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As of April, 2008, the Davidsbündler site has been on the web for 12 years. The site has become a rather extensive collection of essays on music, translations of German poetry into English, and other items of interest to the members of the Bund -- but the overriding principle is that Art can never satisfy the spiritual needs of mankind if it merely pleases the senses. The soul of Art is irony, the mind's delight in discovering unexpected, new meaning at every turn.

To whom it may concern: we intend to continue to maintain this site as a non-commercial site.

A few observations from the journals of Wilhelm Furtwängler:

"The musical ars amandi wears itself out in all kinds of perversion, instead of asking whether it is not perhaps the most important thing, love, that is missing."

"Now it also becomes apparent, however, that both tendencies, apparently so mutually contradictory, towards unlimited freedom of interpretation on the one hand and literal rendering on the other, flow from the same source. Both stem from the deep insecurity of the age when faced with the great art of the past, the complete lack of any instinctively assured direction."

"...one of the main demands of properly symphonic music [is] the demand for organic development, the living and organic growth of every melodic, rhythmic, harmonic formation out of what has gone before."

"It is curious that the strict classical work, for anyone who has ever truly experienced it, becomes more important than all Slavic and Romance works, which are superficially much more colorful and lively. Hence the mysterious, defiant effect of Brahms: the effect of the profundity of the living context."

"Brahms' greatness lies in his strictness. Each of his works, whether large or small, sweet or tragic, is bound together as if with iron bonds."

Allow us to call your attention to two splendid music videos on YouTube:

Joyce Yang performs the beginning of Schumann's "Carnaval," and

Aimi Kobayashi with an excerpt from Mozart's "Coronation" concerto.

We particularly recommend our translations of poems by Heinrich Heine. But feel free to poke around the site; there's no telling what you may find here.

We have an index of the translations that may be found on this site.

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