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Robert Schumann (b. June 8 1810, d. July 29 1856) Herald of a New Poetic Age, by: John Daverio. Published 1997 by Oxford University Press, Inc. (I bought it on 21 January 2000)

Twice I read this book and I must say I enjoyed all the chapters. But was there any LOVE between Clara and Brahms? Was there any intercourse after Robert's gone? I have chosen the following excerpts that are of particular interest to me ...............

Forced by a hand injury to abandon a career as a pianist, RS went on to become one of the world's great composers.......... Brahms in a letter of January 1873 wrote ""The remembrance of Schumann is sacred to me. I will always take this noble pure artist as my model""
Antinomy: A contradiction between two statements that seem equally reasonable

P 4: ""It is easy to write a Schumann biography because Schumann wrote it himself. It is difficult to write a Schumann biography because the modern biographer must chart the composer's relationships to his complicated and contradictory social surroundings"" Karl Laux. - There is wealth of biographical material -travel notes, diaries maintained with some regularity from January 1827 to early 1854. - Households account books with entries extending from early October 1837 to 23 February 1854 - that is to just four days before Schumann's suicide attempt ... marriage diaries jointly kept by Clara from Sept 1840

P 6 From late March 1833 to July 1836 Schumann did not keep diary. He was an ardent bibliophile - Someone who loves (and usually collects) books.

P. 7: Hermeneutic; (Interpretive or explanatory) challenges posed by Schumann's diaries - his works poured forth at the behest of mysterious voices from the beyond ...his works are mosaic-like assembly of fragmentary ideas, suggesting a kind of composition-as-planned-improvisation that finds its sources in his earliest experience at the keyboard.

P 8: His family's special repository of letters - the so called Familienkassette - which itself suffered severe water damage as a result of the 1945 bombing of Dresden and survives only because Boetticher had the foresight to microfilm much of the collection at Dresdener Landesbibliothek in 1938.
Clara Schumann and Brahms transmitted in the old collected edition- Breitkopf & Hartel 1881-93 - Schumann's thorough engagements with the music.

P 9: Literature held a place in Schumann's creative life comparable to that of philosophy in Wagner's. As a youth of 15 read with his friends- particularly all of Schiller's dramas - and as paterfamilias of 43 reread -in some cases for the fourth or fifth time- his favorite Jean Paul novels (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter - 21 March 1763- 14 November 1815)

P 10: Schumann's interpretation of life and art in his works - they comingle here more thoroughly than with any other 19th. Century composers - Music as confession- wrote of his favorite author ""In all his works Jean Paul mirrors himself, but always as two persons ......"and as a more mature journalist said of Liszt ""His own life is situated in his music"" ""Strictly speaking, a sheet of music was for Schubert what for others was a diary"" ...... The Variations on the Sehnsuchtwalzer - Yearning Waltz - in turn demonstrate a continued engagement with the musical idol of Schumann's youth: Franz Schubert. P 107
Copious references from the letters can be marshaled to support the view that many of the piano works from the 1830s..... were bound up with conflicts over Schumann's troubled suit for Clara's hand.
Schumann's suicide attempt, in February 1854, and its immediate aftermath. Biographical narrative and value judgment go hand in hand, for Schumann's works are thus reduced to a therapeutic means of warding off impending madness. To be sure, composing may have been a form of therapy (therapy!!) for Schumann - it probably is for most composers-.
Brahms said "'Schumann went one way, Wagner another, and I a third"" Schumann's era comes from a period of transition from faith in philosophical idealism to resigned embrace of political realism. His music comes between the youthful bloom of Weber and the autumnal reflection of Brahms.

P 13: Schumann's hopes for a career as virtuoso pianist, dashed in the autumn 1831 by the realization that his lame finger would not allow for it, run parallel with an intense preoccupation with literature; both factors coalesce in his engaging review of Chopin's virtuoso variations on Mozart's ""La ci darem la mano""
Johannes Brahms: German Composer- Romantic period (May 7, 1833 - April 3, 1897)
Frederic Chopin: Polish/French Composer and Virtuoso Pianist of the Romantic period (March 1, 1810 - October 17. 1849)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: German Composer of the Classical era (27 January 1756 - 5 December 1791)
P14: The "New Germans"- Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner - and the ""Academic Classicists""- Schumann, Brahms, that raged so furiously in the second half of the 19th Century.

P 16: A dimming of the composer's genius was already apparent at the end of the 1840s (For some early critics) in works such as the opera Genoveva. By the beginning of the following decade, Theodor Uhlig (Musician, song writer and composer 1822-1853 and close friend to R. Wagner) would find signs in the A-Minor Sonata for piano, op.105, that idiosyncrasy (A behavioral attribute that is distinctive and peculiar to an individual) had given way to musical mannerism such as obsessive repetitions and curious mixtures of the bizarre and commonplace........By Schumann own account, the theme of his last set of keyboard variation was dictated to him ""by the angels"".

P 17: Indeed, anyone who scans Schumann's last diary entries (on the trip to Hannover in late January 1854) for signs of mental decay will be disappointed.... Likewise, an unbiased look at the late music will disclose qualities too frequently overlooked: a heightened intensity of expression, a rigorous limitation of thematic materials, and a visionary pre-figuration of features associated with later composers including Bruckner, Reger and even Schoenberg........Only a composer in full command of his or her rational powers can realize the consequences of this interdependence (principal themes in music) of variety and unity. Robert Schumann was such a composer - until February 1854.

P 18: Cycles of keyboard pieces from the 1830s and the songs of 1840 have contributed to a view of Schumann as a sentimental lyricist - Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche

P 19: Liszt found further proof of Schumann's modernity in the later works for chorus and orchestra, elevation from musical craftsman to tone poet...... has literary culture ... the musician as intellectual....for a new modern bourgeois.... 1840 as the culmination of Schumann creative life.... He was many things - a progressive, a tone poet, a bourgeois intellectual, and a classicist, a lover of the bizarre and enigmatic..... He was a master of transforming one genre into another, without our being able to pin-point where one leaves off and the other begins... the notion that music should be imbued with the same intellectual substance as literature....Schumann developed this conviction while he was still a teenager; he held to it until the end of his career
P 20-25: Passed his early years in a milieu conducive to the pursuit of literary studies. Father: A book dealer. Lexicographer (A compiler or writer of a dictionary; a student of the lexical component of language)
Schumann a firm believer of Enlightenment: ""What binds the German people together is literature"".
When his mother contracted typhus (he was 3??) ... separation anxiety that fed into the composer's later depressive condition....later learned Latin, French and Greek.
His diploma awarded March 15/1828 testifies to a graduation ""With Honor"" he was convinced as a teenager that he would eventually become a famous man. (Ref his friend Emil Flechsig)
As a gymnasiast (A student in a school for students intermediate between elementary school and college; usually grades 9 to 12), Schumann had read the classical tragedians and Horace in the original Greek and Latin and no later than 1825 he began to make metric translations of Anacreon, Homer and Sophocles.

P 26-30: Diary 1827; His father succumbed to a nervous disorder on 10 August 1826, and his 19 year old sister Emilie - whose death, perhaps from suicide - probably occurred the same time. At once pained by these losses but joyful over the possibility of union with Liddy, Schumann gives utterances to the feelings of guilt that naturally arose from the emotional discrepancy ""Can the outer being mourn, if the inner being perhaps rejoices? Or is the inner mourning a condition for outer mourning?"" ""Is it not horrid enough ... to be robbed of a father? Why shouldn't one try to forget pain through joy? Why not be jolly in jolly company?
....peering into the pages of his diaries, there is a sense that Schumann was writing to be read not just by him, but by others....
Another factor probably contributed to Schumann's turn to song in the summer of 1827 and 1828: his encounter with Agnes Carus; an attractive woman 8 years his senior and reportedly a gifted singer. Her husband Dr. Ernst August Carus was a nephew of Karl Erdmann Carus, a merchant in whose home Schumann was a regular guest. It was here during the spring of 1827 that he first met the young Frau Dr. Carus and in all probability promptly became enamored of her, though whether or not their contact tipped the balance in favor of Schumann's decision on musical career it is difficult to say..... early songs...."My Songs"" diary 14/8/1828 - ""were intended as an actual reproduction of my inner self; but no human being can present something exactly as the genius creates it; even she (Agnes Carus) sang the most beautiful passages badly and didn't understand me"" .............we know of thirteen songs .....(June, July, and August 1828)

