The House of Wittgenstein : a family at war Part 5

And so it was that this soi-disant " soft-hearted cosmopolitan" from Upper Austria resolved, in the years following the Great War, that his life's great mission should be to rid the world of a "noxious bacillus": Should the Jew, with the aid of the Marxist creed, triumph over the people of this world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind ... And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.

People nowadays draw little distinction between the anti-Semitism of a generalized joke or complaint against Jews and the anti-Semitism of the medieval autos-da-fe and n.a.z.i extermination camps; the one, it is argued, proceeds from the other as sure as night follows day. Let us not consider these arguments but only observe that in Vienna, long before Hitler had any power or influence, the former type of anti-Semitism (that is to say the generalized grumbling against Jews) was extremely common and that the Austrian administration, to this day, makes a distinction between Hitler's yobbish anti-Semitism and the so-called "gentlemanly anti-Semitism" of Vienna's turn-of-the-century mayor Karl Lueger, whose name is commemorated in modern Vienna by the Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring, by the Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Kirche at the Zentralfriedhof, by Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Platz, and by a prominent Karl Lueger monument standing at the start of the Stubenring.

The Wittgensteins were not anti-Semitic in the Hitlerian sense of the term for, like their hero the anti-Semitic philosopher Jew Otto Weininger, they deplored any form of persecution, and yet, out of the context of their time, judged by today's standards, the family's att.i.tude to the Jews would be considered questionable. Their grandfather, Hermann Christian Wittgenstein, refused to allow his children to marry Jews. Karl, his son, remarked that "in matters of honour one does not consult a Jew." In a letter from Hermine to Ludwig we find the casual aside, "the woman is particularly likeable, although of course Jewish," for she believed that the "Aryan and Jewish races are diametrically opposed as regards merits and deficiencies, and that they must combat each other either openly or furtively." Paul believed, like his father, that "dishonesty lies at the heart of every Jew," and his friend Marga Deneke explained that "If he ever named Jews it was with the hatred of the dog for the wolf." Ludwig, much influenced by Weininger's curiously elaborate anti-Semitism, would have "nothing to do with the communist Jews," and believed that the Jews in general were "unnatural creatures" by virtue of their having lived in "foreign states under foreign laws and living conditions and restraints," and (again like Weininger and also like Richard Wagner in the previous century) Ludwig judged the Jews to be incapable of creating "original" (as opposed to "reproductive") art. In December 1929 he recorded a dream about a Jewish car-driver who opened fire with a machine gun killing a pa.s.sing cyclist and a young, poor-looking girl. Ludwig, in the dream, thought to himself: "Must there be a Jew behind every indecency?"

In a pa.s.sage uncomfortably reminiscent of some of Hitler's rhetoric in Mein Kampf Mein Kampf Ludwig compared the Jewish people to a Ludwig compared the Jewish people to a Beule Beule in Austrian society. Wittgenstein scholars have been squabbling among themselves ever since about whether he intended by this German word to mean a "boil," a "pustule," a "tumor," a "b.u.mp" or a "swelling." In any case it was clearly not intended as a compliment. in Austrian society. Wittgenstein scholars have been squabbling among themselves ever since about whether he intended by this German word to mean a "boil," a "pustule," a "tumor," a "b.u.mp" or a "swelling." In any case it was clearly not intended as a compliment.

s.e.x LIVES

Of the s.e.x lives of the three Wittgenstein sisters, things may be succinctly recapitulated thus: Gretl was s.e.xually aloof and may, like her friend Princess Marie of Greece, have sought Sigmund Freud's advice on the matter. Hermine (it is supposed) never experimented and possibly recoiled at the thought. Helene's s.e.x life is reckoned to have been the most normal of all eight siblings. She had four children (the first born in 1900) and was greatly upset, some twenty years after her marriage to Max Salzer, to discover that she was pregnant once again in 1919.

About Paul's erotic life very little is known until the early 1930s. He was aware that one day a biography might come to be written about him and, as a neurotically private man, did his best to conceal his tracks from future investigation by keeping as much of his life as possible secret even from his brothers and sisters. "In truth," his nephew Ji s...o...b..rough later recalled, "he led two or three lives of which we in the family only knew one." In the 1950s he was approached by Hollywood moguls wanting to make a film about his life. He told them to go away, and when later contacted by a writer seeking help with a proposed biography of his brother, Paul replied curtly offering the minimum a.s.sistance: Concerning the biography of my brother: I really believe that Ludwig would have resisted ANY biography. For biography is indiscretion. A biography without indiscretion is worthless. But since all men of note have to have biographies written about them, then I suppose my brother will also have to suffer the same indignity. In any case it is better that the facts be right than they be wrong or, even worse, just silly rumours.

Paul made it clear that he never wished to have a biography written about him unless it concerned itself solely with his artistic life. None of his incoming correspondence (except letters from composers and musicians, and an incomplete batch from his brother Ludwig) can be found. Other, personal letters may still exist and may yet turn up, though it is suspected that they were destroyed in accordance with his wish that his life remain private. What then can be said about Paul's s.e.x life before 1930? He was certainly heteros.e.xual and, as can be gathered from clues in Hermine's letters to Ludwig, he was attractive to and attracted by a great many women.

Viennese women, it would seem, were particularly alluring in the first years of the twentieth century, as Paul was reaching p.u.b.erty. The following description of them appears in Maria Hornor Lansdale's 1902 guide to Vienna and the Viennese: Observe attentively the pa.s.sers-by on a Vienna Street... The women have the vivacity of the Slavonic races; their hair is superb and their teeth even and as white as milk; they are well formed, slender, nervous; their feet are pretty, with well-arched insteps, altogether unlike the Bavarian goose-foot, or the elephant pad of the Prussian.

According to Ji s...o...b..rough, Paul "had endless mistresses and all from the sc.u.m of this or that country. The servants knew all about it but we in the family had few suspicions. He bought houses for the mistresses." s...o...b..rough perhaps gives away the lie by acknowledging that the family had few suspicions. How then did he know? Later in life Ji conceded: "I disliked Paul intensely and, I admit, I did not like Ludwig much either."

