A pathbreaking, new intellectual biography of the composer and conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler. Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954) has entered the historical memory as a renowned interpreter of the canon of Austro-German musical masterworks. His extensive legacy of recorded performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Wagneris widely regarded as unsurpassed. Yet more than sixty years after his death he remains a controversial figure: the complexities and equivocacy of his high-profile position within the Third Reich still cast a long shadow over hisreputation. This book builds an intellectual biography of Furtwangler, probing this ambiguity, through a critical examination of his extensive series of essays, addresses and symphonies. It traces the development of his thought from its foundations in late nineteenth-century traditions of Bildung and associated discourses of conservative-minded nationalism, through the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the cultural and moral dilemmasof the Nazi period, to the post-World War II years of Bundesrepublik reconstruction, in which the beleaguered idealist found himself adrift in an alien cultural environment overshadowed by the unfolding narrative of the Nazi holocaust. The book will be of interest not only to music scholars but to cultural and intellectual historians as well. ROGER ALLEN is a Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford and author of Richard Wagner's Beethoven (1870): A New Translation (Boydell Press, 2014)
Reviews
[An] absorbing, but balanced and methodical, appraisal of Furtwangler as man and musician. The unique aspect of his book is the detailed attention that is given to the conductor's extensive writings...a key towards understanding [Wilhelm Furtwangler] place German music history. * THE WAGNER JOURNAL *
An innovative approach to this highly controversial conductor whose career flourished under Nazi rule...a very welcome and insightful complement to the extant library of Furtwangler biographies. * GERMAN HISTORY *
Roger Allen's thoroughly researched volume is something subtler and ultimately perhaps more insightful. * OPERA *
An astute essay on the highs and lows of German cultural history, as seen through the eyes and perceived by the actions of the star conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler...Allen enters this terrain equipped with a great sense of fairness rarely found in scholarly studies. * WAGNERSPECTRUM *
Trace[s] the genesis of the belief system that made Furtwangler accept the Nazi regime as an unappetizing but tolerable set-up in which to achieve his cultural aims...Reading Furtwangler's writings with Allen as a guide illuminates the political undercurrents of his aesthetics. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
Explored through Furtwangler's writings and those of relevant contemporaries, is the social, intellectual and cultural hinterland - the 'Germanness' - that shaped his being...There is much that is interesting here about the nature of German conservatism and Furtwangler's relationship to it. * GRAMOPHONE *
This impeccably researched and engagingly written study tackles the emotive subject from a cultural perspective, shedding fresh light on how Furtwangler remained (at least in his mind) apolitical during a period of extreme politicisation. * BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE *



Book Information
ISBN 9781783272839
Author Roger Allen
Format Hardback
Page Count 318
Imprint The Boydell Press
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g