P 34- 39: "" at 18, my mother's wished to study Law; my own still vaguely formed intent, to devote myself entirely to music""
Friederich Wiek (piano teacher) played a major role in Schumann's professional and personal life. Schumann loved Franz Shubert's music; Schumann was thrown into such an agitated state by the news of Schubert's death on 19 November 1828.... Sobbing the whole night....
His roommate Flechsig's description(P 35): Schumann puffed at a cigar (while composing) but since smoke got into his eyes, he pressed it upwards with his mouth as far as would go (Like Puccini), at the same time casting his eyes downwards in a squint, so that he made the strangest grimace all the while...and grew into a singularly handsome fellow who bore his attire well, and was a thoroughly noble character, chaste and pure as a vestal virgin (A chaste woman)...was reveling in Jean Paul (poet) and Schubert. Each figure in turn providing him with a model for his own creative endeavors.
As late as 1853 we find him rereading - often aloud and in collaboration with Clara - the novels of his youthful idol. Reading of novel-Titan... (Schumann diaries bear reflective influence from Jean Paul's novels!!!)... important to read P36....when he visited Jean Paul's widow, writing to Rosen from Leipzig on June 5 1828 Schumann felt compelled to observe ""If the whole world read Jean Paul, it would certainly be better, but unhappier place - he's often brought me to madness, but rainbow of peace and of human spirit always hovers delicately over all the tears, while the heart is wondrously elevated and tenderly transfigured""
Jean Paul (b 21 March 1763, d.14 November 1825) - best known for his humorous stories and novels - was also the writer who brought up more metaphors (A figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity) than any other. Schumann in his diary "" I've often asked myself where I might be had I not gotten to know Jean Paul; yet he seems on the one hand to be interwoven with my inner being, as if I had earlier premonition of him""

P 40-45: Ref to Schumann's epistolary novel Bernard von Nontelliers.... (Written in the form of or carried on by letters or correspondence - "an endless sequence of epistolary love affairs".... there is a rich allusion to the favored themes of his beloved Jean Paul ... also Schumann's reading of Jean Paul's autobiography but also to the writer's idiosyncratic style - Peculiar to the individual- "we all have our own idiosyncratic gestures"; "Michelangelo's highly idiosyncratic style of painting"
""Music is poetry elevated to a higher power, spirits speak the language of poetry, but the angels communicate in tones"" P 43. """tones are higher words"" ""Schubert's variations are thus the composed novel that Goethe has yet to write"" ...the same line of thinking ""why shouldn't there be such a thing as an opera without text? Now that would be most certainly dramatic. There's much for you in Shakespeare"".......Schubert is equated with Goethe but also with Novalis.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: (28 August 1749 - 22 March 1832) German Writer. George Eliot called him ""Germany's greatest man of letters...and the last true polymath to walk the earth....
Novalis: Pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg (May 2, 1772 - March 25, 1801) an author and philosopher of early German Romanticism...

P46-54: By late August 1828 Schumann was spending much time in the company of Caruses and his piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck. Through whom he gained access to Leipzig's elite musical circles, and at whose home he came into contact with his teacher's daughter Clara - b. September 13, 1819 d. May 20, 1896) at nine years old a burgeoning concert pianist.
Admiration for Schubert and Jean Paul.... Dedicated to his brothers, Eduard and Carl and Julius, the VIII Polonaises ... op III [WoO20}. Also he was obviously taken by his Jean Paulian blend of "melancholy and enchantment"' see page 510 number-114

P 55-60:Topken, a friend of Schumann, wrote of his friend in a probable allusion to Schumann's use of the finger-strengthening device (cigar mechanism) as he calls it in his diary that perhaps brought on but certainly exacerbated the `'numbness'' in the third finger of his right hand, a complained registered in late 1830..........
Late Dec 1829...He records the largely adultery views (Extramarital sex that willfully and maliciously interferes with marriage relations-adultery is often cited as grounds for divorce") of his playing voiced by 21 individuals ... `'your piano playing is extraordinary....'' P 58.
Self-analysis "" Schumann is the young man I've loved and observed for a long time. I would like to portray his soul, but I don't know it completely. ... He possesses talent for many things and unusual individual traits distinguish him from the common horde...His temperament is melancholic because there in the power of feeling expresses itself more strongly that the power of observation; hence is more subjectivity ((Judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than external facts)) than objectivity ((Judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices)) in his judgments and creative work ...He has a lively memory and recollective faculty. Acumen, intellection, and wit are no so strongly developed....He is more inclined to artistic activity than to speculation....excellent in music and poetry - but not a musical genius - his talent as musician and poet are at the same level"" P 60/1....

P 61- 68: To change his studies from Law to Piano, he had to receive his mother's consent.

P 69: in a letter to his mother he wrote ""you can have no conception of Wieck's enthusiasm, his judgment and his insights into art., but when it comes to his or Clara's interest, he is like a wild boor (A crude uncouth ill-bred person lacking culture or refinement).........Wieck was careless in attending to his student's specific technical problems (???) And, if we read the subtext, more concerned with the furtherance of his daughter Clara's career, Wieck had grown curiously indifferent to Schumann's progress "........ P 69.
See Schumann's comments taken as anti-Semitic - re his one-time mentor - Probst - stands so much taller than Wieck, who gawks (Look with amazement; look stupidly) longingly at the Alps from which the former has already descended - He tries to hide his stinginess (A lack of generosity; a general unwillingness to part with money) .... But his greed has contaminated all his thoughts. Little by little, Jewishness has insinuated itself even into his facial features""....P 69

P 79-93: ...more direct evidences for a link between novel and poetic cycle keyboard.... Butterflies............ ""let each listener to catch the butterflies for himself, allowing their colorful play to glitter in a sunny hour....P. 86 When Clara played the work "Papillion's' in late May 1832, the assembled guests, ""incapable of grasping the rapid alteration of the pieces, looked at one another in amazement"" P. 87 Kant's views ""music was more enjoyment than culture"" after all Schumann was probably of a different opinion "music was an agent for the transmission of transcendental ideas"" i.e. Existing outside of or not in accordance with nature..

P 105-118: Schumann continued to work on his G-minor symphony - certainly on the last movement and perhaps also on the second and third as well - 1833 - , the first movement of which was rendered but only with limited success, at Clara's ""grand concert"" of 29 April at the Gewandhaus ..""His richest and most active period"" Unfortunately, this period was hampered by the suspension of his diaries for much of the four-year period between March 1833 and October 1837. But he went along with some record on his daily activities...
1833 Schumann was attacked by Malarial fever.... Recovery slowed by persistent and heavy drinking, his brother Julius died (28) of Tuberculosis. The death of his favorite sister-in-law, Rosalie, a victim of the same disease from which Schumann was slowly recovering, took him over the edge... 1833 was the first of neurotic spell.... Characterized by onslaught of anxiety and depression.... "" I was seized by an idée fixe: fear of going mad"" 17-18 October 1833....

P. 119- 130: Chronological History of Music.... Very interesting P 120....divides three-thousand-year span into ten periods .....(Read them)...the tenth period "marks the summit of art"" in figures such as Beethoven and Schubert...whose works present the fulfillment of the aspirations of previous ages... Music history is thus construed not only as a succession of great men, but also as the logical progression of stylistic trends embodied in their works...""Cheerfulness, repose, grace, the characteristics of the artworks of antiquity, are also those of Mozart's school. Just as the Greeks gave their thundering Zeus a cheerful expression, so too does Mozart restrain his lightning bolts"" P 121...
As a writer on music critiques: In the Introduction to the 1854 collected edition of his writings, he provides a succinct rationale for the strategy ""In order to express different points of view on artistic matters, it seemed appropriate to invent contrasting artist-characters of whom Florestan and Eusebius were the most important with master Raro occupying a mediating position between them"" P 127. Madness????

