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Music

The truth about Wilhelm Furtwängler

20 October 2018

9:00 AM

20 October 2018

9:00 AM

The morning after the first night of Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides in May 1995, I received a call from Otto Klemperer’s daughter.

‘Tell me,’ said Lotte, ‘is it true that, in Mr Harwood’s play, the denazification attorney addressed Dr Furtwängler as “Wilhelm”, or even “Willi”?’

I said something in reply about dramatic licence and the interrogator being, erm, an American.

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