being a toady to the Nazis, stood up openly against Hitler and Himmler--at enormous personal risk--to salvage the musical traditions of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Shirakawa also presents moving and overwhelming evidence of Furtw�ngler's astonishing efforts to save the lives of Jews and other persecuted individuals trapped in Nazi Germany--only to be proscribed at the end of the war and nearly framed as a war criminal.
But there was more to Furtw�ngler than his politics, or even his music, and we come to know this extraordinary man as a reluctant composer, a prolific essayist and diary keeper, a loyal friend, a formidable enemy when crossed, and an incorrigible philanderer. Numerous musical luminaries share their memories of Furtw�ngler to round out this vivid portrait.
Based on dozens of interviews and research in numerous documents, letters, and diaries, many of them previously unpublished, The Devil's Music Master is an in-depth look at the life and times of a unique personality whose fatal flaw lay in his uncompromising belief that music and art must be kept apart from politics, a conviction that transformed him into a tragic figure.
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