In this time of renewed conflict in both Europe and the Middle East, one hardly needs reminding that the shadow of World War II still lies heavily over global affairs.

This is as true an observation for classical music as it is for other spheres of human activity (a useful reminder in our current debates about the relationship between music and politics more generally), most clearly observable in the fact that both a good deal of the music from this time and – tragically – the musicians who created and performed it, were killed or forced to emigrate, and as a result were often systematically erased from our general cultural consciousness.

For the past few decades now there has been international effort to give at least some of that music a fresh chance to be heard. Organisations like ExilArte in Vienna and recording efforts such as Decca’s Entartete Musik series, have helped bring both scholarly and popular attention onto this otherwise forgotten repertoire and the historical circumstances that led to its suppression or disappearance.

This is not just an act of restorative cultural justice. In many cases, such work is also bringing back to life some extraordinary pieces of music.

One such work is Venjamin Fleischmann‘s...