P 131-139: Art and life are perhaps more closely interwoven in Schumann's music than in that of any other composer of the nineteenth century. His Piano music in the middle and later 1830s, much of it bound up with the young woman whom he fell passionately and irrevocably in love during the latter half of 1835: Clara Wieck. To his teacher, Heinrich Dorn, in a letter ""Certainly much in my music embodies, and indeed can only be understood against the background of the battle that Clara cost me. She was practically the sole motivation for the Concert {sans Orchestre op. 14}, the Sonata {op. 11}, the Davidsbundlertanze, Kreisleriana, and the Novelletten. The Kinderscenen op 15 and Fantasie op. 17 belongs in the same list.......October 1835 and June 1836 respectively, can be coordinated with two factors: non-stop editorial work.....and emotional upheavals occasioned by the enforced separation of Robert and Clara just weeks after they declared their mutual love in December 1835.......
Schumann endeavors to make his works more appealing to the `dilettante'' circles for which it was intended... (By early 1840) P 138

P. 182-196: Returned from Zwickau to Leipzig on 14 April 1839...... a storm of greater magnitude was brewing. Writing from Paris on 9 April, Clara informed Schumann of her discovery of a clandestine correspondence between her friend Emilie List and Wieck, who was threatening to disinherit her, confiscate her earnings, and initiate a lawsuit against the lovers unless Clara promised to break off all relations with Schumann.. P 182 ... Wieck began to whistle a somewhat different tune, implying that his consent would be forthcoming contingent upon Schumann's ability to ensure Clara a ""worry-free future""... Clara begged her father passionately for his approval of her marriage to ""the best of men"" and assuring him that her love for Schumann was ""hardly a passing whim""... ""every man has his peculiarities: should one therefore reject him? Don't you believe that I am aware of Robert's shortcomings? Yet I also know his virtues"" also her conditions that Schumann should earn more money.... P 183 ""Unbelievable vile behavior on Wieck's actions (need for more money and securities). I could hate him to the point of madness"" Schumann summed it up...

P 203-218: Schumann's engagement with his compositions (of lieder)... In early December 1840, he took obvious pride in reporting his annual earnings - actual and projected... He demonstrates the potential of music for the transmission of ideas; it's potential, in other words, as a literary art....

P 219-221: By the fall of 1840 Schumann himself was anxious to tackle ""new artistic forms"" - his thoughts had already turned to string quartet and opera in the summer of 1839 and the winter of 1840, respectively. .... Early in the next month, Clara raised the possibility of a Parisian tour, but Schumann would hear nothing of t until first completing a piano concerto and a symphony. Within a year, he had made important contributions to both genres. As for the trip to Paris, it never took place.....

P 222- 226: Settling into Marriage - and Symphonic Composition...To judge from the diaries, the first year of the Schumanns marriage passed with a relative minimum of emotional upset, Their hearts, Schumann wrote in April 1841, were ""ever clear and bright and full of love .... This too is inscribed in my music"""...Only Clara's father, whose libelous charges against his son-in-law earned him 18 days in prison, was a source of consternation.... P 224....

P 227-241: A few days after Clara's 22nd birthday Schumann queried: ""What might I offer her apart from my own artistic endeavors?"" and then went on to list them: the publication of the Ruckert lieder (op 37), the appearance of the printed parts for the First Symphony, and the completion of the D-minor symphony. The last-named of Schumann's birthday gifts turns out to be a dual-natured offering, its gestures of emulation countered by a desire to outdo Clara in the area of motive integration. Is it too much to suggest that Schumann felt compelled to clear imaginative space for himself not only in relation to Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, but also as regards his composer-pianist wife? P.241

P. 242-246: The Chamber Music..... The first crisis in Schumann's married life occurred in 1842, the year during which he would extend his conquest of the principal musical genres into the realm of chamber music.

P. 246-266: ""I love Mozart dearly"" Schumann wrote in a diary entry of November 1842 ""but Beethoven I worship like a god who remains forever apart, who will never become one with us"" P.252

P. 329-336: the Musical Dramatist.... Conventional wisdom has it that Schumann possessed neither the temperament nor the talent necessary for a successful career in theatre. A born lyricist (A person who writes the words for songs) with an ill-developed sense for characterization, or so we are told, Schumann could not but fail as a dramatist. In a word, Schumann dramatic music has been deemed un-dramatic. (Un-romantic???) If by ""dramatic"" we mean "stagey"" then there is no doubt some truth to the charge.......

P. 336-356: Robert and Clara suspected his (Wieck's) hand in a snide (Expressive of contempt) notice placed in a January issue of Leipzig's Signale fur die musikalische Welt: ""In nine years much has changed: the artist who was deified (Consider as a god or godlike) as Clara Wieck is ignored as Clara Schumann""
.... Schumann's placement of the 16th or the 17th century chorale into the mouths of an 8th century Catholic community is no doubt both anachronistic (Chronologically misplaced) and naturally suspect, but these incongruities (being unsuitable and inappropriate) hardly interfere with melody's function as an agent of historicity...P 350
P 434-438: Schumann's works on Latin texts with unmistakable religious connotations: the Mass op. 147 and Requiem op 148... (Interesting reviews... to read).... 1849 and late 1850

P 439-452: Municipal Music Director in Dusseldorf..... Summer 1849... Schumann resumed his song writing activities... On 12 August the Schumann's travelled to Scheveningen, a spa situated near The Hague on the Dutch coast, where Schumann again began a daily regimen of bathing, much as he had in Norderney during the summer of 1846. At first, the bath seemed to do him some good: before long he regained his appetite, slept more comfortably, took pleasure in the company of Jenny Lind and the conductor and composer Johan Verhulst, played dominos with family and friends in the evenings, and even returned to the scoring of Vom Pagen und der Konigstochter (completed in early September). P 449 Short-lived improvement in his condition... and on September 3 of ""a burning feeling in the back of the head""... P 450... Nor was Clara faring well. On 9 September she suffered a miscarriage, another remarkable parallel with the couple's experiences in Norderney.........P 450. Towards the end of the month the Schumanns discovered a new (and for us, unusual) pastime: table-turning or table-rapping (Strike sharply) the act of moving a table or producing knocking sounds without apparent physical means, ascribed to spiritual force with which the participants are thus able to communicate....Schumann voiced his astonishment over this mysterious practice in a letter to Hiller of 25 April 1853: ""Yesterday we did some table-turning for the first time. What a remarkable power. Just think. I asked for the rhythm of the first two measures of (Beethoven's) C-Minor Symphony! The table hesitated with the answer longer than usual, then finally it began... though at first quite slowly. When I said: `'but the tempo is quieter, dear table'' it raped in the correct tempo.... We were all beside ourselves with amazement to be surrounded with such wonders"" P. 452 ... some biographers have interpreted Schumann's fascination with table-turning (an article he wrote on the subject does-not survive) as a sign of impending madness, it should be noted that if the composer was mad for indulging in this party game, so too were his family and many of his friends: his personal physician and friend, Dr Hesenclever, no less than Clara's friend, the pianist Rosalie Leser, joined in with an enthusiasm, just as great as Schumann's. Even his seven-year-old daughter Julie had her own to table (""Puppentisch"")... P 452....

