Heft 03 / Juli 2017

Zusammenfassung:

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Summary:

»I am a happily gifted person«: Artur Schnabel’s Correspondence with Therese Behr-Schnabel – This correspondence offers extensive insight into the living and working conditions of musicians in the first half of the 20th century. The fact that this is a dialogue between a married couple who are artistic equals but of different social backgrounds (Austrian provincial bourgeoisie with Jewish roots on the one hand, the metropolitan German educated class on the other) touches time and again on events and topics in their historical context, which ranged from the eventful to the catastrophic. In the case of Artur Schnabel, it is particularly instructive to observe how dramatically the distribution of recordings fundamentally transformed the interpretation, indeed the entire perception of music. His determination to cling to traditional views and intentions of musical presentation produced results that are still impressive today, but it also has aspects that can be considered tragic.

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