Europe has already kicked off the centenary events surrounding the start of the First World War. Living in Britain, one sees one side of the conflict, but working and living in Vienna, one… Continue reading →

More and more frequently since the publication of ‘Forbidden Music’, I have people asking me if I have heard of this or that composer. I have to confess that usually, I can admit… Continue reading →

If, amongst the many composers banned by Hitler and subsequently shoved to one side following the Nazi defeat, there was one, who could guarantee immediate audience appeal today, it would have to be… Continue reading →

It wasn’t planned, but there can hardly be a more appropriate work to remember the 75th anniversary of ‘Kristallnacht’ (in German: ‘Pogromnacht’), than Mahler’s IX symphony. I’m recording it at the moment in… Continue reading →

This is a fascinating youtube mini-documentary about the Galimir Quartet. A lengthier, fascinating documentary in French was put together by George Zeisel of ProQuartet, a French organisation that promotes chamber music (sadly not… Continue reading →

The latest quarterly Hanns Eisler newsletter deals with the thorny question of exactly how ‘Stalinist’ Eisler was. The day-to-day confrontations with the murderous Stalin regime were never met with any overt condemnation. Eisler… Continue reading →

Putting micro-details onto a macro-historic trajectory is no easy task. It’s easy to sink beneath a tsunami of minutia. Yet offering an accurate account of what people on all sides of the conflict… Continue reading →

With the end of the month, we approach an important, but under-reported event in history: 70 years since the Moscow Declaration signed on October 30th, 1943. Though the three powers of Great Britain,… Continue reading →

The Symposium noted elsewhere on this page called ‘Im Anschluss’ has now concluded. I should have mentioned earlier that the title of the symposium offers in German the double meaning of Austria’s annexation… Continue reading →