Domenico Cimarosa: His Life and His Operas (Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance)

Book Description

This is the first book in English about Domenico Cimarosa, his more than 65 operas and his sacred and secular vocal music, his keyboard music, and his various works for solo instruments and ensembles. This is also the first authoritative book on Cimarosa since an Italian biography published in 1939. Since that earlier tome was published, many important discoveries have come to light. The authors completed most of their research work at the library of the Conservatorio di musica S Pietro a Majella in Naples. Their efforts have uncovered new information on the composer's marriages, wives, children, actual performance locations, dates of first performances of his operas, and his professional appointments and contacts. The first half of the book is devoted to a chronological description of Cimarosa's life and provides background material on the customs of the times and contemporary descriptions of the music conservatories in Naples where Cimarosa studied, as well as those in Venice where he was appointed Maestro. The second part presents an alphabetical listing of Cimarosa's more than 65 operas, including alternate names for those that were produced on different stages under different names. Included with each opera is a simple outline of the plot, the cast of characters and their voice ranges, and basic information about the structure of the music itself.

Book Description

With their exclusive focus on written sources, historians have consistently overlooked this visual dimension of the Crimean War. Photo-historian Ulrich Keller challenges the traditional literary bias by drawing on a wealth of pictorial materials from scientific diagrams to photographs, press illustration and academic painting. The result is a new and different historical account which emphasizes the careful aesthetic scripting of the war for popular mass consumption at home.

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Excellent Introduction to Auschwitz and the Final Solution
Easy Read. Very Informative.
The terrible scope of the horror
Nice and Easy
Intensely Readable Synthesis of the Best Historical Accounts

The Kingdom of Auschwitz: 1940-1945
Otto Friedrich
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060976403

Book Description

A short and thoroughly accurate history of the Auschwitz concentration camp, this compelling book is authoritative in its factual details, devastating in its emotional impact.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Introduction to Auschwitz and the Final Solution.......2007-05-22

This is an excellent historical primer on the initiation, conduct, discovery, and destruction of the Auschwitz extermination camp (albeit with a couple of factual and critical thinking errors that need not be delved into here) as well as the disputes after World War II regarding the preservation, administration, and ideation of the camp.

The author discusses in an even-handed, almost dispassionate, manner not only the tragic events that occurred at the camp itself but (1) the association of certain German companies, namely, chemical giant I.G. Farben, with slave labor by camp inmates, (2) the failure of the West to do anything even though it was suspected as early as 1942, and duly reported in London newspapers, that 1 million people had already died in the camp (although this apparently turned out to be an exaggeration), and (3) the failure of the Allies, primarily the U.S., to bomb the railways from Hungary to Auschwitz in the closing months of the war when about 300,000 Hungarian Jews were transported (under the stewardship of Adolf Eichmann) to Auschwitz for immediate termination. (The reason the Allies repeatedly gave for not intervening was that the concentration camps were of no military importance and military assets could not be diverted from the war effort. Although, if memory serves me correctly, the complete and utter lack of a military objective did not stop Patton from diverting his troops to rescue his son-in-law from a German prisoner of war camp.)

As for whether the German people (that is, the public in general) knew about what was going on, the author gives no definitive answer. Certainly anyone involved with the use of slave labor cannot claim ignorance of their mistreatment. Nor, obviously, could anyone who worked in these camps feign lack of knowledge. On the other hand, the author correctly points out that the Final Solution itself, i.e., the ongoing decimation and eventual extermination of the Jewish population in Europe, especially as it was put into place at Auschwitz, was in effect a State secret and disclosure of it was punishable by death.

For anyone who wants to learn about and try to understand Auschwitz and what happened there, this book may be the best place to start. As for any final answers on the Final Solution, that may not be possible. As concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel aptly put it, the more he read, studied, and learned about the Final Solution, the less and less he understood it.

Easy Read. Very Informative........2006-06-13

I had to read this book for a US History class and I was very impressed by the book. At no time was I bored with the book. It's actually very captivating and informative. If you really want a short book that is full of information and does not get boring read this book.

