Product Description

What Inspires Creativity?

Between the years 1890 and 1917 Arthur M. Abell engaged in lengthy, candid conversations with the greatest composers of his day-- Johannes Brahms, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, Engelbert Humperdinck, Max Bruch, and Edvard Grieg-- about the intellectual, psychic, and spiritual tensions of their great creative endeavors. The result of their probing and insightful discussions is quite simply a masterpiece-- a document that reveals the agony, triumphs, and the religiosity inherent in the creative mind.

The six composers readily agreed to explore with their friend their innermost thoughts regarding the psychology of the creative process. Brahms insisted, however, that his disclosures not be published until fifty years after his death, because, he said, "I will not find my true place in musical history until at least half a century after I am gone."

A tribute to creative inspiration, "Talks with Great Composers" sparkles with wit, candor, humor, and the genius of the most cherished composers of all time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #557924 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-04
• Released on: 1998-08-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Brahms blows me away
I have to give this little book very high marks. It taught me a lot. The prose can be stilted, it can be repetitive, and it was astonishing for me. I recommend it to anyone interested in the workings of great minds. I have no works with which to compare it, but one needs to start somewhere.

I want to honest about this. I was astonished when I read the Brahms interview. The prospect of a creative man, however great, consciously and deliberately asking God to speak through him to the man's audience floors me. Basically all of the composers whom Abell treats carried out the same or similar invocation, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. I was though.

I've given the book to others, and I've asked for their reactions to it. Remarkably, for me at least, no one else admitted to surprise on finding that Brahms speaks with the authority of the almighty Himself. That was a really cool revelation too,in it's own way. We must live in a world with a lot more mystic connections than a reprobate such as me appreciates. Many people in this second audience I created wished to dispute Brahms on his theology, but no one seemed surprised by his activities or reacted to them as a first response. I had to drag responses out of these individuals, and they gave them up with reluctance. Something really personal is going on here, and if you read this little book, you can get in on it.

I'm currently in a position to lead a discussion group at a university. For fun I'm going to speak on spirituality in teaching and in the classroom, and I'm going to try to do an end run around the syllabus and introduce the Brahms conversation from this little book. I'm sure it's going to be interesting, and I may come away from the event not only surprised but also a little better informed. Wish me luck.

"imaginary" conversations?
I became suspicious when I opened the book and saw no foundations for the different interviews, how Abell obtained them, place and date, that would have lent a bit of authenticity to the endeavor and exposed his resourcefulness to achieve these encounters. That the author had managed to talk to all his contemporary" giants in the music world, like it was the most natural thing, was astounding and suspicious.

And then... Wow! The pervasive leit-motiv of the entire book: divine inspiration! For everything and everyone...and claimed by all the interviewees. Like Beethoven, or Brahms or the rest would have ever claimed that his ideas came from God.... (something only Bush would do... ).

Those great composers were rather modest and prosaic, and many a work by Puccini, for example, is mockery and cynicism at the idea of divine intervention ...(think of Gianni Schichi...).

Fraud.
This patently fraudulent book was concocted by its author with a clear agenda. Its bogus-ness is clarified by the scholarly article by Jan Swafford "Did the Young Brahms Play Piano in Waterfront Bars?". Do not get taken in by its nonsense as it has no root in authenticity whatsoever. How convenient that not one of the composers could argue what is written here; there is not a single document other than the mythical discussions this charlatan is posing as truth that supports that these composers had any position such as those written here.