In the Shadow of Catastrophe

Part of TŌN’s Carnegie Hall series

The horrors and aftermath of World War Two had a profound impact on the European composers who lived through it, affecting their work in a myriad of ways. German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann went so far as to bury his compositions in a tin box so they wouldn’t be discovered by the regime. His 1943 Symphonic Hymns was one of many pieces that were not discovered and premiered until long after his death. Arthur Honegger chose to stay in France during the war, and portrayed the horrors of the conflict in his Third Symphony. Ernst Krenek’s Symphonic Elegy was written in memory of (and in the musical style of) his friend Anton Webern, who was accidentally killed by an American soldier shortly following the end of the war. And Richard Strauss’s lushly beautiful Oboe Concerto was originally suggested to him by another American soldier, an oboe player who visited him while stationed in Bavaria.