Taskmaster

My Life with Wagner. By Christian Thielemann. Translated by Anthea Bell. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 267 pages; £25.

CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN has risen fast through the ranks of orchestral conductors, although not quite as quickly as he might have wished. He wanted to be the first German artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since Wilhelm Furtwängler 61 years ago, but the Berlin musicians chose Kirill Petrenko, a Russian rival, instead. He has, however, received an agreeable consolation prize. He is to become only the second music director of the Bayreuth festival drawn from outside the Wagner family. (Furtwängler was the first in 1930, but he lasted only a year.)

Mr Thielemann will be happy in Bayreuth, where Richard Wagner—“The Master”—is beyond criticism. His book is an act of homage, part revealing autobiography (“Wagner confronted me with myself…not always [an] undiluted pleasure”) and part informative guide to the Wagner oeuvre, describing the plots and performances of all the operas, with discography thrown in. His favourites are “Tristan und Isolde” and “Die Meistersinger...

from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1Wm0PjX