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| | Wilhelm Furtwangler, Genius Forged in the Cauldron of War, Classical Notes, Peter Gutmann |
 | | Fred Prieberg calls this a protective mythology which Furtwängler created to shield himself from accountability in a real world in which civilizations do fail, in which people are held responsible for their leaders, and in which art cannot be so conveniently isolated from politics. |
 | | Furtwängler's tragedy was that he had to believe this illusion of permanent German cultural merit in order to justify his life's work. |
 | | But instead of the seething, emotional catharsis suggested by the circumstances of its composition, or a beleaguered artist's visionary escape into new tonal territory, the sprawling work is a pastiche of older styles, meandering among glimmers of Brahms, Strauss, Sibelius and Bruckner without ever asserting an identity of its own. |
| www.classicalnotes.net /features/furtwangler.html (14050 words) |
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