Reflections on Music and Politics at a Time of Transition

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” – “Homeland Earth”: Four Lessons to Learn from The Loss of Local Composers

(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

Walter Bricht’s “Scattered Leaves” return to Vienna

(“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

Two Decades Since the Death of Berthold Goldschmidt

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

Werfel’s “Forty Days of Musa Dagh”

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

Reflections on “Entartung”

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

Deborah Holmes and her Biography of the Remarkable Eugenie Schwarzwald

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

The exil.arte Centre in Vienna: the First Ten Months

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

From Crossover Star to Survivalist – the unexpected transformation of Alma Rosé

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

Gustav Mahler and the Next Generation

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