Volume 40, Number 16 · October 7, 1993
The Furtwängler Enigma
By Robert Craft
The Devil's Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwängler
by Sam H. Shirakawa
Oxford University Press, 506 pp., $35.00
Trial of Strength: Wilhelm Furtwängler and the Third Reich
by Fred K. Prieberg, translated by Christopher Dolan
Quartet, 394 pp., £30.00
To judge from the intemperate responses to two recent accounts of Wilhelm Furtwängler's life during the Third Reich, his decision to remain in Nazi Germany throughout its twelve-year existence, as well as the nature of his relation to the regime, may be at least as controversial now as at any other time since 1945. On March 15, 1993, the conductor's widow entered the dispute with a letter to the Times of London criticizing Bernard Levin, who had 'attempted a quasidefense'—great musician, weak man—and challenging him to substantiate his characterization of Furtwängler as 'an exceptionally unpleasant anti-Semite,' which, as clearly shown by the historical evidence, he was not, and a 'lamentable' human being, which is not the right adjective (though an apt one for this complex man would require elucidation).
Review, 4287 words
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