P 453-459: While still at work on the Violin Concerto on 30 September (1853), Schumann received visit from a fair-haired young man from Hamburg who had been recommended to him by Joachim. A pianist and composer, his name was Johannes Brahms. Schumann at once recognized his twenty-year-old guest as a genius... (Madness!!... They say!! (???) My Q mark).... Hailing him in a letter to Joachim of 8 October 1853 as a ""young eagle"" and a ""true apostle who will inscribe revelations that many Pharisees (A member of an ancient Jewish sect noted for strict obedience to Jewish traditions)... will not un-riddle for centuries to come"" P 454
While Brahms has often been credited with inspiring the last surge in Schumann's creativity, we can now recognize this conjecture as a distortion of the facts. (See page 566 - ref 31-) "" In 1925 Martin Kreisig made a copy of the former list that is now housed in the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau. From it we learn that Schumann's music library contained about 500 titles, most of them scores, among which are represented all the major categories of compositions: Church music, Operas, Orchestral music, Instrumental chamber music, and Hausmusik (choral part songs, lieder, and piano music)..See Bischoff - Monument fur Beethoven pp 364-65,...... Still there is no denying Brahms's role in rekindling Schumann's Davidsbundler spirit. The ""Pharisees"" to whom Schumann alluded in his letter to Joachim are no doubt offspring's of the ""Philistines"" (A person who is uninterested in intellectual pursuits) that he and his collaborators on the Neue Zeitschrift battled in the 1830s........ and more... Clara destroyed some of her husband's works 40 years later, as she found them unworthy of her husband's genius.. (They were a set of five Romanzen for cello and piano)???? P 455
24 November 1853, Clara and Robert embarked on a tour to the Netherlands (one month) that would prove to be a major triumph... P 457..
19 January 1854, Clara and Robert journeyed the Hannover, where Joachim served as concertmaster of the court orchestra. The next 12 days were taken up with spirited conversation among friends - Schumann and Joachim were soon joined by Brahms and another young talent, Julius Otto Grimm -and a steady stream of music making public performances of Schumann's 4th Symphony and Phantasie for violin concerto with Joachim and the court orchestra..........P 457
By February 26 (1854) Schumann was well enough to play through a sonata by the young Martin Cohn for Dietrich, but afterward worked himself into such a state of ""Joyous exaltation"" that he was bathed in sweat. Fearful he might harm Clara during the night, he demanded to be taken to an asylum. Although the physician called in to examine the overwrought composer, a Dr Boger, was able to convince him to take to his bed, he awoke the next morning in a profoundly melancholy state, murmuring ""Ah Clara, I am unworthy of your love"". After working for a time on the fair copy of his variations, he slipped undetected from the house. Rubert Becker recorded the painful climax of the tale in his diary """Schumann snuck out of his bedroom-wearing felt slippers-and headed straight for the Rhine, jumping into the river from the middle of the bridge! Luckily he was noticed at the entrance to the bridge, and indeed because he offered his handkerchief as a pledge since he had no money for the toll! Fortunately several fishermen who had been observing this odd transaction came along with the little boat, immediately after he leapt, and saved him. Once in the boat, he tried to jump into the water again, but the fishermen prevented him. The trip home must have been dreadful: he was transported by eight men and followed by a group of people (it was Carnival season) who amused themselves at his expense...."""P 458..
Clara was kept from seeing her husband upon his return, his doctors surmising that the sight of her might increase his agitation; hence she passed the next days in nervous anticipation at the home of her friend Rosalie Leser.. Nor was she informed of Schumann's attempted suicide, a desperate action motivated by numbing depression, pathological guilt (the probable cause of which we will take up later), and fears of harming his wife....P. 458 In fact she could not piece together the terrible truth until over two years later, when Schumann's wedding ring could not be located after his death. Then she remembered the contents of a note she had once found among his papers ""Dear Clara, I am going to throw my wedding ring into the Rhine; do the same with yours, and then both rings will be united"" P 458

As other reviewers have said, this is not the biography to read if you want to be titillated by the real or imagined sexual peccadillos of a great master. Instead, this is a critical biography in the best sense. John Daverio's book unfolds Schumann's life with warmth and deep respect for its subject and without undo speculation. Then it goes on to an appreciation of the music whose only failing might be a too-positive appraisal of some works that critics have formerly been cool or even hostile toward. In certain cases, though, Daverio is clearly right. Obviously a well-trained musician, perhaps he can imagine beauties that others have not found through a study of the scores, for many of the works he praises are not available in recorded form--some haven't been heard for ages, I'm sure. This includes, for example, the choral ballads from Schumann's last years. Daverio praises Das Gluck von Edenhall as the finest among them and even argues for its rehabilitation to the repertoire. Knowing Die Sangers Fluch and other examples of Schumann's late choral music, I'm somewhat skeptical. The music in these works is generally four-square and lacking in the orchestral and vocal color the master brought to earlier pieces such as Paradise und die Peri or Requiem fur Mignon. But who can say? Perhaps Das Gluck is an unknown gem that should be taken up again by choral-music groups.

The point is that Daverio listens afresh to (or imagines skillfully from the printed score) music that others have dismissed as the work of a genius in decline, and he makes an undeniable point: though Schumann's last works are uneven, they don't represent a thorough collapse of musical powers but in some cases a wholly new approach to musical problems. This is true, say, of the works for violin from the last years, the sonatas and Fantasia. They are unusual even in the context of Schumann's other chamber and concerted works but in no way suggest a diminution of compositional strength.

In his appreciation of Schumann's growth as a composer, Daverio reminds me of Joan Chissell, the eminent British Schumann scholar, whose music reviews appeared for years in the Gramophone. I recall that she was constantly revising her estimate upwards for Schumann works each time she actually heard them in recording for the first time, explaining that it was impossible to imagine from the score alone how effective they actually were. Daverio goes even farther out on a critical limb, arguing for the importance of works that haven't been played by anybody for years. And his enthusiasm is infectious, partly because his writing is so good--clean, clear, unaffected, but engaging. Besides, Daverio was clearly right about one work. His book praises Das Paradise und die Peri as a neglected classic of Romanticism. Small wonder, then, that he was chosen to write the notes for John Eliot Gardiner's marvellous recording of the same that appeared on DG a few years ago. And if you haven't heard this recording, do. It proves Daverio right beyond the slightest doubt.

If you are a Schumann lover, this carefully considered, tastefully appreciative biography should be on your bookshelf.

This biography is a superb survey of Schumann's life and works. Those of us who adore Schumann's music have found a great musicologist and champion in John Daverio. His insight into German Romantic music was already made stunningly clear in his previous book on 19th Century music and German Romantic Ideology. Now this book concentrates on the arch-Romantic composer who synthesized the old and the new to create a "New Way" for music. While being deeply analytical when necessary, particularly in regard to the musical works themselves, Daverio writes in a very accessible style which brings his subject quite vividly to life. And Daverio's concluding remarks are timely, beautiful and extremely touching. Just a wonderful book in every respect.

Daverio's biography of Robert Schuman eschews the hackneyed themes familiar to what he terms "psychobiography"--dwelling on the supposed interrelationship between Schumann's idiosyncratic style and his mental collapse following the composition of the marvelous "Gesange der Fruhe." Instead, he offers insight after insight into the originality of Schumann's musical (and literary) genius, especially as they inform what he terms Schumann's uniquely "literary" musical enterprise. A must read for any Schumann devotee.

This is an interesting book mostly because of the viewpoint of the author. The author is a German who does not think Rommel was all that great. And so you have the whole series of events in Africa viewed from a critical German perspective.

And as he says, Rommel was very lucky in who he had as opponents. The British were horribly led in the begining (with some notable exceptions) leading to numerous German victories.

This is not a "must read." But it is worth the time and the unique viewpoint of the author makes it quite informative.

Rommel's War in Africa is a vivid and detailed account of the fighting between the German Afrika Korps and the British 8th Army during WWII. It is really a book with two themes, one about the war itself and the other about the man behind the battles, Erwin Rommel. The writing is solidly based on accurate historical research, using interviews and archival material from both sides. It was originally written in German and then translated into "British" English, so there words here and there that surprise the American reader, e.g. Germans referring to each other as "chaps". However, this does not take away from the reader's experience at all. Heckmann was one of the first authors to step beyond the glorified myth of Rommel and consider the man as he actually was. Both his courage and ingenuity, and his vanity and miscalculations are thoroughly explored. The narrative covers the back-and-forth nature of the fighting as each side maneuvers through the desert, suffers setbacks, and deals with the challenges of supply on a remote front. In the end, Rommel is defeated in Africa, and Germany itself reaches a turning point in the war. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this theater of WWII.

I have read quite a few works on the North African campaign of World War II, and Wolf Heckmann's "Rommel's War in Africa" is one of the best. This well written book is a pleasure to read for both the casual enthusiast and a more researched reader. Heckmann thoroughly and honestly explores both sides of the war, from both the allied and axis sides, which is quite refreshing, as most works are very Anglo-orientated about North Africa. I would confidently recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about World War II.

The author uses sources and personal accounts from both sides to give the most balanced account of this interesting campaign I have ever encountered. One of the very few books on the subject to take an unbiased look at Rommel's generalship, recounting both his genius and his flaws. I cannot overemphasize how worthwhile I found this work.

Jerry Sage was one of the true American heroes, and his book gives us a close, detailed account of his experiences as one of the most notorious American POWs in Nazi Germany. Very personal and gripping, this true tale of adventure is far better than any work of fiction.

