Author Description

"This exhibition catalogue guides the visitor into Vienna, the city of music. The essays collected here seek to shed light on the role of the Jewish populations and the fin-de-siecle conflict between the avant-garde and the reactionaries and to show that contrary to traditional notions, Jews not always were to be found in the modernist camp. They also tell of the axis Vienna - Berlin during the interwar years and illuminate the Jewish-Austrian musical symbiosis, which in the end would turn out to have been no more than a dream: quasi una fantasia. We furthermore document the expulsion and murder of Jewish musicians between 1938 and 1945 and their work in exile. A critical look at Vienna after 1945 concludes the volume."--BOOK JACKET.