That Paul kept mistresses for whom he bought houses is certainly possible, as this was common practice among the rich Viennese bachelors of his day. It is also possible (though there is no evidence for this) that he visited prost.i.tutes before the war. At that time in Vienna "female wares were offered for sale at every hour and at every price, and it cost a man as little time and trouble to purchase a woman for a quarter of an hour, an hour or a night, as it did to buy a packet of cigarettes or a newspaper." These lines were written by Stefan Zweig, who was from the same generation as Paul, was brought up in the same city, of similar education and social background. In his autobiography, The World of Yesterday, Zweig The World of Yesterday, Zweig describes a veil of pseudo-morality that repressed normal s.e.xual relations between young Viennese men and women and led to a boom in prost.i.tution and syphilis in the city: describes a veil of pseudo-morality that repressed normal s.e.xual relations between young Viennese men and women and led to a boom in prost.i.tution and syphilis in the city: Try as I might I cannot recall a single comrade of my youth who did not come to me with pale and troubled mien, one because he was ill, or feared illness, another because he was being blackmailed because of an abortion, a third because he lacked the money to be cured without the knowledge of his family, a fourth because he had to pay hush-money to a waitress who claimed to have had a child by him, a fifth because his wallet had been stolen in a brothel and he did not dare to go to the police.

Zweig also records that Viennese fathers of a certain cla.s.s, in order to discourage their sons from visiting brothels, would engage pretty servant girls in the house with the task of educating them by s.e.xual experience. There is no means of discovering whether Karl adopted such a system for Hans, Kurt, Rudi, Paul or Ludwig--we must rely upon our hunches.

As to Ludwig's erotic life, this has been the subject of much heated and acrimonious debate in the years since his death. Like his sister Gretl, he seems to have found s.e.xual arousal disturbing and, having discovered Tolstoy's Gospel in Brief Gospel in Brief, was pleased to try as hard as he could to stick to the letter of the commandment written in Chapter 4: "Do not seek delight in s.e.xual gratification ... All sensuality destroys the soul, and therefore it is better for you to renounce the pleasure of the flesh than to destroy your life." In 1931 he proposed marriage to a Swiss woman, Marguerite Res -pinger, on condition that they be excused s.e.x together.

In the aftermath of Ludwig's death the keepers of his flame and the holders of his copyrights concealed evidence in their archives which could have proved that he had been h.o.m.os.e.xual. As one of them wrote at the time: "If by pressing a b.u.t.ton it could have been secured that people would not concern themselves with [Ludwig's] personal life, I should have pressed that b.u.t.ton." In 1973 an academic from California State University, William Warren Bartley III, bypa.s.sing the Wittgenstein estate, published a book about Ludwig in which it was claimed that during his period of teacher-training in Vienna he would regularly walk to the famous Prater park where "rough young men were ready to cater for him s.e.xually. Once he had found this place Wittgenstein found to his horror that he could scarcely keep away from it." With this a torrent of rebuke cascaded upon Professor Bartley's head. Among those to join the ruckus was Ji s...o...b..rough, who tried to injunct publication of his book through the courts, while sending a bombastic piece to the periodical the Human World Human World, in which he threatened to vomit on the hat of the publisher, described the work as "a book of obscene denigration ... a farrago of lies and poppyc.o.c.k" and dismissed the author as a "slovenly and prurient rogue." s...o...b..rough's indignation failed however to close the case. Author Ray Monk, researching his comprehensive biography Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (1990), was given unrestricted access to all the so-called "coded remarks" of Ludwig's notebooks. Among them he found a confession of a physical relationship with a friend, Francis Skinner, in 1937: "Lay with him two or three times. Always at first with the feeling that there was nothing wrong in it, (1990), was given unrestricted access to all the so-called "coded remarks" of Ludwig's notebooks. Among them he found a confession of a physical relationship with a friend, Francis Skinner, in 1937: "Lay with him two or three times. Always at first with the feeling that there was nothing wrong in it, then then the shame." Whether this indicts Ludwig of h.o.m.os.e.xual activity with rough men in the Prater seventeen years earlier is, of course, quite another matter. Frustratingly Professor Bartley refused to reveal his sources for the story and is now dead, so while some continue to disbelieve it, others (Ray Monk being chief among them) hold to the view that if Ludwig's compulsive visitations to the park ever happened, his behavior there was probably not partic.i.p.atory but voyeuristic. the shame." Whether this indicts Ludwig of h.o.m.os.e.xual activity with rough men in the Prater seventeen years earlier is, of course, quite another matter. Frustratingly Professor Bartley refused to reveal his sources for the story and is now dead, so while some continue to disbelieve it, others (Ray Monk being chief among them) hold to the view that if Ludwig's compulsive visitations to the park ever happened, his behavior there was probably not partic.i.p.atory but voyeuristic.

A LITTLE TEACHING

The s...o...b..roughs' campaign to raise money in America for the Austrian famine was not entirely successful. When they arrived in December 1919 Jerome made a long statement to the New York Times New York Times and Gretl was described, in the and Gretl was described, in the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune, as an Austrian countess, which was amusing enough, but then they found that most of the Christian and Jewish German-Americans among whom they were campaigning were reluctant to give money to erstwhile enemies of America, and Jerome, who had been longing to return to the land of his birth, collapsed, within days of his arrival in New York, into a mood of deep depression and nervous paranoia. At every turn he threatened suicide. Gretl, exasperated, had him put under the permanent surveillance of a psychiatric orderly. For two months his neurotic behavior persisted. Only by February was he beginning to show slight signs of improvement, but Gretl remained "very unhappy about his condition," writing to Hermine that "during the day he was almost normal, only the nights are still terrible."

In America, the s...o...b..roughs must have decided that their marriage was finally over for when they returned in July 1920 Gretl took an apartment in the Palais Schonbrunn, while Jerome rented a separate flat in the Palais Erdody where his neighbor in the same building was Albert Henry Washburn, American Amba.s.sador to Vienna. But Jerome soon grew tired of Vienna and found himself an expensive flat in Paris. Over time the s...o...b..roughs accrued many secrets. In her memoir Hermine does not reveal why a "slightly psychotic" blackmailer came to Gretl's house one day, threatening to throw a stick of dynamite at her unless she paid him more money, but the story was offered as an ill.u.s.tration of her sister's pluck, for Gretl told the extortionist to go ahead and throw his bomb as she was not afraid.

With Jerome spending most of his time buying art in Paris and their eldest son Thomas at Cambridge University, Gretl decided to adopt a boy as a companion for her eleven-year-old son Ji, and in January 1924 she went to Berlin and returned not with one but with two aristocratic youths. They were brothers whose father had been killed in the war and whose mother was impoverished and sick. Jochen and Wedigo von Zas-trow were twelve and thirteen years old at the time and Ji did not immediately take to either of them. Jerome was furious with Gretl when he heard what she had done and refused to speak to the Zastrow boys, or even to acknowledge their presence, for almost six years.

