Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance

In his book “Echoes of Time,” Jeremy Eichler, a well-known critic and cultural historian, suggests thinking of music as a means of preserving historical memory. While writing the book, he visited significant places connected to the history of the Holocaust, such as Babyn Yar and the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The audiobook will be interesting not only for professionals in musicology and culture, but also for a wide audience.

In 1785, Friedrich Schiller created the “Ode to Joy,” expressing the ideals of the European Enlightenment; later, Beethoven gave these words a new sound in his Ninth Symphony. However, subsequently, “Ode to Joy” was used by Nazi propaganda. Eichler argues that music can serve as a memorial and preserve collective memory— as a form of art that reflects the past. He tells how composers Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitry Shostakovich, and Benjamin Britten survived the events of the Second World War and reflected their experiences in music. Eichler draws on testimony from writers, philosophers, and ordinary people to show how an era is encoded in these sounds and in the biographies of the composers. By visiting places connected with the creation of this music, he offers a fresh perspective on history—letting you hear in music echoes of past hopes and sorrows. Filled with lyricism and compassion, the book encourages reflection on the legacy of war and on how the past continues to live in our present.