Tribute to Elisabeth FURTWÄNGLER

My dear Elisabeth,

What an incredible day was 5 March 2013...

While you left us for your final journey you awaited, i was in Taiwan playing these Partitas Romanes that I composed for you... As Fate would have it... This fate that gave me the joy – the fortune! – of meeting you one day in October 2002.

And what a meeting! We laughed; you told me the story of this life with Furtwängler, your hand steady and conducting too your words loaded with history...

We travelled from Salzburg to Bayreuth, learning by heart together the Swiss license plates and hoping to cross off all the cantons!

So many memories you and I will retain! Especially those of the Jenisch Museum at Vevey, where we came to celebrate your 98th birthday; and of course Munich where France honoured you as she should.

So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have given me, everything we have shared.

My grief is immense; my joy profound...

I will forever cherish these words spoken in 2004, on the 50th anniversary of the death of your husband, when I asked you what you valued most. You replied directly: “Peace! Preserve Peace Odile! Because it is never fully acquired!” I still see you before me speaking and squeezing my arm with sincerity.

I am sure you must have a wonderful view up there, at the top of your cedar that you loved so much, where you can now contemplate the sun rise and set eternally on the shores of Lake Geneva...

All my love, Elisabeth!

Keep us always close to you, We will remain forever by your side. Farewell.

Odile from Taipei, 9 March 2013.