Gretl saw little of her eldest sister in Vienna for Hermine, with her low self-esteem, was refusing to heed anyone's advice. If she had ever seriously entertained the idea of marrying and having a family she realized now that she had probably missed the boat. In December 1919 she was forty-five years old and more aware than ever that her destiny was to be a maidish one: to look after her aging mother (by whom she was permanently irritated), to offer emotional succor to her younger siblings (of whom she was a little jealous), to keep the Palais open for their guests, and the Hochreit available for her Salzer, s...o...b..rough and Zastrow nephews and nieces to enjoy in their long summer holidays. In life Hermine was lonely, and this she resented. When she felt that her siblings showed insufficient enthusiasm for her drawings, she tore them up in despair and after a while stopped painting altogether on the basis that it was a "pointless and egocentric" pastime. To force herself out of the house and to imbue her life with purpose she found herself a job as an apprentice mistress at a day-care school for children whose parents had been killed in the war. This shortly led to her setting up her own Occupational Inst.i.tute for Boys in a former military hospital barrack at Grinzig. Over sixteen years the venture cost her several hundred thousand kronen and she frequently lost control of her boys. But it was a job that took her away from her mother and, although she did not love the work, it offered consolation and distraction in an otherwise empty life.

Ludwig, true to his word, spent his postwar years as a humble teacher. Having completed a training course on the Kundmannga.s.se, he took a job for the summer holidays of 1920 as an a.s.sistant gardener at a mon astery in Klosterneuberg, sleeping nights in the potting shed. At the beginning of September, he applied, under a false name, for a teaching post at Reichenau, was awarded the job but declined it when his ident.i.ty was discovered. Gossip soon spread that mad Ludwig had disowned his family. When Paul came to hear of it he sent an avuncular letter of reproach to his younger brother: It is out of the question, really completely out of the question that anybody bearing our name and whose elegant and gentle upbringing can be seen a thousand paces off, would not be identified as a member of our family. Even changing your name as an ultima ratio ultima ratio would gain you nothing. It is a fact, however hard it may seem, with which you must come to terms and which, as harsh as this may sound, you will have to get used to. would gain you nothing. It is a fact, however hard it may seem, with which you must come to terms and which, as harsh as this may sound, you will have to get used to.

Ludwig failed to reply, and Paul sent a "supplement" three days later: That it was unavoidable that your origins and the family to which you belong should become public knowledge ... I've already mentioned in my letter. If it hadn't been Mautner [the wife of Karl Wittgenstein's former employee] then it would have been the woodman who worked for us on the Hochreit; or the teacher who was formerly employed at the Alleega.s.se or a waiter in the public house who had once been a waiter in the company hotel at Kladno or in the community inn at Miesenbach, or a factory worker who had once been employed by Uncle Louis in Koritschan or Friesach or a farm girl who had previously been a milkmaid in the Trauch and who recognised you and all sorts of other possibilities. That you can neither simulate nor dissimulate anything including a refined education I need hardly tell you. Precisely for this reason it would have been more sensible if you had said straight away who and what you were. You then would have taken the sting out of the exaggerated rumours right from the start.

By the time that Ludwig was getting his brother's letters, in November 1920, he was reemployed (under his real name) as a schoolteacher in the tiny mountain village of Trattenbach. He stayed there for two years, then taught briefly at Ha.s.sbach near Neunkirchen, followed by two further years at Puchberg-am-Schneeberg and finally from November 1924 to April 1926 at a small elementary school in the village of Otterthal in Lower Austria.

All this time he ate and drank little and continued to wear his old army uniform on an almost daily basis. "Why should you care about clothing?" asks Tolstoy's Gospel. Gospel. "Do not trouble and worry yourselves; do not say that you must think of what you will eat and how you will be clothed." Aware of his propensity to squabble with his siblings in Vienna, Ludwig kept, for the most part, out of their way. "Do not trouble and worry yourselves; do not say that you must think of what you will eat and how you will be clothed." Aware of his propensity to squabble with his siblings in Vienna, Ludwig kept, for the most part, out of their way.

But I tell you [says the Gospel in Brief] Gospel in Brief] that everyone is worthy of judgement who gets angry with his brother. And still more to blame is he who abuses his brother ... And so it is the first commandment: do not be angry, do not abuse; but having quarrelled, make peace in such a way that no one may have cause for offence against you. that everyone is worthy of judgement who gets angry with his brother. And still more to blame is he who abuses his brother ... And so it is the first commandment: do not be angry, do not abuse; but having quarrelled, make peace in such a way that no one may have cause for offence against you.

These were bad years for Ludwig. More than ever he was plagued by demons, unsettled by violent memories of war and grieving over the death of his closest friend. "Every day I think of Pinsent. He took half my life with him. The devil will take the other half." This bleak mental state can be observed through a series of confiding letters that he sent to an intellectual army friend, Paul Engelmann. "I have continually thought of taking my own life, and the idea still haunts me sometimes. I have sunk to the lowest point" and "I am in a state of mind that is terrible to me." He hoped and believed that teaching might save him from all of this, for he needed to be working every day "or else all the devils in h.e.l.l will break loose inside me." As usual, he was consumed with self-loathing and described himself to Engelmann as "morally dead," "base," "stupid and rotten," and, despite Tolstoy's injunction, he could not prevent himself from detesting most of the people around him. The Trattenbachers were "obnoxious, good-for-nothing and irresponsible," the Otterthalers "inhuman beings" and the people of Ha.s.sbach "repulsive grubs."

In November 1922 Tractatus Logico-Phtlosophicus Tractatus Logico-Phtlosophicus, his mystical-philosophical treatise upon which he had been working on and off throughout the war, was finally published in a German edition with an English parallel text and an introduction by Bertrand Russell. Ludwig's philosophical friends, who were at once nonplussed and deeply impressed by it, pleaded with him to abandon teaching and return to Cambridge. Ludwig was painfully aware that his work, though short and simple in layout, would be misunderstood by everyone, and this irked him. The main difficulty in the Tractatus Tractatus was caused by his blunt refusal to define his terms or to elucidate his points with examples. He tried to explain the meaning to Paul Engelmann, who later conceded that it "went far beyond my own mental grasp." His former Cambridge colleague George Moore thought he could understand it when Ludwig went through the work with him line by line, but as soon as he had parted company from the author found himself totally muddled and quite unable to explain it to anyone else. In the end Moore had to concede that it was the indomitable force of Ludwig's will which convinced him that his friend was caused by his blunt refusal to define his terms or to elucidate his points with examples. He tried to explain the meaning to Paul Engelmann, who later conceded that it "went far beyond my own mental grasp." His former Cambridge colleague George Moore thought he could understand it when Ludwig went through the work with him line by line, but as soon as he had parted company from the author found himself totally muddled and quite unable to explain it to anyone else. In the end Moore had to concede that it was the indomitable force of Ludwig's will which convinced him that his friend must must be right, whether he could understand him or not. be right, whether he could understand him or not.

