Haruki Murakami is a Japanese novelist best known for his
dreamily surreal books and his continued failure to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
His friendship with conductor Seiji Ozawa has resulted in a new book, a series of conversations on music. An extract appeared in Saturday’s Guardian, and it
left me scratching my head:
HM: Mahler says in his autobiography that being director
of the Vienna State Opera was the top position in the musical world. In order
to obtain that position, he went so far as to abandon his Jewish faith and
convert to Christianity. He felt the position was worth making such a
sacrifice. It occurs to me that you were in that very position until quite
recently.
SO: He really said that, did he? Do you know how many
years he was director of the State Opera?
HM: Ten years, I think.
Mahler’s autobiography, huh? A shelf full of Murakami
books and an interest (in case you hadn’t noticed) in classical music will
probably lead me to buy this book, but the lengthy extract on Mahler didn’t
convince me that any real insight lay within. Particularly as Mahler never
wrote an autobiography.
1 comment:
My wife would like me to point out that most of the Murakami books belong to her.
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