A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, 1931-1935

Dust jacket notes: "After the Austrian poet Hugo von Hoffmansthal, who had been his librettist for many years, died in 1929, Richard Strauss resigned himself to admitting 'that my period of creating operas has come to a close.' But several years later the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig offered to prepare a libretto and soon they were deep into a warm and fruitful artistic collaboration leading to the creation of Die schweigsame Frau, first performed in Dresden in 1935. This small book records their relationship from Zweig's first polite and deferential letter offering to present a musical project to the famous composer to Strauss's last letter, intercepted by the Gestapo, in which he boldly writes that he will 'never, ever' forego working with his Jewish librettist."