Monthly Archive: February, 2014

The death of Alice Herz-Sommer

Those of us who walked through the streets of London’s Belsize Park/Swiss Cottage neighbourhood could hear her playing every day. She was an institution and her long life meant that she kept memories… Continue reading

The Ethical High Ground?

At the bottom of this post, is a link to a thought-provoking review of Forbidden Music written by professor of musicology at Oxford University’s St. Catherine’s College, Peter Franklin. He appreciates many things… Continue reading

Heinrich Schenker’s Diaries and Letters – a reference

And my third link of the week is this useful (for German readers) reference to Schenker’s diaries and correspondence. If you put in a name, references are instantly brought up – Fascinating and… Continue reading

A website devoted to Friedrich Holländer

Link to Friedrich Holländer Website

Vienna, City of Dreams comes to New York

New York Times Article

The Other Hollywood

Though we often hear of the film composers Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Franz Waxman and other high-profile émigrés who changed the sound of Hollywood, it has always been a slight puzzle to me… Continue reading

Bertha von Suttner’s Peace Conference

For those who read German and wish to understand how Austrian and German historians interpret the First World War, I can recommend Manfried Rauchensteiner’s ‘Der erste Weltkrieg und das Ende der Habsburger Monarchie’.… Continue reading

The 1920 Austro-Hungarian Cultural Annexation of Berlin

Long before the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Vienna, Budapest and a host of former Habsburg subjects had started to annex Berlin from 1920 and were largely responsible for creating the city we think of as the stylish capital of the Weimar Republic.