Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Klemperer's own accounts of musicians he knew and worked with, and particularly of Mahler.

Otto Klemperer's conducting career covered nearly three-quarters of the twentieth century. Although he was not chiefly a man of words, he wrote frequently on music during the course of his long life, and the writings assembled inthis book date from 1906 until 1971. Klemperer writes here about musicians he knew and worked with, dwelling with especial interest and respect on Gustav Mahler, who was a formative influence on the young Klemperer. There are pieces on composers from Bach and Beethoven to Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, and on colleagues from Beecham and Toscanini to Ewald Dülberg and Max Reinhardt. He also documents his own career, discussing his conducting, his battle to savethe Kroll Opera in Berlin, his period at Los Angeles, his return to Germany, his compositions, and much more.

A great deal of the book has never been published before in English, and some sections appear for the first time in any language.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Anderson has gathered a variety of material by Klemperer, both spoken and written, pertaining to composers, conductors and conducting, orchestras, opera, and other musicians. Earlier works about Klemperer (Peter Heyworth's Conversations with Klemperer, CH, Nov '74, and Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times, ed. by Heyworth, CH, Nov '84) carry detailed information about the life and times of Klemperer, but now we meet the man through his own words, and they provide another facet of this gifted human being. An appendix lists more than 100 compositions by Klemperer, and the index is a rare example of excellence for this type of book. More than 50 sketches, drawings, and photos of sculptures provide unique views of Klemperer by visual artists. Students and general readers.-D.G. Engelhardt, University of Hawaii at Manoa