This entry represents an intermezzo between my articles on the music of exile and the music of “Inner return”. I’ve changed my Facebook profile picture to that of an urban stairwell. After 15… Continue reading
There is another important element that illustrates “inner return”: it’s the concept of “return”, when composers prominent as pre-war modernists return to old-fashioned concepts such as symphonies, sonatas and string quartets. Of these… Continue reading
Apologies are due for having neglected this blog for so many months. There has been an inordinate amount of activity at the exil.arte Centre with acquisitions of several important estates, a symposium which… Continue reading
As the old year closes and a new one starts, I look back at the progress that our exil.arte Centre has made and find myself acknowledging that having come a long way, we… Continue reading
The Shoah is by and large an area I try to avoid on this blog. For the purposes of the “Forbidden Music” blog, what was lost is more important than the manner of… Continue reading
(Richard Fuchs’ “Vom Jüdischen Schicksal”, written for the Kulturbund. World Premiere in Wellington New Zealand, 2014: Jenny Wollerman, Christian Thurston, Cantoris Choir, NZSM Orchestra, Donald Maurice – conductor) One of the most unsettling… Continue reading
Since posting this article on Heinsheimer, Univeral Edition has now published his history of their publishing house since its founding in 1901 to the death of Emil Hertzka and Austria’s annexation in 1938.… Continue reading
1897 was an eventful year for music in Vienna: Johannes Brahms died and Gustav Mahler took over the Imperial Opera; the anti-Semitic Karl Lueger was elected mayor; the Eleven-year-old Ernst Toch decided to… Continue reading
Over the last months, everything we thought we knew about Hans Winterberg has been turned on its head. The posting I made some two years ago resulted in enormous interest and re-opened an… Continue reading
In the year 2018, as we reflect on 1918 and in Austria and the Czech Republic, on the year 1938, we encounter more and more references suggesting a repeat of Weimar Constitution Germany:… Continue reading
(Heimat Erde March by Robert Frey aka Freistadtl) Over the last months, the exil.arte archive has acquired an eclectic collection of composers and musicians, which I hope sets the scene for how the… Continue reading
(“Verwehte Blätter” – “Scattered Leaves” no. 8 Rasch; Fort Wayne Philharmonic, conductor Andrew Constantine: Toccata Classics) It seems incredible that the first time I wrote about the composer Walter Bricht was five years… Continue reading
This posting follows an interview conducted with me at the Bregenz Festival in July 2018 where they presented Berthold Goldschmidt’s opera Beatrice Cenci. The close relationship I enjoyed with Bertold Goldschmidt has been… Continue reading
A couple of months ago, I received an email from a producer at the BBC informing me that they were putting together a programme on Franz Werfel, and more specifically on his book… Continue reading
As so often with an attempt to right a wrong, language gets in the way. “Entartete Musik” is a Nazi term, commonly translated as “Degenerate Music”, when actually, it more accurately means “Deformed… Continue reading
