Violist Recovers Nazi-Banned Music Exhibit Honors Works by Composers Lost in the Holocaust, Others

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IT is called "Entartete Musik." Literally translated, it means "degenerate music," and it is the phrase coined by the Nazis in the 1930s to refer to any music not fitting into their agenda to maintain cultural purity. That included music that was atonal, music that was influenced by jazz, and any music composed by a member of the Jewish faith.

This wholesale policy of censorship in the name of ideology cut short the careers, even lives, of many notable composers of the day, effectively lopping off an entire branch of the tree of 20th- century music. And for nearly half a century, music by composers such as Pavel Haas, Erwin Schulhoff, and Hans Krasa, to name just three …