Even Gottlob Frege, the great German logician to whom Ludwig had sent a copy in the summer of 1919, failed to progress beyond the first page and wrote to Ludwig in frustration: "You see, from the very beginning I find myself tangled in doubt as to what it is you want to say and can make no headway with it." Ludwig complained to Russell: "he doesn't understand a word of it... it is very hard not to be understood by a single soul!" But Russell also was forced to admit that, after several readings, there were many "important" points that he was still unable to grasp. Ludwig tried to explain them to him, but was not entirely successful. Later he attempted to ban Russell's explanatory introduction from the first edition on the grounds that, in German translation at least, it revealed nothing but "superficiality and misunderstanding." In his notebooks Ludwig recorded a nightmare in which people failed to get his meaning, and yet he remained incapable of explaining his thoughts clearly to others. To his perpetual irritation, the central thesis of Tractatus Logico-Phtlosophicus Tractatus Logico-Phtlosophicus, which concerned the limitations of language, seemed to be all too vividly demonstrated by its own impenetrability.

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way [Ludwig wrote at the end of the Tractatus]: Tractatus]: anyone who understands me eventually recognises them as nonsensical, when he has used them, as steps, to clamber up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) anyone who understands me eventually recognises them as nonsensical, when he has used them, as steps, to clamber up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) Things were not made any clearer with an explanation that he gave to his literary friend Ludwig von Ficker: "My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not not written. And it is precisely the second part that is the important one." The young Cambridge philosopher and mathematician Frank Ramsey traveled to Puchberg to talk through the work with him, spending four to five laborious hours each day going over it point by point. After two days the two men had managed only seven pages. Ramsey wrote to his mother from Austria: written. And it is precisely the second part that is the important one." The young Cambridge philosopher and mathematician Frank Ramsey traveled to Puchberg to talk through the work with him, spending four to five laborious hours each day going over it point by point. After two days the two men had managed only seven pages. Ramsey wrote to his mother from Austria: It's terrible when he says "Is that clear?" and I say "no" and he says "d.a.m.n it's horrid to go through that again." Sometimes he says: "I can't see that now, we must leave it." He often forgets the meaning of what he wrote within 5 minutes ... Some of his sentences are intentionally ambiguous having an ordinary meaning and a more difficult meaning which he also believes.

Undeterred, Ramsey returned to Cambridge bemused, exhausted, but by now a confirmed Wittgenstein disciple. In the July 1924 edition of the philosophical journal Mind Mind, he wrote a glowing review. "We really live in a great time for thinking," he added in a letter that same summer, "with Einstein, Freud and Wittgenstein all alive, and all in Germany or Austria, those foes of civilisation!"

Ramsey, like Russell, Moore, Engelmann and others, had fallen under the spell of Ludwig's striking looks, manner and extraordinarily persuasive personality. From these small beginnings was the great industry of Wittgenstein exegesis born. Thousands of books have since been written to explain the meaning of the Tractatus Tractatus, each different from the last. Ludwig himself later disavowed parts of it in his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations Philosophical Investigations, but still this brief, gnomic work of the First World War continues to give the philosophical world a great deal of gristle to chew upon and in this sense, at least, the influence of Wittgenstein the philosopher has been considerable.

There were of course at that time (and still are, now) many doubters--those who roll their eyes and mutter about "the Emperor's new clothes!" Ludwig's uncles, aunts and extended family of Austrian cousins were among those who were the least impressed. Many of them were simply embarra.s.sed by what they perceived to be his eccentric behavior and thought it perverse that he, the dupe of the family--an elementary school teacher--should be honored as a great philosopher abroad. "Shaking their heads, they found it amusing that the world was taken in by the clown of their family, that that that useless person had suddenly become famous and an intellectual giant in England." useless person had suddenly become famous and an intellectual giant in England."

Ludwig's nuclear family also continued to worry about him, but he had shut himself off from them, refused to answer their letters and often returned unopened the food parcels that Paul and Hermine sent him. Their best way of reaching him was through covert a.s.sociation with his friends. One of these was Dr. Hansel, whom Ludwig had met during his Italian imprisonment, and whom he now treated as some kind of mentor-batman, seeking his moral advice on the one hand, while ordering him on the other to send books and supplies and run errands for him on a daily basis. Another of Professor William Bartley III's sins was to have revealed in his book on Wittgenstein that the highly moral Dr. Hansel was the author of a polemical treatise, Die Jugend und die leibliche Liebe Die Jugend und die leibliche Liebe (Youth and Carnal Love), which railed against h.o.m.os.e.xuality and masturbation. Hermine, who would never have read such a book, corresponded regularly with him about her youngest brother and was always grateful for his rea.s.suring responses. "It is not easy having a saint for a brother," she told him. "There is an English proverb: A live dog is better than a dead lion' to which I would add, that I should rather have a happy (Youth and Carnal Love), which railed against h.o.m.os.e.xuality and masturbation. Hermine, who would never have read such a book, corresponded regularly with him about her youngest brother and was always grateful for his rea.s.suring responses. "It is not easy having a saint for a brother," she told him. "There is an English proverb: A live dog is better than a dead lion' to which I would add, that I should rather have a happy person person for a brother than an unhappy for a brother than an unhappy saint." saint."

In November 1923, Paul, who deemed the heart to be more important than the intellect, was distressed to learn that Ludwig was suffering from a painful colonic ulcer and, aware that he could do nothing directly for him, gingerly approached another of Ludwig's friends, Rudolf Koder: Dear Mr. Koder,I have a request and would be most pleased if you could help me. My brother Ludwig suffers from colitis, which is very dangerous when left untreated for too long as it weakens the body and attacks the nerves, even worse when the patient is tired or stressed. Because of this my brother looks terrible, run down and exhausted. This could be remedied by a special diet. The doctor says that he should, for example, eat plenty of gruel and barley soup, that he mustn't move about too much but rest and stay calm, but Ludwig complains that the whole thing is too expensive and causes too much bother.May I ask you, dear Mr. Koder, to exert some influence on him to persuade him to take this diet. You must of course not tell him that I told you to do so. You must ask him as a friend how he is and then tell him what he should be eating and to be wary of the serious consequences of his condition. If his servant is not able to produce the right gruel soup I would be prepared to send all necessary ingredients to you, dear Mr. Koder, and then maybe he would believe that you had made it yourself. I cannot imagine that the ingredients are very difficult to obtain for such a simple dish. I trust to your diplomatic skills. You would receive our deepest thanks for this. Sorry to bother you but I could think of no other way. Maybe you will manage with your good influence that which my sister and I have been unable to achieve.I thank you in advance. PW Years later, Ludwig was remembered by an old man from Kirchberg as "that totally insane fellow who wanted to introduce advanced mathematics to our elementary school children." To others, particularly his brighter pupils, he was recalled with affection as an outstanding teacher. He taught them architectural styles, botany and geology, he brought a microscope from Vienna, made model steam engines; showed them how to dissect a squirrel, and boil the flesh off a fox in order to rea.s.semble its skeleton. But for all his enthusiasm and ability, Ludwig was a tyrannical, impatient and often violent teacher. One girl whose hair he had pulled in a rage found it falling out in clumps that very evening when she combed it, another was. .h.i.t so hard that she bled behind the ears. When, in April 1926, he boxed a weak and unintelligent eleven-year-old several times round the head, the boy collapsed unconscious on the floor. In a panic, Ludwig dismissed the cla.s.s and carried the boy to the headmaster, b.u.mping, en route, into the father of the girl whose ears he had previously caused to bleed. The man lost his temper, accusing Ludwig of being some kind of animal trainer rather than a teacher, and insisted on calling the police. As he rushed off to raise the alarm, Ludwig put down the unconscious boy and fled from the village. The law soon caught up with him and he was summoned to appear at the district court of Gloggnitz on May 17. At the hearing he lied to the court--something that he deeply regretted for the rest of his life--and the judge, suspecting that he might be too deranged to be held accountable for his actions, ordered an adjournment until such a time as the accused had been psychologically examined. Ludwig waited in Vienna for the doctor's summons. "I'm curious to know what the psychiatrist will say to me," he wrote to his friend Koder, "but I find the idea of the examination nauseating and am heartily sick of the whole filthy business."

