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University of California Press

Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw in Postwar Europe

by Joy H. Calico (Author)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $60.00 / £50.00
Publication Date: Mar 2014
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9780520281868
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations, 1 map
Series:
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About the Book

Joy H. Calico examines the cultural history of postwar Europe through the lens of the performance and reception of Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw—a short but powerful work, she argues, capable of irritating every exposed nerve in postwar Europe. Schoenberg, a Jewish composer whose oeuvre had been one of the Nazis’ prime exemplars of entartete (degenerate) music, immigrated to the United States and became an American citizen. Both admired and reviled as a pioneer of dodecaphony, he wrote this twelve-tone piece about the Holocaust in three languages for an American audience. This book investigates the meanings attached to the work as it circulated through Europe during the early Cold War in a kind of symbolic musical remigration, focusing on six case studies: West Germany, Austria, Norway, East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Each case is unique, informed by individual geopolitical concerns, but this analysis also reveals common themes in anxieties about musical modernism, Holocaust memory and culpability, the coexistence of Jews and former Nazis, anti-Semitism, dislocation, and the presence of occupying forces on both sides of the Cold War divide.

About the Author

Joy H. Calico is Associate Professor of Musicology and Director of the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies at Vanderbilt University and the author of Brecht at the Opera (UC Press).

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction
West Germany: Retrenchment versus A Survivor from Warsaw
Austria: Homecoming via A Survivor from Warsaw
Norway: Performing Remembrance with A Survivor from Warsaw
East Germany: Antifascism and A Survivor from Warsaw
Poland: Cultural Diplomacy through A Survivor from Warsaw
Czechoslovakia: A Survivor as A Survivor from Warsaw
Afterword

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"Refreshingly, [Calico's] analysis underlines the vital role played by individual conductors, performers and critics in these various performances of A Survivor."
— Times Higher Education
"Highly recommended. Yields rich, evocative insights into a period of modernist music making now receding from consciousness."
— CHOICE
"Joy Calico, however, writes with an ease and fluidity that positively invite the reader to understand her ideas and observations. She takes one of Schoenberg’s most important American works and uses it as a political barometer during the crucial post-war years of 1948 to 1968. As concepts go, it is quite brilliant. Addressing Cold War cultural politics in Germany, Austria, Norway, Poland and Czechoslovakia using Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw clearly illuminates the political complexities of the time."
— Times Literary Supplement
"Joy H. Calico’s new book is an impressive work of cultural history... on its own, fascinating terms, Calico has written a book that will repay attention from a variety of readers."
— H-German
"An exemplary exploration in cultural history which shows with great nuance and sophistication how a single seven-minute musical work can open up so many key themes for understanding postwar Europe. This is a fascinating and important book that demonstrates how postwar Europe, including its Cold War division, needs to be understood not solely through politics but through the interpretation of cultural forms."
—Dan Stone, author of Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe since 1945 (forthcoming 2014)

"A unique addition to the burgeoning field of Cold War music studies. In Calico's hands, a meticulously researched history of the European reception of Schoenberg's brief cantata becomes a compelling tale of high-stakes cultural politics."
—Walter Frisch, author of The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg

"Using Schoenberg's charged Holocaust memorial as a guide, Calico traces an innovative, transnational path through postwar European cultural life, challenging, refining, and overturning well-worn assumptions along the way. This highly compelling book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in history, music, politics, Jewish studies, and the Cold War."
—Peter Schmelz, Associate Professor of Musicology, Washington University in St. Louis

Awards

  • 2015 Award of Recognition for an Exceptional Book in the Field of Music and Jewish Studies, American Musicological Society
  • Honorable Mention - 2016 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, Nanovic Institute for European Studies