Solti on Solti [antikvár]

Acknowledgements I had never intended to write my memoirs, because, as a musician, I had always believed that only the life of a major composer is interesting or important enough to merit writing about. Two factors, however, made me change my mind. First, I realized quite recently that I am one of the last remaining musicians to have lived through two world wars. Communism, Fascism, the arrival of Stalin and Hitler and the subsequent mass murder or displacement of millions of innocent people of all races throughout the world. The second reason is that one day, after I had turned down a request from yet another pubhsher to write about my life, Valerie, my wife, said, 'If you don't write a book, someone else will and you won't like it!' I have tried to be honest, in so far as this is possible when writing about oneself and other living people. Eighty-five years is a long time to cover, and the task has been far more difficult than I ever anticipated. I have not had the luxury of sitting down in one place and working for a few concentrated hours each day over a period of several months. This book has had to fight for a place in my daily routine and it has travelled with me from Chicago to Cleveland, New York, Salzburg, Paris, Antibes, Roccamare, Villars and London. I could never have completed the book without Harvey Sachs, who has been my shadow for the past two years, in person, over the telephone and via fax. He has drawn memories from the back of my mind, done the research and turned my Anglo-