Music was an integral part of statecraft and identity formation in the Third Reich. Structured thematically and semiotically around the Wagnerian tetralogy of the Ring cycle, Hitler’s Twilight of the Gods: Music and the Orchestration of War and Genocide in Europe (U Toronto Press, 2025) provides a sonic read of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Alexand ... Show More
Aug 10
Christopher Campo-Bowen, "Visions of the Village: Ruralness, Identity, and Czech Opera" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The Bartered Bride, a comic opera by Bedrich Smetana, premiered in Prague on March 30, 1866. Its pastoral love story and setting in a rural Czech village eventually became an enduring symbol of Czech nationalism. In Visions of the Village: Ruralness, Identity, and Czech Opera (Ox ... Show More
1h 12m
Jul 30
Elijah Wald, "Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Rock 'n' roll appeared in the 1950s as the high-energy, electrically amplified music of young dancers and listeners, first in the United States and then around the globe, and from the beginning it symbolized more than music. First popularized as a marketing rubric to sell African ... Show More
50m 34s
Jul 17
Stacey Copeland, "Lavender Sounds: From Lesbian Radio to Queer Feminist Soundwork" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
Stacey Copeland, Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage and Identity at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen, joins Jana Byars to talk about Lavender Sounds: From Lesbian Radio to Queer Feminist Soundwork (University of Michigan Press, 20 ... Show More
53m 11s
Sep 2023
The Music of World War II and the Holocaust with "Time's Echo" writer Jeremy Eichler (Part 1)
I had the great pleasure and honor this week(and next week) to speak with the author of the new book Time's Echo Jeremy Eichler. The book chronicles four composers and their varied reactions to World War II and the Holocaust, including Schoenberg, Strauss, Shostakovich, and Britt ... Show More
57m 45s
Aug 2021
The Degenerates: Music Suppressed by the Nazis
From the end of WWI until 1933, classical music in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe was flourishing, with composers such as Zemlinsky, Weill, Krenek, Korngold, Schreker, Schulhoff, Haas, Krasa, and Ullmann writing spectacularly innovative and thrilling music. The Nazis exiled ... Show More
1h 1m
Jun 2018
Hitler Songs
Songs include: Der Fuhrer's Face, Stalin Wasn't Stalin, Hitler Lives, Berlin Or Bust, Mr. Hitler, Hot Time In the Town of Berlin, Hitler and Hell and Hitler Blues. Performers include: Spike Jones, Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, Rev. J.M. Gates, Rosalie Allen, Bing Crosby, Leadbelly ... Show More
45m 2s
Sep 2023
Jeremy Eichler on his new book 'Time's Echo'
Jeremy Eichler's new book, Time's Echo, just out from Faber (HB; £25) tangles with memory – what we choose to remember, what to forget – as history takes hold, and he argues that music can become in many ways the most powerful form of memorial. To illustrate this argument, he eng ... Show More
30m 34s
Apr 2023
Early Years: Hitler’s Secret Book
The Nazis kickstart their media operation. Desperate to be an icon, Hitler pens a secret autobiography, where he compares his own rise to Jesus’s resurrection. French and Belgian troops cross the German border, while the economy goes into meltdown. Amidst the turmoil, the Nazis p ... Show More
34m 35s
Jun 2023
La musique dans les camps nazis
C’est un chapitre peu exploré dans l’histoire du XXe siècle : la musique dans les camps nazis. À travers près de 300 objets et témoignages du monde entier – instruments, partitions, dessins et photographies -, le Mémorial de la Shoah à Paris dévoile les multiples fonctions et ton ... Show More
3m 36s