From his training as an OSS agent, to his capture (he convinced his captors that he was a downed airman -- *very* fortunate for him), to his participation in some of the best known events in POW history, this book will hold you spellbound.

One of the things that struck me the most about this story is how much he writes about his close relationship with God, and how it helped him throughout his time as a POW and the rest of his life.

There are occasional passages that move by slowly, but these are few and far between, and overall do not detract from the book. This is an extremely hard book to find at a decent price. If you can get it, do! You won't be disappointed.

Jerry Sage was one of the original members of the OSS, the pre-World War II military intelligence agency which eventually became the CIA. After America's entry into the war, Sage was captured by the Germans in North Africa (he convinced the Nazis he was actually a paratrooper--otherwise they would have shot him on the spot) and was sent to a prison camp within Germany istelf. He escaped from the camp numerous times, and aided British officers in staging the famous "Great Escape" (the Steve McQueen character in the film about that escape was based on none other than Jerry Sage).

His autobiography is a riveting account of the long years in (and occasionally out of) German captivity--and goes on to describe the even more facinating life that Sage lived after the war, working covertly behind the Iron Curtain to subvert yet another savage dictatorship.

"Sage" is difficult to find today, but it's worth the search. For those who were unlucky enough to never have met Jerry Sage, who died a few years ago, it is an unforgettable history lesson, told by a genuine American hero.

For me, it's all that... plus a reminder of a brave man whom I was proud to call a friend.

Sage describes his actions as a commando in the African theater in World War II, his subsequent imprisonment, and his escape activities. Sage consistently accepted challenges boldly, with considerable courage and cleverness. For example, when a German civilian demanded that he shows his identification papers (while he was on the lam after an escape), he coolly said: "Not for you!" When a German woman began a conversation with him that exceeded his limited German skills, he faked deafness and made a gesture indicating that a bomb blast had deafened him. The ruse worked.

While in Stalag Luft III, Sage worked as a stooge and penguin. He set up numerous diversions. When the garden in which the sand was dumped grew noticeably higher than the surrounding soil, he deftly disguised this by placing a row of stones around the garden. When a suspicious German would not leave the area, Sage made a deliberately silly request for white paint for the rocks "in order to beautify the Third Reich." Predictably, the goon walked away in disgust.

Throughout this book, Sage emphasizes his strong Christian faith. While in solitary confinement, he often recounted Scriptures from memory. Sage also experienced numerous answered prayers, some of which were spectacular. For example, when being surrounded by a dog-wielding posse during one of his escapes, he prayed for a swamp in which he could submerge himself and breathe through a straw (based on a movie he had previously seen). He fully realized that there were no swamps in that part of Germany. But he prayed, and his prayer was answered almost immediately. He came upon a body of water in which he could hide, and he did so successfully.

Sage also recounts his experiences in war-torn Poland, providing details seldom seen in the writings of non-Polish authors. Sage saw the ruins of Warsaw caused by vindictive Germans following the Warsaw Uprising, whose doom had been guaranteed by the deliberate 6-month pause of the Soviet armies at the gates of Warsaw. Sage also saw firsthand and described the forced installation of the Communist puppet regime upon Poland that occurred just as soon as the Germans had been driven out--all the result of the sellout of Poland by the USA and Britain in the events up to and including the Yalta Conference. He personally protected a group of Polish women from being raped by Russian soldiers. He saw firsthand the widespread robbery of Poles by the Russians. They took whatever of value that the Germans had not taken first. He described the Poles as very generous, as they shared things with Sage and his men even though they had very little left after the German and now Russian occupations of Poland.

If you like the movie "The Great Escape", then take the time to read this book and find out what really happened. COL Sage will tell you in his own words how he survived life in a POW camp and traveled across Europe to link up with his unit and "get back in the fight" Sage stands for all that is good in our country, and his story is truely inspirational

This book is wonderfully written. It tells a mini-story of Bach's life in a very child-friendly way. It touches on his birth (and death) and his religious life. The focus is on Bach - not his religion. The artwork is vibrant and I highly recommend the book.

Winter has achieved another perfect picturebook bio for reading aloud (see My Name Is Georgia and Diego Rivera). Simply told, with beautiful language this book is a keeper! Wow, she's an awesome illustrator too! Music teachers across the country should be buying multiple copies for their classrooms! Buy it!

Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family of musicians. All the Bachs played musical instruments, and young Sebastian was no exception. But even more than the joy of playing, Bach loved composing his own music. "Sebastian heard the music in his head. The melodies came fast- as his pen raced over the page, he rarely changed a note. He heard one melody for the violin, one for the trumpet, one for the flute, and one for the oboe. Each instrument had its own voice. And when all the voices sounded at the same time, it was like good friends talking together." Bach married, had twenty children, and settled in Leipzig where he was the church music and choir director. He worked all day teaching his students and playing the organ, and composed all night as "new music filled Sebastian's head." During his life, Bach wrote over one thousand compositions. It is said that even as he took his dying breath, he was composing one last piece..... Jeanette Winter has written an engaging and informative, introductory picture book biography that brings Bach and his times to life on the page. Her simple, spare, yet eloquent prose is lyrical and poetic, and complemented by her evocative, vibrant, and expressive signature folk art paintings. Together word and art give youngsters a real feeling for the intensity of Bach's great love and devotion to both playing and composing music. Perfect for reading aloud, or for early readers 6-10, Sebastian is a fascinating and entertaining biography that will whet the appetite of budding musicians, and send them out looking for more.

My daughter and I loved this book! It's story is easily understood and the beautiful illustrations are sweet and peaceful and really bring the words to life. While the author did write about Bach's church music, she did not mention his devotion to God. But there are other books about that. This is a book for everyone.

Dr. Norton has done the English-speaking world a great service in producing this fine work of scholarship on a very esoteric subject.

I first learnt of Stefan George in relation to Arnold Schoenberg, who set many of George's poems to music: cf. especially Schoenberg's exquisite and groundbreaking song cycle The Book of the Hanging Gardens, Op. 15 from 1909--his Expressionistic and pantonal year.

As to George's poetry, I think it superior to Rilke's--and Rilke is recognized as one of the great poets of the 20th Century, in any tongue. In the original German, George explored new orthographical techinques such as the elimination of the capitalization of all nouns, excess umlauts, etc.

I wish to stress with some urgency that in my view this recently issued monograph on Germany's greatest poet, Stefan George, who was likewise one of modern Europe's most enigmatic and disturbing political presences, constitutes an achievement of incomparable significance in the historiography of cultural modernism. Experto crede: I have been occupied in studying these individuals for thirty years or more, and I can assure students that Robert Edward Norton has shed more light than admirers of Stefan George would have thought possible upon a dazzlingly talented, albeit indubitably eccentric,literary cenacle at whose center stood the masterful and charismatic visionary who was its spiritus rector.

Although George began his literary career as something of a minor Teutonic satellite on the far fringes of the French Symbolist movement (we learn, for instance, that the poet became quite close, both personally and artistically, to several of the Symbolist School's leading lights, viz., Paul Verlaine and Stephane Mallarme to mention just two of the more prominent figures) the predominant emphasis in Robert E. Norton's monograph rests upon the author's entertaining presentation of a wide range of hitherto obscure details involving the poet's later career, when his personal pretensions began to outweigh his literary career--over which George assiduously endeavored to cast a shroud of mystery and ambiguity--as well as unlocking for us a treasure trove of hitherto obscure biographical facts and anecdotes about the disciples and associates who drifted into the orbit of George-Kreis at one time or another. These anecdotes cover the waterfront, from uproarious and barely believable brawls that erupt out of the blue between alpha-intellects who are not what one would describe as pugilists, to grotesque tales of oddballs and geniuses who prefer to gussy themselves up in amazing couture in order to be wearing chic and appropriate threads when sallying out to attend the legendary and elaborate masqued balls that were almost a matter of routine in Schwabing-Muenchen. That custom, we learn, dictates that these people are more often than not attired in Roman-styled togas or, when feeling somewhat more daring, decked out in some gaudy purple-dyed gown that has been designed to garb a middle-aged intellectual who is impersonating the Magna Mater!

