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Walking Freely on Firm Ground: Letters to Mary Virginia Foreman 1935-1951. By Artur Schnabel, edited by Werner Grünzweig, Lynn Matheson, and Anicia Timberlake. Hofheim: Wolke, 2014. [370 p. ISBN 9783955931001. i 39.] Illustrations, bibliography, index.
There is no doubt that the pianist and composer Artur Schnabel was a man of strong opinions: he made no secret of his preferences in piano manufacturers, the impact of sound recording on artistic creation, and his devotion to the music of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. In this collection of letters, we see another side of his personality, as Schnabel candidly describes his feelings on politics, differences in European and American society and cultural values, and his deep affection for a young woman who was the recipient of more than 400 letters during their friendship. Through these letters to an aspiring pianist and music student, a portrait of Schnabel emerges to show an artist integrally connected to the world around him, both as a musician- composer and as an intellectual.
The exact nature of Mary Virginia Foreman Le Garrec's relationship with Schnabel is rather ambiguous. The book's preface gives a recounting of their first meeting as well as some details about Foreman's life after Schnabel's death. Foreman herself wrote two books about Schnabel, and in 2002 donated his letters to her to the Berlin Akademie der Künste; the letters selected for this anthology are drawn from that archive. Schnabel's first letters to Foreman date from January 1935 and occur somewhat regularly in a biweekly pattern until two months before his death in 1951.
This collection provides readers with an in-depth view of the life of a musical virtuoso and composer of the mid-twentieth century. Schnabel describes in great detail the pitfalls of organizing concert series, the less than optimum conditions for recording sessions, and the struggle to integrate the economic necessity of touring with the need for the time and reflection required for musical composition. While these problems may not be unique to Schnabel, his letters (many written during the years of the Second World War), provide a compelling portrait showing how musicians and performing arts are adversely affected by the war and its aftermath. In poignant letters from October 1938, as the conflict drew closer to Italy, Schnabel describes...