A berlin-based freelance writer and composer, Walter Dahms earned his living primarily as a music critic and as author of composer biographies. Dahms was an active voice in the German press during the 1910s and 20s, writing regular concert reviews and editorials for the Neue Preussische Kreuz-Zeitung, the Kleines Journal, the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, and the Magdeburgische Zeitung; he also wrote more extended articles for theater and music periodicals such as Bühne und Welt, Die Musik, and the Allgemeine Musikzeitung. Dahms was, above all, an outspoken critic of modern music and a conservative voice of his time. His writings in the press had embroiled him in a number of controversies, most notably with supporters of Arnold Schoenberg. But beyond his everyday contributions as a critic, Dahms also wrote extensively on Italian opera and bel canto singing, and he had a deep affinity for the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche.

In light of its contents, the selection given here might well have been placed in the preceding section of this volume. Having himself served on the Eastern Front during World War I, Dahms was outraged at Germany’s handling of the war and distraught over its post-war politics. His hatred of the Kaiser and the entire officer class of the German army and navy, which spills over in his letter of September 26, 1919, is searing; his conversation with Schenker on August 27th of that year might have become a full-blown row had it not been for the watchful eye of Jeanette. After spending nearly thirteen years in self-exile in Italy and in France (1921–34), Dahms ultimately renounced his German citizenship, changed his name to Gualtério Armando, and moved to Portugal with his second wife, Margarete Ohmann. There, he continued to write books and to compose music until his death in 1973.

However, there was much more agreement than disagreement between the two men. Through all the unrest of the war and postwar years Dahms maintained an unwavering devotion to Schenker. Having first heard of him in 1913, he quickly became one of Schenker’s strongest advocates. In the years that followed, Dahms would use his position in the German press to write reviews promoting Schenker’s publications and to write a number of other Schenkerinspired essays advancing the latter’s cause.