We learn also that these bright young things also hold somewhat outre "language orgies" in the course of which one of the oddest of the odd, viz., Alfred Schuler, launches himself into a catatonic state and then proceeds to time-travel back to ancient Rome (to visit his idol, of course, the Roman Emperor Nero!).

On the darker side of these affairs, the narrative presents more ominous anticipations and adumbrations of ominous types of cultic behaviors and ritual observances many of which would one day come to exert a profound and troubling influence on a less purely literary gathering of activists, viz., Hitler's National Socialists, whose adherents were to inherit so many elements of George's uniquely--even oppresively--authoritarian leadership style, along with the [Schuler-inspired]adoption during the fin de siecle period of the swastika as a sort of occult sigil of mystical might, one that came to adorn the title page of the Circle's official literary journal, the Blaetter fuer die Kunst.

We're also given numerous details about the poet's itinerary as he wandered from one associate's flat to another's (he was definitely what one might call a "professional house-guest"), along with fresh discoveries about the incredible group of renowned thinkers and creative writers (among whom the most talented were surely philosopher Ludwig Klages, archaeologist Alfred Schuler, poet Hugo von Hoffmansthal, and Shakespearean scholar Friedrich Gundolf), all of whom became adherents to the famous "Circles" that were so idiosyncratic a feature of cultural life in Schwabing-Munich at the dawn of the 20th century.

In closing, I repeat that I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in German culture, in the nascent proto-National Socialist scene in early 20th century Bavaria, or simply in the spectacle of some of the weirdest intellectuals ever to have come down the pike.

Over there they pronounce his name, "Gay-or-ga," and over there they treated him almost as a god. From American shores we find it difficult to see why Stefan George attained the eminence we once did, but Norton does his very best to penetrate two mysteries--one is the mystery of George's decline in reputation--and the other is, what made him the extraordinary character he was, and what is it about Germans that makes them need heroes and leaders so badly?

George was a talented poet, and apparently a homosexual, and early on he fell in love with the brilliant young poet Hugo von Hoffmanstahl, who drew back when confronted with the full force of George's love, and later became Richard Strauss' favorite librettist and the author of, for example, Der Rosenkavalier, a work that has lasted longer than any of George's own poetry. But, in the US, George has always been shrouded by a mist of romance and also by suspicions that he was somehow a proto-Nazi. His sympathizers say that he was resolutely anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi, but his case was not helped by his insistence on showing the swastika under the impression that its use could distinguished as separate from that of the National Socialists. Stefan George drew a cult around himself, and around the image of his boyfriend, known as "Maximin," who died early and young and thus became, for the George-kreis (or circle), an image of national and personal purity and unrealized potentiality. It is a sad story and Norton gives us a Stefan George who seems almost human, if a bit over-rated. It is hard to believe that eighty or ninety years ago people thought of him as they did Lenin. It has been a long time since a mere poet attained that kind of status in world affairs.

Robert Norton's landmark biography on Stefan George and his circle truly is an exceptional book in every respect. Expansive in its inclusion of meticulous detail, this work stands as the definitive biography on George in any language to date.

I have the original hardback edition of this book, and found it to be very well researched and written. Besides the history of the great German biplane bombers, it explains the frustration of England in developing a defense against this new type of warfare. Also, the fight in the English government to establish an independant Air Force is also discussed. An interesting read for history students or aviation enthusiasts.

As an air defense pilot 1954-1970 with a hobby of military history I thought the book well researched and detailed and instills in the reader what it was like back then in a hostile sky. I have read the book several times and still find it fascinating. Walt (BJ) Bjorneby Lt/Col, USAF, (Ret), pilot F86/F102/F104/F4

Have you ever bought a book because you were interested in the subject matter, only to realize upon reading the first chapter that the writer does not know how to entertain? If you have, then brace yourself, because this book is NOT like that. The author filled each chapter with relevant insights into the characters that make up the events. Not once was I overpowered by facts alone. I have read highly praised novels that lacked the emotion, suspense, etc, that this book displays. To top it off, the author writes with unbelievable knoweldge of a subject that is too often overlooked: the implications of the First Battle of Britian.

Until I had picked up Lucas Delattre's "A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich: The Extraordinary Life of Fritz Kolbe, America's Most Important Spy in World War II", I had never heard before of this book's fascinating subject. Without question, he became an important source of information to the United States on the state of affairs in Nazi Germany towards the latter half of World War II. But still more fascinating is that he came "out of the cold", unannounced, and introduced himself to skeptical American and British intelligence operatives in Switzerland as a German foreign service employee willing to work alone against a diabolical, despotic regime. Delattre - and his English translator George A. Holoch, Jr. - have told a riveting tale in the best tradition of a Graham Greene or John Le Carre novel, but here, the truth is surely much stranger than fiction. I was especially intrigued with how well Kolbe had won over the Americans, especially Allen Dulles, the OSS station chief in Switzerland, and that he managed to provide - without any detection by his superiors in the foreign ministry or by the Gestapo - invaluable information on Nazi-occupied Europe and Japanese-occupied Asia. And I find it remarkable that Kolbe escaped detection by the Gestapo when quite a few of his friends and colleagues did not, and were executed eventually for their resistance against the Nazi dictatorship. It's a pity that this story had a bittersweet ending for Kolbe, who could not serve in the Federal Republic of Germany's foreign ministry due to the influence of former Nazis who objected to having a "traitor" working in their midst; much to Germany's credit, he has been remembered posthumously with a memorial room in the current Foreign Ministry office. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested not only in World War II, but in events in Germany immediately after the war.

This must be one of the most remarkable stories to come out of World War II, and Fritz Kolbe must be one of that war's most unique personalities. During the last two years of the war, and at the risk of his life, Fritz Kolbe brought to the Allies over 2600 secret documents from Hitler's Foreign Office in Berlin. As a result, at war's end he was regarded as "the prize intelligence source of the war." For all this, he asked nothing.

Kolbe was a minor official in the Foreign Office who had managed to maintain his position despite never having joined the Nazi Party. He came to detest the Nazi regime and, despite the inherent risks, resolved to do everything in his power to help bring it down. In early 1943, despite not being a party member, he managed to wangle a trip to Bern, Switzerland as a diplomatic courier. Once there, he attempted to contact the British secret service but they turned him away.

Kolbe then managed to contact the Bern office of the fledgling American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) - the forerunner of today CIA - which was headed by Allen Dulles. Kolbe brought with him about two hundred Nazi top secret documents. Dulles was somewhat uncertain, but decided to take a chance on Kolbe and gave him the cover name George Wood. From that time on, Kolbe provided Dulles with highly classified information regarding the third Reich, its plans, its weaponry, its manufacturing plants and their locations, damage to factories and other installations by allied aircraft, Germany's negotiations with other countries, and strategic information concerning the Japanese war machine. In addition, Kolbe's information helped identify German spies and/or their locations in Ireland, Ankara, and Africa.

But sadly, much of this information was never acted upon by the Allies. For some inexplicable reason the OSS office in Washington assigned his file to the counter-espionage service which spent most of its time trying to verify the authenticity of the source. Even more sadly, shortly before his death President Roosevelt mandated that no special consideration should be given to Germans who risked their lives to aid the Allied cause. Germany's surrender must be unconditional.

Thus the ultimate irony: It has been said that no good deed shall go unpunished. So, if Fritz Kolbe's heroic efforts to help bring down Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany can be considered a good deed by mankind, then Kolbe certainly received his just reward. For at war's end, and with the newly established German Foreign Office largely staffed with ex-Nazi officials, Fritz Kolbe found himself blacklisted as a traitor and left out in the cold.

He had many friends in America's Office of Strategic Services (OSS), but despite the best efforts of his friend, Allen Dulles, who's reputation as a spy master Kolbe had almost single handedly created, Kolbe was never able to resume his career. Instead, he went from one low paying job to another until his death on February 16, 1971. This was a sad end for a forgotten hero who strangely enough might have wanted it that way.

This is a truly unforgettable biography of a German civil servant and diplomat who risked his life to spy for the allies during WWII.He was a member of the German diplomatic service, who had the courage (almost alone among his colleagues), to refuse to join the Nazi party. As the war went on, he was steadily promoted, ending up in a position in which he had access to top-secret documents. Driven by his conscience, he decided that he must help the allies, and this he did at the risk of his life, by smuggling documents to Switzerland. For his first trip across the German - Swiss frontier, he wrapped secret documents around his thighs, under his trousers! Discovery by customs agents would have led to his arrest and eventual execution.