PAUL'S RISE TO FAME

Despite the family's huge loss of fortune following Paul's ill-advised investment in government bonds, the Wittgensteins remained--by the impoverished standards of most of Vienna's middle cla.s.s--extremely rich. The reasons for this were foreign investments. From the bequests of his father and three brothers, augmented by Ludwig's benefaction of 1919, Paul found himself in possession of an impressive a.s.set portfolio. In Vienna's 1st District he owned an immense block of shops, offices and apartments in the fashionable Kohlmarkt as well as a big building at No. 1 Plankeng (since demolished and rebuilt as a modern hotel). In the 2nd District he owned an apartment block on the Stuwerstra.s.se and another with shops at street level at Mariahilferstra.s.se 58 in the 7th. Of the family dwellings he owned half of the Palais on the Alleega.s.se (Hermine owned the other half) and one-third of the Palais and estate at Neuwaldegg (Hermine and Helene holding the other two-thirds); but Paul's rented properties were not the cause of his wealth in the troubled years after the war, for the government had put a strict bar on rent increases so that, as the price of everything rose 14,000 times, rents remained stuck at pre-inflationary levels. By 1922 a whole year's rent on a family apartment would earn the landlord just enough to buy himself dinner at an averagely priced restaurant.

In 1912, maybe sensing some national collapse, Karl had invested a considerable part of his personal fortune in foreign stocks and shares. After his death this portfolio was managed on behalf of his heirs by his religiously minded brother Louis, as a stille Gesellschaft stille Gesellschaft--a silent or sleeping partnership--at the Dutch bank Hope & Co. The scheme was set up to save tax. The bank knew the name only of Louis, as trustee, but was not privy to those of the Trust's individual owners. In 1919, fearing a Bolshevik uprising in Austria, and by virtue of his owning an estate whose lands spread across the border into the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Louis adopted foreign citizenship. In this way he was able, as trustee of the family fortune, to transfer the whole lot abroad. This clever move endowed the Wittgensteins with power to pay for things in Swiss francs or U.S. dollars at a time when the domestic currency of Austria was practically worthless.

After his return from soldiering in 1918, Paul became withdrawn and cautious concerning his future career as a pianist. It was rumored that he had shaved off all his hair and locked himself into a distant room of the Palais, where he practiced for nine hours a day, refusing to see anyone, even the servants, who were under strict orders to push his food through a crack in the door and leave without entering. This was an exaggeration. His hair was indeed cropped extremely short, as it had been in Siberia. It is also true that the strain of playing the piano with one hand had forced him into a radical revision of his technique, and that between August 1918 and April 1922 he did not give any large-scale public performances. Hermine was probably referring to this period in Paul's life when she wrote that he had come so close to suicide that "it is perhaps only due to an accident that [he] remained in this world and finally came to terms with life."

Doubts flooded his mind as to whether his one-handed piano enterprise was ever going to work. He gave a few private performances in the Alleega.s.se Palais during this period and was egged on by his ever-enthusiastic mentor Josef Labor, who continued to ply him with new works, some especially written for his disability, others being rearrangements for one hand of music he had previously composed for two. These included two trios, a quartet, a quintet divertimento, a third piano concerto and a fantasie for piano solo.

Paul knew, however, that he could not survive off Labor alone, and yet was able to find little else to play. In an effort to build a concert repertoire he had scoured the antiquarian music stores of Paris, Vienna, Berlin and London for works written for the left hand alone. Predictably he found only a small handful of pieces: two short works by Scriabin composed after he had sprained the wrist of his right hand, an arrangement by Brahms written for Clara Schumann, six studies by Saint-Saens; the G.o.dowsky arrangements of Chopin, one and a half pieces by Charles Alkan and some mediocre things by unknown and untalented composers such as Alexander Dreyschock, Adolfo Fumagalli and Count Zichy As to Paul's own arrangements of works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Wagner and others, these had taken him a great deal of time and effort to compose and, while they helped him to improve his technique, he was among the first to recognize that they were not especially good. Moreover they were arrangements, and as such they were compromised versions of original works. "Interesting, but not as good as the original," people would say. If there were to be any hope for Paul's one-handed career he would need to commission new works from great composers.

On June 29, 1922, Josef Labor celebrated his eightieth birthday. In Vienna, the occasion was marked with a week-long binge of his music culminating in a premiere performance at the church of Sankt Josef ob der Laimgrube, of a Ma.s.s that he had composed in 1918. All the Wittgensteins attended. Four days earlier Paul had contributed to a concert in Labor's honor at the ceremonial hall of the Hofburg Palace and on the twenty-third gave a "very nice" performance of the concerto that Labor had composed for him in 1915 with the Vienna Ladies' Symphony Orchestra under Julius Lehnert. The composer, however, was too ill to attend. His friends thought he might be dying.

Labor's health had been in steady decline for years and it was now obvious (if it had not been so earlier) that the Wittgensteins' championing of his work was not going to make him an international celebrity during his lifetime, that he did not have many new pieces left in him and that Paul's career could not be sustained by playing his music and his alone. The name Josef Labor on a concert program was box-office death even then, and although Paul played his music with tremendous pa.s.sion, audiences often found it bewildering. Even Ludwig admitted that his music was "subtler than anything else" and therefore "particularly hard to understand."

