It.s Friday evening and I.m cheating. I haven.t actually finished Sam H. Shirakawa.s The Devil’s Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwangler. It.s actually Furtwängler, but the software doesn.t seem to like the umlaut so you.ll just have to pretend it.s there! So I.m cheating. But hey, its. 487 pages and I.m up to the last chapter. And did I say it.s Friday evening? Who is Wilhelm Furtwangler, you ask?–if you know (and no peaking ahead!), well, I.m really impressed! Furtwangler, along with Toscanini and perhaps Stokowski, was one of the most famous conductors of the WWII era that no one knows. How.s that for an oxymoron? Betcha didn.t think I had a sense of humour! For the sheer emotional impact of his 1944 Beethoven 9th, he.s my favourite conductor. Whatever he conducts, he takes it apart in his own peculiar way and when he puts it back together, it has the stamp of Furtwangler written all over it. I think that.s a very important attribute: to put your stamp on a piece. Some may disagree, they say, ‘The conductor should be like a transparent piece of glass through which the music flows’. I don.t believe that at all. The musician must put his identity onto the music. This is what makes the interpretation original. And perhaps great.
Furtwangler.s magic trick has something to do with his tempi, which are, well, leisurely. This was quite opposite to Toscanini, who, I think of more as a general than a conductor!–just listen to his rehearsals and you will know what I.m talking about! But it.s not just his tempi. Furtwangler conducts from the bottom up rather than from the top down. The bass section is extraordinarily lush and full, and in being so, I think gives him interpretive freedom elsewhere because the foundation is just so solid. For any given piece, I may have a disc that I like better than Furtwangler (for example Tintner.s interpretation of Bruckner.s 7th I prefer over Furtwangler), but if I have a Furtwangler interpretation, it consistently ranks number one or two. And that.s saying a lot since I.m a stereo system addict and a lot of those wartime recordings leave a lot to be desired by today.s recording standards. Speaking of stereo system, here.s mine. Magnepan 3.7i speakers driven by a Devialet 120 front end being fed bit perfect files from a MacBook Pro:
Mama mia, ain.t it beautiful! Notice no hornet.s nest of wires and boxes piled upon boxes with vacuum tubes galore! But all this is a digression, back to the book. Here.s what it looks like:
Diligent readers will recall that I.ve been thinking about the cover art for my book. So I.m thinking of cover art in general when I look at other books. Now, looking at this edition, I.ve got to wonder whether Shirakawa got any input into the design of the cover. Shirakawa.s had one aim: to exonerate Furtwangler.s legacy. You see, Furtwangler, out of a duty to his art, stayed in Germany during the Second World War. He was never a Nazi (unlike Karajan, for example) but because of various power struggles and post-war paranoia, was persecuted as a Nazi. He was given a clean bill of health after his ‘denazification’ hearings at Nurnberg, but a lot of people, up to this day, do not forgive him for not leaving Germany. This is an interesting ethical question: do citizens have a moral obligation to leave a country when thugs take over or is it better to remain and change things as best as one can from within? But anyways, back to the cover. Now just look at it. Its imperial red for one. Flanking either side of Furtwangler.s photograph are columns with bold swastikas adorning their crowns. Furtwangler himself is depicted making some sort of dark gesture like he.s calling up the devil. Now ask yourself, if you were writing a book to DISTANCE Furtwangler from the Nazis, is this the sort of cover art you would use? To me, if I were Shirakawa and I had spend all this time putting together this book, all the time doing interviews, going through archives, and I saw this cover, I would be absolutely livid! I think the publisher (which is no less than Oxford University Press) deliberately chose something sensational to sell copies. All too often this happens. I remember reading about how absolutely livid Taleb was over the cover art the publisher ‘imposed’ on one of his books. He.s a self styled ‘philosopher of uncertainty’ and he writes about risk and other unpredictable things. Anyway, the publisher put a set of dice on the cover, thinking that they were a visual analogue to risk. But Taleb.s whole thesis was that things like dice and card do not really represent risk because risk in the real world is much much more unpredictable than dice and cards would lead us to believe! He called thinking about risk through dice games the ludic fallacy. It was an error. And then some well meaning publisher (who obviously hadn.t read the book) puts dice on the cover! Moral of the story: a lot of hard work can be ruined if someone puts the wrong cover on your book!
Now diligent readers will also recall that I.ve been thinking about the copywriting process. You know, the little blurb on the back of the book that gets you to buy the book. Here.s the back blurb from The Devil’s Music Master:
EXCERPT: “When thousands of intellectuals and artists joined the exodus of Jews from Germany after the Nazis seized power, Furtwangler remained behind with the naive but overwhelming conviction that he could save the culture that produced Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and other great composers from annihilation by the Third Reigh. Despite his well-documented and astonishingly successful efforts to keep Jews a part of German cultural life in the early part of the Nazi era and his manifold efforts to assist anyone who asked him for help throughout the Third Reich…he was all but branded a war criminal and nearly framed at his denazification trial at the end of the war. This, even though Furtwangler never joined the Nazi party and openly acted against the regime until its fall. Even today, many remain convinced that Furtwangler at best compromised and at worst simply sold out. For them, Wilhelm Furtwangler will forever be the Devil’s Music Master.”
Hmmm. It.s an excerpt and on the back it even says in big letters ‘EXCERPT’. This doesn.t strike me as being professional. The quote captures the books thesis precisely, but this wouldn.t be the sort of thing I.d want for my book. I.d want something catchier. It also doesn.t tell us too much about the author. On the inside jacket of the hardback, there.s a section:
About the Author: Sam H. Shirakawa is a writer and filmmaker.
Okay, I get from holding the 487 page book that.s he.s a writer. So he does films. Do they have a name? Maybe I.m being too critical, but the description isn.t too helpful. As a reader, I want to know what Shirakawa has invested into Furtwangler. He obviously is devoted to him, as he.s done a ton of research, especially into the artistic power struggles during the Third Reich between artists and politicians. If you.re writing a book and thinking about this as well, remember that your reader is curious about you yourself, not just your book!
As to the book itself, well, you.re just going to have to read all 487 pages yourself! If you.re into seeing a picture of artists’ lives under the Third Reich, this is the book for you. Not just Furtwangler: the book describes his whole coterie of friends, fellow composers (Strauss), rival conductors (Karajan, Toscanini), and soloists (Schwarzkopf, Menuhin) as they find their way around and react to wartime politics. As to Furtwangler.s musicianship, there.s more about his style after the end of the war. This is perhaps the last fifth or quarter of the book. While the Nazis are in power, the focus is less on his musicianship (i.e. the aesthetics) and more on the politics (this person left, he tried to save this person, Hitler enjoyed the concert, he yelled at Goebbels, etc.,). Shirakawa relies on documentary evidence and, where possible, he has travelled to interview Furtwangler.s friends and associates for a more intimate look.
So there you have it, dear reader! I think it.s time for me to kick the feet up, and listen to Furtwangler conducting Wagner.s Tristan und Isolde! Until next time, I.m Edwin Wong and I.m Doing Melpomene.s Work!