The terrible scope of the horror.......2005-01-10

Most of the previous accounts of Auschwitz that I've read have been personal accounts, most recently Rudolph Vrba's Escape from Auschwitz. While these personal accounts are quite powerful and serve to put a human face on a tragedy of almost inconceivable scope, they are only slivers of the big picture. This book provides a broad overview of the history of Auschwitz, compiled from eyewitness accounts, transcripts of war crimes trials, and the memoirs of Rudolf Hoess and other Nazi's involved in the camp. While it lacks the emotional impact of a more personal account, this book helps shed some light on the scope of the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkeneau and the holocaust in general. By itself, it is an important overview, but if read together with the stories of individual survivors, it provides context for understanding the personal accounts.

Nice and Easy.......2002-07-17

This is a good little book about Auschwitz. It is extremely thin and easy to read (128 pages). If you just want to know a little bit about Auschwitz and are not inclined to read one of the heavy books on the subject then this may be a good alternative. I found it easy to read and did not lack any of the intensity found in the bigger volumes on the subject. It is very detailed. It is also a great book to introduce yourself on the operations of the death camps. This book may spark your interest and you may want to read further on the subject. I finished it in only a few hours. Nice and easy reading.

Intensely Readable Synthesis of the Best Historical Accounts.......2001-08-02

"The Kingdom of Auschwitz" is an extract from Otto Friedrich's larger, sadly out-of-print "The End of the World: A History." In that book Friedrich examined several earth-shaking events in world history including the Black Death in Europe, the 1905 Russian revolution, and the fall of Rome. The book's climax is this long essay on Auschwitz (with an epilogue speculating on the effects of possible nuclear war circa 1982.)

Friedrich was a very talented journalist with a rich appreciation of history and a hypnotically readable prose style. Here he synthesizes the best available literature about the death camp to produce what is probably the best short history of that black hole at the heart of Western civilization. This is a good place to start if you are just beginning to read about the Holocaust. Expert readers will have their sense of the horror of the place renewed. Friedrich writes that Auschwitz does not disprove God: "Two men arguing about the existence of God is like two worker ants debating the existence of Mozart." A small masterpiece.

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Wiesel reminisces upon traditions of his Jewishness!

From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences
Elie Wiesel
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Wiesel, Elie | ( W ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Conversations with Elie Wiesel

And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs, 1969-

All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs

After the Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust

Introducing The Holocaust (Introducing...(Totem))

ASIN: 0805210202
Release Date: 1995-01-31

Book Description

"One of the great writers of our generation" (The New Republic) weaves together memories of his life before the Holocaust and his great struggle to find meaning afterwards. Included are Wiesel's landmark speeches, among them his powerful testimony at the trial of Klaus Barbie and his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Customer Reviews:

Wiesel reminisces upon traditions of his Jewishness!.......2003-02-01

Once upon a weekend retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, I became absorbed by Elie Wiesel's fascinatingly describing his Memory of Jewish holidays, the Talmudic literature, the Jewish Laws and stories of Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Jacob. At that point in my life after retiring as Prison Chaplain, I began to look at the lives of Jewish writers. I wished to grasp some of their pain, suffering and depths of Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Elie Wiesel had written much of those feelings in his "Night"; "Dawn" and "Souls on Fire."

While caught-up in writing about my Memories of serving as a Prison Chaplain, I wanted to choose a good Model. My first underlining began with Elie's wonderful quote from "Society and Solitude" by Emerson to begin his chapter, "The Stranger in the Bible." Then I looked back at the first chapter, "To Believe or not to Believe." There I read the habits of a Jewish mother as she teaches her children, a Talmudic Ledgend of Moses and Rabbi Akiba, other stories of other Rabbi's...I was really hooked!

After Elie's return to his birthplace of the little Jewish city of Sighet, revisiting sights of his boyhood, he arrives to that key chapter, "Making the Ghosts Speak!" He writes of his own "despair of humanity and God!" From his studies of history, philosophy, psychology, he realized his anger at the Germans. "How could they have counted Goethe and Bach as their own and at the same time massacred countless Jewish children?" Then he admits that he "was angry at God too, at the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! How could He have abandoned his people just at the moment when they needed Him?" His struggling led to his conclusion: "I am free to choose my suffering but not that of my fellow humans."

Book Description

Whitehall and the Jews is the fullest study yet of the British response to European Jewry under the Nazis, and the first detailed account of British immigration policy toward refugee Jews. The British government always put self-interest first and sought to avoid long-term responsibility for large numbers of homeless Jews. Nonetheless, aided by the sympathy of certain officials and ministers, many Jews obtained refuge, albeit subject to severe restrictions. Louise London offers a compassionate and authoritative treatment of a subject central to the understanding of the Holocaust and Britain.

