Guest Blogger: Jake Barickman on What's Worth Keeping

I don't know why this gift to the library is such a problem. Granted, the books are 1920s vintage and older, in German, many with that archaic font that we think of as "gothic." Most have dusty, monochromatic covers, but others have interesting art deco designs. And most are signed by Karl Krueger (1894-1979), along with "Wien 1921" or a similar date, even his street address.

1920s Vienna. Probably when Hitler was trying to sell hand-painted postcards on the street. And who is Karl Krueger? He's a Kansas-born organist and conductor who led orchestras like the Seattle Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and the Detroit Symphony, from 1926-1949. He was the first American to direct orchestras of this caliber.(Leonard Bernstein gets the honors for a major metropolitan orchestra.) His stay in Vienna and Heidelberg was just a few years, but long enough to get some European training. And collect a few books.

So is Krueger famous? (This question seems pertinent since he signed so many of his books.) In a way, yes. In addition to his conducting, he founded the Society for the Preservation of the American Musical Heritage which produced ca. 150 recordings of American music. Bailey/Howe has several of these, as well as one of his 2 books. Reviews that I've seen of both his books and recordings are mixed, however. Some just give him a solid C-plus.

Are the books he collected worth keeping? The slim volumes on conducting technique are definitely a curiosity, and one title from 1953, (a later acquisition, obviously) "The Magic of the Baton" (German: /Magie des Taktstocks/) has been added to Bailey/Howe, mostly because of the stellar photos of Europe's great and almost-great conductors. And then there's Heinrich Berl's provocative/ Das Judentum in der Musik /(1926, "Jewishness in Music"), with a bold, underlined "Karl Krueger" signature on the inside. That's worth keeping. But do we need a German translation of Kierkegaard, even with its beautiful cover? German translations of a Swedish novelist?

Decisions, decisions....