Time’s Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance by Jeremy Eichler (Knopf), picked by bookseller Leslie
First line: “It is the hiss and crackle of the old recording that first reaches the ear.“
I’d like to start by saying I am not an expert in classical music at all and don’t play or read music. What got me hooked on this book was the way history is told and explained by Jeremy Eichler through the stories of individual lives and the music written by the four composers highlighted: Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britton. All four men created moving works of music to express emotions and attempt to understand atrocities of WWII.
The writer is meticulous in telling these stories through archival research and traveling to such places as Goethe’s Oak, the home of Strauss in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Walchensee lake (and many others).
I wondered as I was reading: “how is it possible to have man’s most horrific actions and most creative on display at virtually the same intersection of time?” This book is disturbing, beautiful, horrific, and deeply moving all at once.
~ Leslie