Albert Schweitzer and Alice Ehlers


Book Description

Albert Schweitzer, the philosopher, theologian, physician, biographer of J. S. Bach and musician, and Alice Ehlers, the harpsichordist and great Bach interpreter, met as musicians. This book makes available for the first time a selection of letters these two great personalities exchanged between the years of 1928 and 1965. Although music is the main subject of these letters during the early period of their relationship, the letters increasingly deal with their personal and professional lives. Later letters reveal the help Ehlers rendered Schweitzer's hospital through benefit concerts, Schweitzer's concern for the future of his hospital, and his happiness with the growing world-wide acceptance of his ethical ideas. Schweitzer's last letter was written only months before his death.




The Restoration of Albert Schweitzer’s Ethical Vision


Book Description

Argues for the continuing relevance of Albert Schweitzer's thought, especially of his overarching theme of Reverence for Life.




Encyclopedia of Life Writing


Book Description

First published in 2001. This is the first substantial reference work in English on the various forms that constitute "life writing." As this term suggests, the Encyclopedia explores not only autobiography and biography proper, but also letters, diaries, memoirs, family histories, case histories, and other ways in which individual lives have been recorded and structured. It includes entries on genres and subgenres, national and regional traditions from around the world, and important auto-biographical writers, as well as articles on related areas such as oral history, anthropology, testimonies, and the representation of life stories in non-verbal art forms.




The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers


Book Description

This volume of correspondence, the last in a three-volume edition, spans a pivotal moment in American history: the mid-twentieth century, from the beginning of World War II, through the years of rebuilding and uneasy peace that followed, to the election of President John F. Kennedy. Robinson Jeffers published four important books during this period—Be Angry at the Sun (1941), Medea (1946), The Double Axe (1948), and Hungerfield (1954). He also faced changes to his hometown village of Carmel, experienced the rewards of being a successful dramatist in the United States and abroad, and endured the loss of his wife Una. Jeffers' letters, and those of Una written in the decade prior to her death, offer a vivid chronicle of the life and times of a singular and visionary poet.




Coastal Sage


Book Description

There are moments when we forget how fortunate we are to have the California coast. The state is home to 1,100 miles of uninterrupted coastline defined by long stretches of beach and jagged rocky cliffs. Coastal Sage chronicles the career and accomplishments of Peter Douglas, the longest-serving executive director of the California Coastal Commission. For nearly three decades, Douglas fought to keep the California coast public, prevent overdevelopment, and safeguard habitat. In doing so, Douglas emerged as a leading figure in the contemporary American environmental movement and influenced public conservation efforts across the country. He coauthored California’s foundational laws pertaining to shoreline management and conservation: Proposition 20 and the California Coastal Act. Many of the political battles to save the coast from overdevelopment and secure public access are revealed for the first time in this study of the leader who was at once a visionary, warrior, and coastal sage.




A Windfall of Musicians


Book Description

This book is the first to examine the brilliant gathering of composers, conductors, and other musicians who fled Nazi Germany and arrived in the Los Angeles area. Musicologist Dorothy Lamb Crawford looks closely at the lives, creative work, and influence of sixteen performers, fourteen composers, and one opera stage director, who joined this immense migration beginning in the 1930s. Some in this group were famous when they fled Europe, others would gain recognition in the young musical culture of Los Angeles, and still others struggled to establish themselves in an environment often resistant to musical innovation. Emphasizing individual voices, Crawford presents short portraits of Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and the other musicians while also considering their influence as a group—in the film industry, in music institutions in and around Los Angeles, and as teachers who trained the next generation. The book reveals a uniquely vibrant era when Southern California became a hub of unprecedented musical talent.




Memoirs of Childhood and Youth


Book Description

In this charming autobiographical essay, Albert Schwenzer tells of his first nineteen years in Upper Alsace and his youthful discoveries of religion, music, and the inspiration of friendship. Even in his boyhood there were traces of what was to become his "reverence for life": as a boy, he writes, he managed to dissuade several companions from going fishing because of the pain he felt the deed gave to both the worm and the fish. In poignant vignettes, Schweitzer also describes his unhappiness at discovering that he had better food or better clothing than chose around him. Memoirs of Childhood and Youth offers wonderful insights on Dr. Schweitzer's childhood journey that eventually led him to dedicate himself to medical service in African colonies. This new translation also has rarely seen photographs of Schweitzer, both as a youth and as an adult.




Albert Schweitzer, Musician


Book Description

"Although chiefly remembered as a humanitarian and Nobel Prize winner, Albert Schweitzer was a renowned concert organist and musicologist. His writings changed the course of Bach scholarship and of organ building early in the twentieth century in Europe and North America." "His musical activities, however, have been the subject of only one book in English, published in the 1950s, whose purpose was biographical rather than critical. This has resulted in mistaken assumptions about his role as a musician, not the least of which is the view of Schweitzer as founder of Baroque reform movements whose ideals in fact he deplored." "Albert Schweitzer, Musician offers an account of his training - and of the masters who formed the tradition he belonged to - his writings, recitals, recordings, and friendships with other musicians. It includes previously unpublished letters, comments and advice on organ design, techniques advocated to performers, a biolgraphical sketch, and a comprehensive bibliography."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved




An Agnostic in the Fellowship of Christ


Book Description

An Agnostic in the Fellowship of Christ: The Ethical Mysticism of Albert Schweitzer details the theology, ethics, and philosophy of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965). It surveys his entire corpus of religious writings, including his unfinished estate works, and explores the intellectual history behind his distinctive theological synthesis. David K. Goodin traces Schweitzer’s intellectual and spiritual development from childhood to his academic years and throughout his time at the African medical mission. It also places Schweitzer into dialogue with other Protestant theologians including Martin Luther, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Thomas Altizer, as well as with contemporary philosophers like Jacques Derrida. The aim is to reveal what a living faith and mysticism can mean for the modern world, and where common ground can be found for traditional and liberal Protestant theology today.