But just as everyone was expecting his death, the blind old master was advised by a homeopath to change his diet and suddenly rallied. The Wittgensteins were overjoyed. "Labor's feeling well again!" exclaimed Her-mine, while her mother enthused: "One cannot praise enough the miracle which the homeopath has achieved in his case. The complete change of diet has immediately improved his physical and emotional state and Labor has become his old self, the youthful musician."

Indeed, Labor felt so well on this new diet that he started immediately working on another piano concerto for Paul.

My dear Labor,The joy it gives me to know that you are again engaged in writing something for me needs to find some expression and I should like to give you a little something to make you happy. Please be so kind as to accept the enclosed package from your ever faithful former pupil, Paul Wittgenstein.

The package is said to have contained a lock of Beethoven's hair, but despite this characteristic act of generosity the blind composer remained a jealous man. If there were any truth in the notion that the Wittgensteins felt a sense of "owning" Labor, the same certainly pertained in reverse. Paul was his his prodigy, and the old man did not approve of his "ever faithful" former pupil's plan to commission new works from a raft of other composers more distinguished than himself. His resistance took time to overcome, but when engaged on his final concerto for Paul the eighty-year-old composer acknowledged that it would be his last large-scale work for the left hand and gave his solemn sanction for Paul to commission other works from whomsoever he chose. prodigy, and the old man did not approve of his "ever faithful" former pupil's plan to commission new works from a raft of other composers more distinguished than himself. His resistance took time to overcome, but when engaged on his final concerto for Paul the eighty-year-old composer acknowledged that it would be his last large-scale work for the left hand and gave his solemn sanction for Paul to commission other works from whomsoever he chose.

Between December 1922 and Easter 1923, Paul approached three prominent composers and one less well known, with invitations to write concertos for piano and orchestra (left hand) in exchange for highly prized U.S. dollars, and by the late spring of 1923 all four of them (Paul Hindemith, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Schmidt and Sergei Bortkiewicz) were working industriously on his behalf. Since the purpose of each commission was to advance Paul's career, the choice of composers needed to be carefully made. His favorite music--upon which subject he was a recognized expert--was that of the early Romantic, late Cla.s.sical period. He detested so-called modern music and although he was personally acquainted with Arnold Schoenberg (another protege of Labor's), as well as other members of the Second Viennese School, he would never have considered commissioning music from any of them.

Erich Korngold, the son of Julius, chief music critic of the Neue Freie Fresse Neue Freie Fresse, was still in his twenties when Paul commissioned him, but the Viennese public had already embraced him as their greatest musical prodigy since Mozart. Mahler proclaimed him a genius at ten, and Richard Strauss, hearing two works composed at the age of fourteen, confessed to mixed feelings of awe and fear. With his opera Die tote Stadt Die tote Stadt (first performed in 1920) Korngold achieved world renown. His music may have been a little more modern than Paul would have liked, but for $3,000 he could at least be sure that the work would reach a wide audience, for as the precocious composer had himself confirmed: "Every conductor in Germany will automatically perform a new piece by me." (first performed in 1920) Korngold achieved world renown. His music may have been a little more modern than Paul would have liked, but for $3,000 he could at least be sure that the work would reach a wide audience, for as the precocious composer had himself confirmed: "Every conductor in Germany will automatically perform a new piece by me."

The works of Franz Schmidt were, and still are, very highly rated in Austria and it is a shame that his beautiful, natural, personal and instinctive music is so infrequently performed elsewhere in the world. By commissioning a new work from Schmidt (price $6,000) Paul could guarantee himself dates in the major venues of German-speaking countries.

Hindemith, a rising young German of the avant-garde, was a riskier choice. Whereas Paul was convinced that music should appeal to the heart, Hindemith's works of that period were aggressively cerebral. He first met Paul at a concert in Vienna in December 1922, at which he was playing the viola part of his own Second Quartet. That this dense, tortured work should have appealed to Paul's conservative tastes is surprising. With the money that Paul offered him, Hindemith planned to buy and restore a fifteenth-century watchtower, known as the Kuhhirtenturm, in the Sachsenhausen district of Frankfurt. This he succeeded in doing, but the tower was blown up by Allied bombers in 1943.

The fourth composer on Paul's list, Sergei Bortkiewicz, wrote attractive music in the tuneful Romantic idiom of Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Rachmaninoff. He came from the landed gentry of Kharkov in the Ukraine and, after troubled times in Berlin, Russia and Turkey, settled in Vienna in the summer of 1922. Since his death in 1952, Bortkiewicz's music is all forgotten, except by a small claque of ardent campaigners.

As the four men set about composing their concertos, Paul, with equal energy, devoted himself to arranging their premieres. The Hindemith (Piano Music with Orchestra) (Piano Music with Orchestra) was scheduled for the beginning of the new season in Weimar and Vienna, the Bortkiewicz would be premiered in Vienna in November 1923, Schmidt's piece (a set of variations on a theme taken from Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata) was booked for its first airing three months later in February 1924, and Korngold's concerto for September. The stage was set and Paul had much to look forward to, but first he had to concentrate on the world premiere of his blind mentor's Third Piano Concerto on November 10, 1923, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Nilius at Vienna's recently built Grosser Kon-zerthaussaal. It was Labor's last completed work, composed in his eighty-first year, and Paul thought very highly of it. was scheduled for the beginning of the new season in Weimar and Vienna, the Bortkiewicz would be premiered in Vienna in November 1923, Schmidt's piece (a set of variations on a theme taken from Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata) was booked for its first airing three months later in February 1924, and Korngold's concerto for September. The stage was set and Paul had much to look forward to, but first he had to concentrate on the world premiere of his blind mentor's Third Piano Concerto on November 10, 1923, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Nilius at Vienna's recently built Grosser Kon-zerthaussaal. It was Labor's last completed work, composed in his eighty-first year, and Paul thought very highly of it.

As each of the composers submitted his score, arguments broke out. Hindemith had antic.i.p.ated problems even before sending his first draft. Writing on May 4, 1923, he warned Paul: "I think I should have everything ready by the end of next week. I would be sorry if you weren't pleased with the piece. It may perhaps sound a little strange to you at first, but I have composed it very lovingly and like it myself very much." In the same letter he asked if Paul could advance him at least half the money right away so that his builders could start work on the watch-tower. Paul replied that he was frightened that he might not understand the new work. Soon Hindemith was able to dispatch a first draft with a note attached: I hope that your terror will have abated once you have looked through the score. It is a simple and thoroughly uncomplicated piece and I firmly believe that after a while it will give you pleasure-perhaps you might be a little horrified to start with but that does not matter--you will most definitely understand the piece.

