Driven into paradise : the musical migration from Nazi Germany to the United States / edited by Reinhold Brinkmann and Christoph Wolff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brinkmann/Wolff, Author.

Contributor:

Brinkmann, Reinhold, 1934-2010, editor.

Wolff, Christoph, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Expatriate musicians--Europe.

Expatriate musicians.

Music--United States--20th century--History and criticism.

Music.

National socialism and music.

Exiles--Germany--History--20th century.

Exiles.

Exiles--Austria--History--20th century.

Musicians--Europe--Biography.

Musicians.

National socialism and music--History--20th century--Germany.

Exiles--History--20th century--Austria.

Exiles--Biography--Europe.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, c1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The forced migration of artists and scholars from Nazi Germany is a compelling and often wrenching story. The story is twofold, of impoverishment for the countries the musicians left behind and enrichment for the United States. The latter is the focus of this eminent collection, which approaches the subject from diverse perspectives, including documentary-style newspaper accounts and an exploration of Walt Whitman's poetry in the work of Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill.The flood of musical migration from Germany and Austria from 1933 to 1944 had a lasting impact. Hundreds of musicians and musicologists came to the United States and remained here, and the shaping power of their talents is incalculable. Several essays provide firsthand insights into aspects of American cultural history to which these émigrés made essential contributions as conductors, professors, and composers; other essays tell of the traumatic experience of being exiled and the difficulties of finding one's way in a foreign country. While the migration infused the U.S. with a distinctly European musical awareness, at the same time the status and authority of its participants tended to intervene in the development of a genuinely American cultural voice. The story of the unprecedented migration that resulted from Nazism has many dimensions, and Driven Into Paradise illuminates them in deeply human terms.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

PREFACE

PART ONE Introductory Thoughts

Reading a Letter

"We miss our Jews" The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany

PART TWO Experiences, Reports, and Reflections

My Vienna Triangle at Washington Square Revisited and Dilated

Displaced Musics and Immigrant Musicologists: Ethnomusicological and Biographical Perspectives

Music and Musicians in Exile: The Romantic Legacy of a Double Life

The Exile of European Music: Documentation of Upheaval and Immigration in the New York Times

PART THREE Acculturation and Identity

Composers in Exile: The Question of Musical Identity

Challenges and Opportunities of Acculturation: Schoenberg, Krenek, and Stravinsky in Exile

Reading Whitman/ Responding to America: Hindemith, Weill, and Others

PART FOUR Case Studies: Individuals, Places, and Institutions

A Viennese Opera Composer in Hollywood: Korngold's Double Exile in America

Strangers in Strangers' Land: Werfel, Weill, and The Eternal Road

Hindemith and Weill: Cases of "Inner" and "Other" Direction

Wolpe and Black Mountain College

From Jewish Exile in Germany to German Scholar in America: Alfred Einstein's Emigration

Immigrant Musicians and the American Chamber Music Scene, 1930-1950

APPENDIX Musicologists Who Emigrated from Germany, Austria, and Central Europe, ca. 1930-1945

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-520-92117-8

0-585-17640-X

OCLC:

39354284