| Contents |
Brahms and Joachim discuss inspiration ; Brahms takes Beethoven as his guide ; How Brahms contacted God ; Brahms takes Mozart as a model ; Brahms and the invocation of the music ; The religious but unorthodox Brahms ; Brahms quotes Matthew 7:7 ; How Laotze appropriated divinity -- Brahms and Jesus' miracles ; Daniel Home walks in the air ; Daniel Home demonstrates his powers in Paris ; Blind Tom and Zerah Colburn ; A biography of Daniel Home -- Brahms' opinion of atheism ; Brahms' fascination with Tennyson's concept of creation ; Tennyson discusses creation with Darwin ; Brahms' veneration for Tennyson's views on the immortal soul -- Brahms' interest in my home town ; Queen Victoria and Sitting Bull ; Brahms, Tartini and the devil ; Brahms' reverence for Shakespeare and Milton -- Why Brahms believed in immortality ; Brahms' and Milton's invocation of the muse ; Brahms stresses the importance of seclusion -- The barren efforts of most composers ; Brahms berates Spohr's shortsightedness ; Brahms' definition of genius ; Brahms' visions when in an exalted mood ; Brahms, Willamowitch and the thief on the cross ; Brahms binds me to secrecy for fifty years -- Joachim's reaction to Brahms' revelations ; Joachim analyses Brahms' detractors ; A look at some of Brahms' biographies -- Weimar and Richard Strauss in 1890 ; With Strauss in his own home ; Strauss discusses the sources of his inspiration ; I hear Strauss conduct Tannhaeuser ; Weimar as a cultural center in the 1890s ; I meet the first Elsa and Telramund ; Turning point -- Richard Strauss tells of Alexander Ritter ; Strauss takes exception to Emerson ; Lassen's reaction to "Don Juan" ; I hear Strauss' first opera "Guntram" ; When Strauss was composing "Salome" -- The "Rosenkavalier" premier at Dresden ; The "Ariadne" premier at Stuttgart ; Strauss' declining years -- I meet the composer of "Boheme," "Tosca," and "Butterfly" ; The great fiasco of "Madame Butterfly" premier ; Puccini tells how he appropriated divinity ; Puccini's setting of "La Boheme" -- Torre del Lago and the maestro ; How Puccini composed "La Boheme" ; Puccini's glowing tribute to Toscanini ; Music and libretto at strife ; Puccini stresses sadness in the major key -- A fundamental Italian characteristic ; Puccini tells how he composed "Tosca" ; How the play "Butterfly" fascinated Puccini -- Humperdinck tells how Richard Wagner composed ; Wagner takes his cue from Shakespeare ; Humperdinck belittles himself as a composer -- Max Bruch and his G minor violin concerto ; Max Bruch discusses inspiration ; Bruch's estimate of Brahms ; Max Bruch in his old age -- Edvard Grieg and his Norse idioms ; Ole Bull frees Grieg from Niels Gade's influence ; Jadassohn's pupils play a joke on him -- Jadassohn criticizes Grieg's methods ; Grieg's response to Jadassohn's criticism ; Grieg's reaction to Brahms' views ; Grieg's impressions of Ole Bull's playing ; Grieg quotes Longfellow's tribute to Ole Bull ; Grieg refuses a fee of $25,000 for a single concert. |
| Abstract |
What inspires creativity? Between the years 1890 and 1917 the author engaged in lengthy, candid conversations with the greatest composers of his day-- Johannes Brahms, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, Engelbert Humperdinck, Max Bruch, and Edvard Grieg-- about the intellectual, psychic, and spiritual tensions of their great creative endeavors. The result of their probing and insightful discussions is quite simply a masterpiece-- a document that reveals the agony, triumphs, and the religiosity inherent in the creative mind. The six composers readily agreed to explore with their friend their innermost thoughts regarding the psychology of the creative process. Brahms insisted, however, that his disclosures not be published until fifty years after his death, because, he said, "I will not find my true place in musical history until at least half a century after I am gone." |