As far as the money was concerned Paul behaved honorably, paying in full, on time, and receiving in exchange the ma.n.u.script, the orchestral parts and exclusive performance rights in the work for his lifetime, but he was horrified by Hindemith's music. After many hours of diligent practice he decided that the piece was simply incomprehensible and canceled the scheduled premiere. Hindemith's piece, Piano Music with Orchestra Piano Music with Orchestra, remained undiscovered and unperformed until December 2004.

With the composers Korngold and Schmidt, Paul also had arguments. In both cases he felt that the composers had overscored their works and that the piano could not be heard above the sound of the orchestra. Although Josef Labor had been upset by cuts that Paul had made in his music, the question of balance never arose as he always wrote for a small chamber orchestra. Schmidt, eager to please, acquiesced in Paul's demands and accepted many changes. Korngold, however, was affronted. His concerto was scored for a ma.s.sive band including four horns, three trumpets, contraba.s.soon, harp, celesta, glockenspiel and xylophone. Paul complained that "the contrast between the sound of the piano and the sound of the orchestra is so great that the piano sounds like a chirping cricket," and drew heavy red lines through the parts that he did not like. Korngold was indignant at these mutilations, but Paul wrote to a.s.suage him.

Dear Herr Korngold,Please find enclosed the second score of your concerto. As far as the brackets which I have written in are concerned, I would ask you, even if it goes very much against the grain, to have them copied out as well. If I play the piece with you conducting you can nonetheless, as you see fit, still have the bracketed sections played. But if I were to play the piece behind your back, then I would leave out the bracketed instruments. Don't take fright at the ravages and don't be angry with yours sincerely, Paul Wittgenstein The premiere of Franz Schmidt's Beethoven Variations on February 2, 1924, was an elevating success. The critic of the Neues Wiener Tagbhtt Neues Wiener Tagbhtt praised the composer for his "supremely musical talent," adding that "Paul Wittgenstein, who achieved with one hand the polyphony of two, was encored together with the conductor in a storm of triumph which he had inspired." praised the composer for his "supremely musical talent," adding that "Paul Wittgenstein, who achieved with one hand the polyphony of two, was encored together with the conductor in a storm of triumph which he had inspired."

The Korngold piece, a tense fusion of rich noise and deliberately ugly eroticism, was even more successful. The premiere in the Golden Hall was conducted by the composer, and the program included other firsts of works by Karl Prohaska, Hugo Kauder and Alma Mahler, but it was the Korngold Concerto that stole the headlines. The critic of the Neue Freie Presse Neue Freie Presse hailed it as an "astonishing, concisely crafted and truly inspired work," pointing out (as if he knew about Paul's quarrel with the composer over balance) that "Paul Wittgenstein ensured, with verve, that his solo instrument retained the predominance it deserved." The critic of the hailed it as an "astonishing, concisely crafted and truly inspired work," pointing out (as if he knew about Paul's quarrel with the composer over balance) that "Paul Wittgenstein ensured, with verve, that his solo instrument retained the predominance it deserved." The critic of the Neues Wiener Tagblatt Neues Wiener Tagblatt filed an eccentric rave review that appeared in the newspaper eight days later: filed an eccentric rave review that appeared in the newspaper eight days later: Paul Wittgenstein, having been robbed of his right arm--one might even say robbed of more than his life--by an idiotic shot during the war, but overcoming fate by sheer artistic heroism, has become a virtuoso of the remaining left hand and has raised his one-sidedness to a state of completion, indeed of unattainability. And now the great brotherhood of the artistic heart has come to his aid: Korngold dedicated this concerto to him ... Paul Wittgenstein played "his" work with a technique to which joy had lent wings: with your eyes shut you would have guessed that two hands were needed. We were all replete with the joy of a great talent.

Paul had ensured that the scores and parts belonged to him and had negotiated exclusive performing rights to all these works. Concert promoters were eager to stage them and he soon found himself in demand at concert halls throughout Europe. This gave him the confidence to invite Richard Strauss, the world's most successful living composer, to attend the Korngold premiere, and to ask him whether he too might consider composing a left-hand piano concerto.

Paul knew Strauss slightly because he had stayed with his parents at the Alleega.s.se Palais on his occasional visits to Vienna before the war. This did not, however, ent.i.tle him to a cheap deal. "Strauss is very avaricious," Paul reported; "he certainly thinks of money-making, but he does that before before and and after after composing, not composing, not while while he composes. And that's the important point." In the end Strauss accepted the commission for a sensational advance of $25,000, and set to work composing an intense, brooding concerto, which he ent.i.tled he composes. And that's the important point." In the end Strauss accepted the commission for a sensational advance of $25,000, and set to work composing an intense, brooding concerto, which he ent.i.tled Parergon zur Sinfonia Domestica Parergon zur Sinfonia Domestica, by which he meant an adjunct, or companion piece, to a symphony that he had composed twenty years earlier. Both the Sinfonia Domestica Sinfonia Domestica of 1903 and the new of 1903 and the new Parergon Parergon shared thematic material and in musical circles rumors quickly spread that Strauss had taken a fortune off Paul only to rework an old piece. Paul defended the composer, arguing that the criticism was "unjust" and that the concerto "has great beauties." This did not, however, prevent him from berating Strauss for perceived inadequacies in his score. Once again Paul insisted that the orchestra was too heavy and that the piano part was drowned out. After many painful discussions Strauss reluctantly agreed to transfer an important theme from the orchestral score to the piano part and to allow Paul to thin the texture himself by deleting lines from the score. The shared thematic material and in musical circles rumors quickly spread that Strauss had taken a fortune off Paul only to rework an old piece. Paul defended the composer, arguing that the criticism was "unjust" and that the concerto "has great beauties." This did not, however, prevent him from berating Strauss for perceived inadequacies in his score. Once again Paul insisted that the orchestra was too heavy and that the piano part was drowned out. After many painful discussions Strauss reluctantly agreed to transfer an important theme from the orchestral score to the piano part and to allow Paul to thin the texture himself by deleting lines from the score. The Parergon Parergon contains a breathless solo part of the utmost variety and technical difficulty, but Paul complained that it was not brilliant enough. He wanted something that would create a sensation, something far more dazzling, and pushed Strauss to rework it. In a typical trilingual explanation Paul later revealed that the contains a breathless solo part of the utmost variety and technical difficulty, but Paul complained that it was not brilliant enough. He wanted something that would create a sensation, something far more dazzling, and pushed Strauss to rework it. In a typical trilingual explanation Paul later revealed that the Parergon Parergon "had to be changed "had to be changed de fond en comble de fond en comble as they say in French to make as they say in French to make ein brauchbareres Kon-zert ein brauchbareres Kon-zert out of it" (changed from top to bottom to make a decent concerto of it). out of it" (changed from top to bottom to make a decent concerto of it).

