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 →

Some four years ago on this blog, I wrote an article on the extraordinary educator Eugenie Schwarzwald. That was before I read Deborah Holmes’ important Schwarzwald biography, sadly only available in German.  Holmes… Continue reading →

I’ve just given a talk on the first ten months of the exil.arte Centre at the Jewish Music Institute’s “Jewish Music Fair” held at Alyth Synagogue in London. This posting is a modified… 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 →

This is a talk I gave as part of Oxford’s 2017 Lieder Festival on October 20th. Originally, I was asked to speak on Mahler’s Vienna, but somewhere along the line the request changed… 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 →

Returning from the summer break, I would have preferred writing about music AND politics, but these last months have subjected all of us to lots of politics, leaving little time for music. There… Continue reading →

One thing cannot go unmentioned and that’s the fact that 2017 is a double Korngold anniversary: 120 years old, and 60 years since his death. Revivals are taking place, one of which is… Continue reading →