Even after acquiring the Doctor of Laws degree from both the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne (discussed in a letter, along with the effects of living in Europe during the Nazi era), Konrad Wolff's enthusiasm for music was so overwhelming that he became a professional musician in his mid-thirties. That enthusiasm is contagious. The more one reads his work, the more one understands music, but perhaps of greater importance, the more one loves it.

This is the only collection of a substantial quantity of his prolific writings (many never published before) under one cover. With almost 200 musical illustrations and his engaging style of writing, teachers, students, and sophisticated music lovers will find articles such as Schubert's Reaction to Beethoven, Bach's Last Work, and Beethovenian Dissonances in Listz's Piano Music a pleasurable read and an easy way to learn. Correspondence with Sviatoslav Richter, among others, and a brilliant debate between Wolff and Alfred Brendel are unique contributions. Also impressive is the breadth of Wolff's culture. As one scholar who had read the manuscript exclaimed: The writing is so brilliant that it can be applied to fields other than music, as well.

" Wolff] is a remarkable pianist, an excellent theoretician, a learned teacher, a brilliant thinker and writer." Artur Schnabel

"This collection of Wolff s] writings and letters should bear ample testimony to a musician who happily combined the artist, the teacher, the musicologist, and the charm and integrity of a human being." Alfred Brendel

"Konrad Wolff writes about music with the verve and enthusiasm of a great teacher who has never lost his sense of music as an adventure. To read him is to enter into a lively dialogue with a superior musical mind and a buoyant spirit." Richard Goode

This collection provides elegant and thorough portraits of an important 20th-century performer and lover of music, as well as of his greatest influences."