War and Memory in Modern Classical Music

FAIN: FZ-261560-18

Jeremy Eichler
Unaffiliated independent scholar

Preparation for publication of a book about music and the cultural memory of World War II and the Holocaust in the works and lives of composers Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) and Richard Strauss (1864-1949).

A new book on music and the cultural memory of the Second World War and the Holocaust. As the living memory of the Second World War and the Holocaust further recedes with each passing year, we are left to grapple with the inscriptions of these catastrophes in the culture of their times. At the center of this book are four composers -- Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten, Arnold Schoenberg and Richard Strauss -- whose intensely charged memorial works, written during and after the war, stand among the defining ethical and aesthetic statements of the twentieth century. By investigating these works, their creation and reception, and the broader idea of memorialization through music, I make the case for new ways of hearing history, and for reclaiming the power of sound as a unique carrier of meaning about the past.

Associated Products

Silencing Sound and Sounding Silence: Shostakovich's 'Babi Yar' Symphony and the Music of Conscience (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Silencing Sound and Sounding Silence: Shostakovich's 'Babi Yar' Symphony and the Music of Conscience
Abstract: After the Second World War, the Soviet Union suppressed the memory of the Jewish massacre at Babi Yar and attempted to erase the site itself from the landscape. Critic and cultural historian Jeremy Eichler charts both the earliest attempts at forced amnesia as well as the highly fraught creation of Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony, a ‘musical monument’ that broke the official silence. The talk will also explore, more broadly, how certain works of music today carry forward the cultural memory of the wartime past.
Author: Jeremy Eichler
Date: 03/25/2019
Location: Program for Public Humanities at Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University
Primary URL: https://jeremy-eichler.com/books/echo-of-time/
Primary URL Description: Author's website

Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance (Book)
Title: Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance
Author: Jeremy Eichler
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=525521712
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry (525521712)
Publisher: Knopf
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 525521712

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