When he first arrived in Zurich, he attempted to contact British and American spy organizations, but was treated by them with great suspicion, and considered a 'double agent'. Eventually he was able to gain the trust of Allen Dulles who acted as head US espionage in Switzerland during this period. Fritz Kolbe worked with Dulles for several years, during which he was able to transmit over 2,600 secret documents to the Dulles organization. From the outset, he astonished his American colleagues by refusing any and all payment for his dangerous work. As the war end approached, he even attempted to form a guerilla group in Berlin, but was dissuaded from this by his US handlers, who persuaded him that his work as a spy was too important for him to take on extra risks. When the war was over, he was unable to find employment in the German diplomatic service, because he was considered a traitor by the many ex-Nazis who had managed to re-enter German government service. He died of cancer in 1971.

It seems like the release of previously secret information from World War II will never end. This book is based on information from the OSS archives that was finally released in 2000. It tells a story that was simply unknown before.

Fritz Kolbe was a walk in. One day he walked in to the OSS office in Switzerland and offered to spy on Germany. Both the British and the Americans were very concerned that he was a double agent. Eventually though Allen Dulles, then head of the OSS in Switzerland took a chance with him.

Kolbe was a medium level officer in the German foreign office. He was not a Nazi and became disenchanted with the Nazi regime. All in all he passed some 2,600 secret documents to the OSS.

After the war Kolbe wanted to continut working for the German Foreign Office. But the Nazi officials who had by then re-entered the German government considered him a traitor and refused to employ him.

The CD is read by Michael Prichard, who has recorded some 430 full length books.

This book is filled with some of the greatest portrait art I have ever seen! Kruger uses a wide variety of styles. Some images seem to be caricature in nature, while others are more realistic, and still others are totally unique in style and hard to catagorize. The common thread of all the images in this book is that they portray the character of the subject with unmatched accuracy and ability. The images in this book can best be described by one word, 'WOW'! The high quality of this book's printing also does great justice to these astounding images. All in all I give this book 'two thumbs up' 'way up'! Highly recommended for those interested in art that is innovative and masterful.

No need to say that it is again the collection of Mr Kruger's brilliant caricutures of stars from which you can find out those great brush strokes stand out.

Outstanding illustrations of celebrities in verious fields, such as movie stars, singers... Great reference and resource for character design.

sebastian kruger is the best caricaturist of his generation. i would put him up there with levine and hirshfeld. but unlike those two kruger doesn't have a style. his consistency lies in his constant exploration of other styles. He approaches each celebrity with a fresh eye. No two pictures in this book look the same, but all are done with impeccable skill. This book is wonderful at showing some of his more popular subjects. The reproductions are great except for two blurry images. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in celebrities, caricatures, acrylics, airbrushes, and people with big noses.

Anna Funder gives a sharply cut and moving (in)human face to the now defunct German Democratic Republic by interviewing former Stasi members (the top, foreign spies, informants, organizers) and their direct or indirect victims.
In `a world where there was nothing to buy, nowhere to go, and where anyone who wanted to do anything other than serve the Party, risked persecution or worse', the Stasi's aim was to know everything about everybody with all means, even radiation. As the author poetically states: everybody had `a mirror Nemesis' in a Stasi department. The result was that everyone suspected everyone else and turned into an `internal emigration' for the sheltering of their secret inner lives.
In fact, the Stasi was a formidable organization (one informant for every 6,5 citizens) created in order to defend the government against its own people.
Anna Funder exposes the real Stasi mentality: `The most important thing you have is power" (Chief E. Mielke). Its colossal archives were partly shredded after the fall of the Berlin Wall (15000 sacks) and are being puzzled together. A truly Herculean task.
The author paints a society built on ideological fiction (human nature was a work-in-progress which could be improved by Communism) and on blatant lies (a multi-party democracy, no former Nazis, not responsible for the Holocaust).
But what is left after the collapse? A `Wall in the Head'. The victims are still heavily marked (psychological damage by the terrifying effect of total surveillance) and some Stasi men still hope that the Wall will be built again.

Anna Funder wrote a formidable evocation of life in a communist one party state protected by a wall.
A must read.

When author George Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 he wrote of the contemporary and future 'proletarian' dictatorships. The German Democratic Republic, more than any other state before or since, came the nearest to a state of perfected and complete absolute control over its citizens' lives. The author of Stasiland, Anna Funder, has done a suberb job of revivifying this state in her readers' minds through the personal stories of the GDR's inhabitants. I got this book for Christmas and had it read in three days, so good I never wanted to put it down.

The book's chapters trace the lives of various GDR citizens, both those being oppressed and the Stasi personnel charged with terrifying the GDR's people into abject submission. In Soviet Russia there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people, in Nazi Germany one Gestapo agent for every 2000 people, but in the GDR there was one Stasi - or full-time informer - FOR EVERY 63 PERSONS (see p. 57)!

Funder hears shocking tales of personal tragedy, bizarre - but true - stories of GDR logic, and personal justifications from ex-Stasi men themselves. One 15-year-old girl singlehandedly, without any prior planning(!), almost manages to escape over the Berlin Wall, getting within a couple meters of freedom. Another family is permanently separated from their seriously ill son for his first five years of life. And one woman's personal and career life is ruined when she refuses to submit to ideological control.

The author also interviews some famous GDR personalities, such as musician Klaus Renft, the evil-spirited Karl Von Schnitzler, and Hagen Koch (who literally wrote the plan for the wall). She also interviews the puzzle people trying to piece back together the shredded Stasi files. And she also meets with Stasi agents, who for one reason or another, decided to join the 'dark side'.

As I was reading the book, I couldn't help but become absolutely convinced that, despite the very publicized efforts of the German gov't to piece back together the Stasi files, in fact, German (and all other Eastern European) CURRENT LEADERS WANT TO COMPLETELY OBLITERATE EVIDENCE OF THEIR OWN CRIMES DURING THE COMMUNIST REGIMES. The fact of the matter is that many of the former communist elite are still in power now and are using all their gov't influence to ensure they are never, EVER going to be outed! So, in reality, many of them have gotten away with murder and look set to lead comfortable lives into retirement. Many times throughout the book I sensed a continuing cover-up and obfuscation by former Stasi men.

The German government's extremely feeble, half-hearted attempt to reassemble the Stasi files with a staff of 30 or so persons is an absolute farce! Funder calculates it will take them over 300 years to reassemble the files at this rate. With a budget in the billions of euros, it becomes patently obvious the German government's objective is to NOT reassemble the incriminating files. A person might even believe that the Stasi File Authority is headed by a person, Herr Raillard, who is secretly charged by gov't leaders with eliminating any damning evidence that is actually found. This isn't a surprise, as it is the same across the entire former Communist bloc.

This is a great book with a wonderfully direct, realistic writing style. I hope Ms. Funder writes a sequel to the book. I would have liked to have seen some photos too, though. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in life in Eastern Europe.

Stasiland is the former East Germany, a country where the Stasi, the secret police, spied on every inhabitant, kept files on everybody, and seemed all-powerful. Anna Funder has written about the Stasi in a way that sometimes seems like fiction, other times like memoir, and ultimately like an exceptionally readable history.

The Berlin of Funder's book is post-Wall Berlin, but it is as gray and paranoid as the Berlin of John le Carre's spy novels. Funder seems depressed throughout, and it is no wonder. She spends all her time interviewing former "Ossis," East Germans who were victims of the Stasi or who were former Stasi themselves. Even her irrepresible rock musician friend reveals that his band was declared "non-existent" by the Stasi. The secret police were so thorough that he cannot find any evidence that his group, which recorded several albums and was quite popular in the East, ever existed.

Through Funder, we hear from Miriam, who nearly made it over the Wall at age sixteen, but was caught, jailed, and blacklisted. Shortly after she married, her husband was arrested, then the Stasi showed up at Miriam's door to tell her that her husband had killed himself. She refused to believe the obvious lie and the subsequent funeral was a bizarre farce. Decades later, Miriam is still trying to make sense of it all, still searching for clues to explain what really happened.

