| Description |
1 online resource (xvi, 506 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
1 With Music Empowered 3 -- 2 Mannheim 22 -- 3 Berlin 43 -- 4 America 64 -- 5 Successes and Conquests 91 -- 6 Decisions 110 -- 7 Weimar and the Third Reich 129 -- 8 Nazimania 145 -- 9 Prometheus Agonistes 158 -- 10 Staatsrat 167 -- 11 The Hindemith Scandal 179 -- 12 Another Scandal 195 -- 13 A Meeting of Minds 212 -- 14 Devilish Duties--I 225 -- 15 Devilish Duties--II 247 -- 16 The Devil's Birthday 271 -- 17 Trial by Patience 294 -- 18 Day of Reckoning 309 -- 19 Trial by Endurance 338 -- 20 Autumn Fires 370 -- 21 The Tristan Recording 387 -- 22 The Studio Recordings 407 -- 23 The Live Recordings I: The War Recordings 431 -- 24 The Live Recordings II: Ring Cycles and Cyclical Issues 442 -- 25 Eroica 474 -- 26 Coda: A Dominant Ninth 481 |
| Summary |
From 1922 until his death in 1954, Wilhelm Furtwangler 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 Furtwangler 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, Furtwangler 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 Furtwangler. He surveys Furtwangler'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 Furtwangler 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 Furtwangler single-handedly tried to prevent such evil characters as Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Luftwaffe Chief Hermann Goring from annihilating Germany's musical life. He shows how Furtwangler, 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 Furtwangler'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 Furtwangler 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 Furtwangler 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 |
| Analysis |
Conducting (Music) |
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Germany |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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English |
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Print version record |
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
| SUBJECT |
Furtwängler, Wilhelm, 1886-1954
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Furtwängler, Wilhelm, 1886-1954 fast (OCoLC)fst00018589 |
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Furtwängler, Wilhelm. swd |
| Subject |
Conductors (Music) -- Germany -- Biography
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Composers & Musicians.
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MUSIC -- Genres & Styles -- Classical.
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MUSIC -- Printed Music -- Choral.
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Conductors (Music)
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Biografie
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Dirigenten.
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Nationaal-socialisme.
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Germany.
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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Biographies.
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Biographies.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780199762941 |
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0199762945 |
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1280593512 |
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9781280593512 |
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9786613623348 |
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6613623342 |
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