Forbidden music - BookWyrm

358 pages

English language

Published Sept. 13, 2013 by Yale University Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-300-15430-6
OCLC Number:: 813392739

With National Socialism's arrival in Germany in 1933, Jews dominated music more than virtually any other sector, making it the most important cultural front in the Nazi fight for German identity. This groundbreaking book looks at the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich and the consequences for music throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Because Jewish musicians and composers were, by 1933, the principal conveyors of Germany's historic traditions and the ideals of German culture, the isolation, exile and persecution of Jewish musicians by the Nazis became an act of musical self-mutilation. Michael Haas looks at the actual contribution of Jewish composers in Germany and Austria before 1933, at their increasingly precarious position in Nazi Europe, their forced emigration before and during the war, their ambivalent relationships with their countries of refuge, such as Britain and the United States and their contributions within the radically changed …

With National Socialism's arrival in Germany in 1933, Jews dominated music more than virtually any other sector, making it the most important cultural front in the Nazi fight for German identity. This groundbreaking book looks at the Jewish composers and musicians banned by the Third Reich and the consequences for music throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Because Jewish musicians and composers were, by 1933, the principal conveyors of Germany's historic traditions and the ideals of German culture, the isolation, exile and persecution of Jewish musicians by the Nazis became an act of musical self-mutilation. Michael Haas looks at the actual contribution of Jewish composers in Germany and Austria before 1933, at their increasingly precarious position in Nazi Europe, their forced emigration before and during the war, their ambivalent relationships with their countries of refuge, such as Britain and the United States and their contributions within the radically changed post-war music environment.

1 edition

Shtakser reviewed Forbidden music by Michael Haas

Review of 'Forbidden music' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book is about Jewish composers in Germany and Austria during the period between the emancipation and the post-WWII. The author emphasized an attempt to integrate into a society through something seemingly universal - music. He also emphasized the failure of this attempt with reconceptualization of art as an expression of race. Within that framework he describes a marvelously creative musical life and than, sadly, its collapse when composers were deported to concentration camps or, at best, emigrated to countries in which there was rarely any interest in their kind of creativity. There, ironically, they seemed way too German or too Austrian to interest a local audience.

Subjects

Music and the war
Music
Jews
World War, 1939-1945
Jewish composers
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Biography

Places

Germany