The farewell letter presented by Josef Krips to musicians of the Buffalo Philharmonic in 1963.
Krips left Buffalo that year to take the music directorship in San Francisco.
Krips was vastly under-appreciated outside Central Europe. He was especially underrated in Britain, France, Italy and the U.S., where reluctance to grant Krips his due bordered on criminal neglect.
John Culshaw took several unnecessary swipes at Krips in Culshaw’s memoir recounting Culshaw’s career as a recording executive at Decca. Culshaw’s swipes were ungenerous and unkind, and betrayed Culshaw’s fundamental pettiness.
If my French were better, I would attempt to plow through Georges Athanasiades’s massive biography of Krips. Krips had an interesting life, and the Athanasiades tome is supposed to be exhaustive—as well as stupendous.
I almost bought a copy of the Athanasiades at the book kiosk in the lobby of Palais Garnier in 2003 or 2004, but my brother talked me out of making the purchase (the book is huge and unwieldy, and was hardly cheap even back in 2003 or 2004, when it remained in print; today copies of the out-of-print book are monstrously expensive).
The book of memories of Josef Krips was not written by George Athanasiades. Mr. Athanasiades made the translation of the German book in French. That said, George Athanasiades is a specialist knowledge of Josef Krips.
ReplyDeleteThe author of the book is the widow of Josef Krips (Harrietta Krips).
The book is regarded as the only reference in this field. Internet (including Wikipedia), there are many and great mistakes.
Thank you for your attention, and especially your interest in Maestro Josef Krips.