Strauss seems to have taken Paul's criticisms in good heart, although some of the alterations that the pianist demanded were far too complicated to resolve in the short time before the Dresden premiere, scheduled for October 6, 1925. Instead he offered to compose a second left-hand concerto ent.i.tled Panathenaenzug Panathenaenzug (pan-Athenian procession), which might better suit Paul's needs. Whether the composer demanded a further $25,000 for it is not known, but it seems likely that he did, for shortly after the Berlin premiere Strauss started building himself a mansion on Vienna's Jacquinga.s.se known as Richard Strauss Castle. (pan-Athenian procession), which might better suit Paul's needs. Whether the composer demanded a further $25,000 for it is not known, but it seems likely that he did, for shortly after the Berlin premiere Strauss started building himself a mansion on Vienna's Jacquinga.s.se known as Richard Strauss Castle.

Panathenaenzug an enchanting, humorous, quasi-jazzy piece, suffered once again, in Paul's view, from clumsy orchestration. "How can I with my one poor hand hope to compete with a quadruple orchestra?" he asked. The premiere with Bruno Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic on January 15, 1928, was a critical flop. Paul was sneeringly referred to as "Dr. Strauss's left hand" and the Berlin critics a.s.serted that the music at last proved what they had long suspected: that the sixty-four-year-old composer was suffering from premature dementia; and that the pianist was nothing but a rich dilettante. Adolf Weissmann, critic of the an enchanting, humorous, quasi-jazzy piece, suffered once again, in Paul's view, from clumsy orchestration. "How can I with my one poor hand hope to compete with a quadruple orchestra?" he asked. The premiere with Bruno Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic on January 15, 1928, was a critical flop. Paul was sneeringly referred to as "Dr. Strauss's left hand" and the Berlin critics a.s.serted that the music at last proved what they had long suspected: that the sixty-four-year-old composer was suffering from premature dementia; and that the pianist was nothing but a rich dilettante. Adolf Weissmann, critic of the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag Berliner Zeitung am Mittag was especially hostile: "It is easy to understand that this pianist who had the misfortune to lose his right arm in the war does everything to stay in the limelight. It is hard to understand however how Strauss could have produced such an absolute failure... this was especially hostile: "It is easy to understand that this pianist who had the misfortune to lose his right arm in the war does everything to stay in the limelight. It is hard to understand however how Strauss could have produced such an absolute failure... this Panathendenzug Panathendenzug goes beyond the limits of our endurance." goes beyond the limits of our endurance."

Paul shrugged off the Berlin reviews as "uninteresting opinions of uninteresting persons, written with the presumption and arrogance of an infallible pope," and Strauss wrote to console him: "I am so sorry that the Berlin press tore you and my piece so to shreds. I know that the Panathendenzug Panathendenzug is not bad, but I didn't think it was so good that it would be accorded the honour of unanimous rejection." Two months later in Vienna is not bad, but I didn't think it was so good that it would be accorded the honour of unanimous rejection." Two months later in Vienna Panathendenzug Panathendenzug was a critical and public success. Paul was lauded in the pages of the was a critical and public success. Paul was lauded in the pages of the Neues Wiener Tagbhtt Neues Wiener Tagbhtt for his "astonishing bravura" and by an ecstatic Julius Korngold in the for his "astonishing bravura" and by an ecstatic Julius Korngold in the Neue Freie Presse: Neue Freie Presse: Paul Wittgenstein finds here a wealth of activity for his fabulous left hand. It dominates the keys, dominates the orchestra. Astonishing the energy and skill of the artist who, if we close our eyes, deceives us into imagining a two-handed pianist: indeed sometimes in the power of his attack, into imagining two two-handed pianists. He was a roaring success with the audience.

The price of these commissions may have been exorbitant but the effect was exactly as Paul had planned. Within five years he was being acclaimed as a serious, major artist on the international concert scene. News of the Strauss commissions was reported in newspapers all around the world and by the end of the decade he had appeared on concert platforms with conductors Erich Kleiber, Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtw.a.n.gler in Berlin, with Fritz Busch in Dresden, with Pierre Monteux in Amsterdam, with Sir Henry Wood in London, with Adrian Boult in Birmingham, with Felix Weingartner in Basel, with Rhene-Baton in Paris and with Richard Strauss as a conductor in Trieste, Turin and Prague. A United States concert tour was set for October 1928. The New York Times New York Times reported that "Paul Wittgenstein has been much sought here for his American debut." Audiences adored him. His presence on stage was commanding. When he played softly he melted the hearts of everyone who heard him, while his wiry, leaping, percussive reported that "Paul Wittgenstein has been much sought here for his American debut." Audiences adored him. His presence on stage was commanding. When he played softly he melted the hearts of everyone who heard him, while his wiry, leaping, percussive fortissimi fortissimi--which so irritated his family when they heard him practicing at home--provided a thrilling, anarchic spectacle in the formal setting of a large concert hall. The sheer speed at which he was able to move his fingers across the keyboard was breathtaking. Paul may have bought his way to fame but, with dedication, skill and artistry that were a match for any living pianist, he had earned his right to it. By 1928 he had climbed with his single hand to the top of the tree; he was living his dream, and for the time being at least appeared to be happy. "Having to work," he wrote in September 1927, "and moreover to earn money--so much the more if it be for a good purpose--is the best thing on earth."

THE DEATH OF MRS. WITTGENSTEIN

In the years following the First World War the Wittgensteins suffered a number of blows. Karl's brother-in-law, the cognac-nosed General von Siebert, died in 1920. Soon afterward his wife, Aunt Lydia, put her head in a gas oven because she could no longer cope with caring on her own for their deaf-and-dumb daughter. The following year, in July 1921, Helene's twenty-year-old son, Fritz Salzer, died of polio, which had developed in the days before his death into acute flaccid paralysis of all four extremities, lungs and heart. On April 26, 1924--Ludwig's birthday of all days--the old and beloved Josef Labor died after a week's fever at his home on the Kirchenga.s.se. Hermine sketched him on his deathbed with tears filling her eyes. A septet that he was halfway through composing for Paul lay unfinished on his desk. Less than a year later Karl's brother, Uncle Louis, drew his last breath and one of Mrs. Wittgenstein's nephews died in a mountaineering accident. All these incidents, especially the death of Labor, affected her adversely; but, in truth, she had never recovered from the shock of Kurt's suicide in 1918.

To have three sons commit suicide must strain the nerves of even the steeliest mother. The deaths of Hans and Rudi had tainted her soul with ineradicable sorrow, shame and guilt, but in the case of Kurt her burden was far worsened by the fact o