Frau Paul tells of her newborn son whose East German doctors risked their careers by smuggling the infant to the West because it was his only chance to survive a life-threatening condition. Frau Paul was denied permission to visit her baby unless she agreed to help the Stasi trap an acquaintance of hers. She desperately wanted to see her son, whose condition kept him in hospital for years, but knew that if she agreed to help the Stasi just once, she would be theirs for life. The child was well-cared for, but was growing up with only the hospital staff as his family. When he left the hospital at age six and returned to his family in the East, he was polite but distant with the parents who were strangers to him. Forty years later, Frau Paul still considers herself the traitor to her country and failure as a parent that the Stasi told her she was.

Not all of the stories are tragic. Funder learns of a woman the Stasi tried to recruit to spy on her co-workers. The woman agreed, then went to work and cheerfully told everyone that the Stasi had recruited her to be a spy. Since her cover had been blown, she was no longer useful to the Stasi. They never bothered her again.

Funder visits the office of the "puzzle people," workers who put shredded documents from Stasi files back together. The papers reveal who the Stasi was watching, what they discovered, and who the informers were. Ossis may now request to see their files, but many of the files have yet to be put back together. The director tells Funder that at the rate of an average of ten reconstructed documents a day per employee, it will take forty puzzle people 375 years to reconstruct all the shredded documents. And, he explains, "as you see, we have only thirty-one employees."

Little by little, Funder allows us to realize that the Stasi does not exist as a curious and irrelevant moment in history. The torture devices in the Stasi museum and the thousands of bags of shredded documents that recall the abuses of power are evidence of a government that still haunts the lives of millions of former Ossis. It had seemed so powerful, but when the end came for the Stasi, it was without violence in a peaceful revolution of people who were just fed up.

Anna Funder is an Australian writter who found herself in Berlin several years after the Berlin wall and Communism in former GDR (German Democratic Republic; or DDR in the German language) collapsed.

Through personal stories of former East Germans, Anna tries to put together a mental pictures of what life in former GDR was like. And this mental picture is a stark, dark, oppressive, and paranoid collage of people's lives' stories.

One will learn that East Germany was 'the most perfected surveillance state of all time,' where there was one Stasi officer or informant for every 63 people. The book covers the national formation of the GDR regime and also discuss the cultural background of why Germans were willingly subjecting themselves to authority. The best torture method devised by the Stasi was sleep deprivation. With all this and more, the author makes the point that the regime would not have survived without the Soviet military muscle and presence.

The book also presents some light and funny trivia: the quasi-scientific method of 'smell sampling' used by the 'Firm' (Stasi), the East German silly dance style called 'Lipsi' and the corny or mind-numbing propaganda TV shows.

Interviewing people who lost loved ones in the evil regime's prisons, persons who taught counterintelligence classes for the Stasi, who worked as informants or undercover policeman, students who tried to escape across the Berlin Wall, and persons who are still believers in the 'proletarian' revolution and are nostalgic about the values of the former Socialist republic.

By reading this ecclectic biography collage you will learn about German cultural values, GDR political and idiological history, the Stasi (one of the most feared secret police organizations). Stasiland also shows how much the Stasi archives ruined many lives in former East Germany.

A recommended counter-balance to the gloomy and depressing theme of this non-fiction is the romance/drama/comedy movie "Good Bye Lenin (2003)."

"Long live our holy Germany" were the last words of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg on the night of July 20, 1944. Peter Hoffmann's magnificient book is a salute to the Stauffenberg brothers and most importantly Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg was the real thing, a man of deep Christian principles and extradionary courage who knew that the future of Germany was more important than his life and the life of his fellow conspirators. He made the ultimate sacrifice so that others could live in freedom. Stauffenberg is not only a hero of Germany, but of anyone on earth who loves freedom and respects the laws of God and humanity. Stauffenberg was Germany's guardian angel, who attempted to save his nation and slay the man he deemed "the antichrist." Doctor Hoffmann paints a wonderful picture of Stauffenberg's early life and military career. He then moves into minute detail of the plot to kill Hitler and the man whom fate had chosen to lead it. Simply a great scholastic achievement.

Peter Hoffmann's biography of Stauffenberg is the best anyone is likely to write on the subject. The book comprehensively assesses all primary sources hitherto used by Stauffenberg's previous biographers, plus many additional sources which the author himself found. Hoffmann's previous books, among them 'THE HISTORY OF THE GERMAN RESISTANCE, 1933-1945', and 'HITLER'S PERSONAL SECURITY' serve as a foundation to this work which, all told, spans 30 years of scholarly research. As the depth and breadth of this study eclipses any other attempt to date, its conclusions are unassailably judicious. Thus, Hoffmann's 'STAUFFENBERG' has made perhaps the most definitive contribution to the historical field of resistance to the Third Reich.

Aside from being the single man in history to make several (and one very famous) attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler, Claus Von Stauffenberg was a unique guy.

Born in 1907 to Prussian aristocracy, Stauffenberg was playing the cello, reciting Shakespeare, and taking an interest in Catholic theology
by the age of exactly 12. Had he made a career out of any of these three, his fate would have been less cruel. Claus Von Stauffenberg, though, was a born soldier.

Ultimately becoming a General Staff officer in the German Abwehr, Stauffenberg and his brothers Berthold and Alexander still made considerable time for poet Stefan George, and were part of his "Secret Germany", a quasi-mystical poetic cult of sorts which worshipped George as "Master, and the three brothers were were prophesied by the poet manque as the future leaders of the Fatherland. Goethe, Holderlin, Rilke and Nietzsche were heralded as the predecessors of the movement. The problem with the entire affair was that George was not very talented and his literary salon was composed mostly of teenage boys.

Despite George, the slow but sure rise of the Third Reich (which, like most Germans, Stauffenberg initially welcomed and his inevitable participation in nearly all of Germany's military campaigns, Claus Von Stauffenberg always retained an odd detachment from his surroundings and a sense of self which was very strong.

The sheer wealth and richness of not only Stauffenberg's life, but the life of his wealthy and somewhat sheltered family--his career as a decorated soldier in the Wehrmacht, his prestige as a model, and as head of the General Staff office--makes his brutal death in front of the Bendleerstrasse in Germany a surreal and bizarre turn of events.

Stauffenberg was aware of Germany's imminent defeat, yet as early as 1942 he was making some quit imprudent remarks about the Fuhrer: "In August 1942 Stauffenberg told Major Joachim Kuhn, a close friend, that the treatment of the Jews and other civilians was monstrous, *that Hitler had lied about the cause of the war*, and that he had to be removed. He then shouted: "They are shooting Jews in the masses. These crimes must not be allowed to continue!"

Then in in another outbrust which later got him arrested, news of more atrocities sparked Stauffenberg to scream in front of SS and general staff alike:"Does not one German soldier have the courage to shoot that pig?"

Attempt after attempt failed; Stauffenberg was regularly seen carrying a "remarkably plump briefcase" (as Albert Speer put it) to three different meetings in Hitler's "Wolf's Lair" in Prussia. Once Hitler did not show up: the second time Stauffenberg's incompetent superiors instructed him to not to set the fuse, and the third time the bomb exploded and by sheer chance did not kill Hitler.

Even in the face of the Gestapo's considerable wrath, Stauffenberg did his best to get the coup de'etat to to succeed. In a most fortunate turn of events for Stauffenberg, probably, a General Staff officer involved in the plot turned on the other plotters and had a handful of them, Claus included, shot on the night of July 20, 1944.

Why? Why was such a priviliged and wealthy figure in the German army who would certainly never have been charged with war crimes choose to sacrifice his life, the life of his family and friends, in an attempt so tenuous and fraught with uncertainty?

The answer, I think, lies in Stauffenberg's unbelievable bravery, sense of common decency, and Christian background. Without these things he may indeed have been a terrifying force for the Third Reich. He could no longer stomach what was going on around him. Peter Hoffmann here gives the definitive biography of this heroic man who embodies perhaps the most inspiring example of "what might have been" in history. A must read.

Of the ten or so serious biographies on Stauffenberg, this will stand as the text to refer to for comprehensiveness and objectivity. The prose is clear, the questions of enduring interest are all answered, and the reader meets the man. Unreservedly recommended.