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The Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising, Clarification of Oft-Quoted Polish Remarks, etc.
A Tragic Story
The Holocaust Kingdom

The Holocaust Kingdom: A Memoir
Alexander Donat
Manufacturer: Holocaust Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0896041603

Customer Reviews:

The Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising, Clarification of Oft-Quoted Polish Remarks, etc........2007-09-15

Alexander Donat recounts his experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (notably the role of the Z.Z.W.; pp. 107-108 and 143), Maidanek (including its cruel Jewish kapos; p. 193), other locations, and finally Germany not long before the time of liberation. Donat doesn't think much of German "repentance" following the Nazi defeat (p. 291).

In contrast to the one-sided attention devoted, in modern Holocaust materials, to Polish informers, blackmailers, and looters, Donat broadens this to include Jews, as in the Ghetto: "Many highly-placed occupation authorities...were officially and unofficially involved in looting. So were some Jewish criminals who tipped Germans off about the best places to plunder, or threatened Jews that they would do so in order to blackmail them." (p. 9). "Gentile Poles were among the looters, and last, but not least, was the looting done by the employees of the Ghetto undertaker, Pinkiert, who robbed the corpses of the slain. Since more than 10,000 people were killed or died during the Resettlement Operation, the undertakers' haul was rich." (p. 72)

As for the infamous Jewish police, Donat comments: "Actual power was now in the hands of the Jewish Ghetto police who roamed the streets like wild beasts, seizing men, women, and children with increasing brutality." (p. 61)

For all the talk, in the wake of the Auschwitz Carmelite Convent controversy, of the Cross being absolutely foreign, if not offensive, to Judaism, Donat and his fellow Jews have no problem juxtaposing Jewish suffering with Golgotha (p. 83, 103), Calvary (p. 152), and the Crucifixion of the Christ inside us (pp. 230-231).

In focusing on "Jewish passivity", Donat recounts the entrenched pro-German mindset of most Jews: "For generations, East European Jews had looked to Berlin as the symbol of law, order, and culture. We could not now believe that the Third Reich was a government of gangsters embarked on a program of genocide `to solve the Jewish problem in Europe'." (p. 103).

In this regard, Donat admits that the Poles had a better grasp of German intentions. He recounts how a Pole tried to buy a coat from the Jew, but the Jew insisted that he'd still need it, prompting the Pole to respond: "They're going to make soap out of you anyway. Sell the coat to me. Why should a nice coat like that go to waste?" (p. 123). Donat comments: "Such things were said neither as a taunt nor in hatred. The facts were all too evident: the Jews were too stupid to understand their situation and it was necessary to hammer it home to them. After the January [1943] resistance, however, we occasionally heard Poles say things like, `Bravo, little Yids! That's the way. Stand right up to them!' Or, `They're eating you for lunch and saving us for dinner!' Or, `As soon as those sons-of-bitches have finished you off, it'll be our turn.'" (pp. 123-124). The foregoing alone refutes the claim that the Poles generally felt "friendly neutrality" towards the Germans' extermination of the Jews. We also see that seemingly-callous Polish remarks weren't necessarily that and, in any case, Poles used comparable remarks to refer to themselves.

Interestingly, a "different" kind of German told Donat that Polish nationalist guerillas ostensibly fight Germans but actually go around killing fugitive Jews (pp. 225-226). Did these oft-repeated tales originate from German propaganda--intended in part to discourage Jewish escapes?

Donat makes the ridiculous argument (echoed more recently by Jan T. Gross) that the Poles weren't afraid of the German-imposed death penalty when it came to such things as the possession of radios, but were only afraid of the death penalty when it came to hiding Jews (p. 230). Common sense alone teaches that hiding a verboten object (radio) was much less risky than hiding a verboten human being! Furthermore the risk-taking Pole knew that, if caught, he had a good chance of being freed with a well-placed bribe for radio-possession, but not for housing a Jew.

A Tragic Story.......2002-09-19

I have read dozens of holocaust books over the years, mostly non-fiction accounts. I must say this book, more than most, really brought home to me what it must have been like to endure the horror of living in the Warsaw Ghetto. Some of the scenes Donat describes, I literally had to put the book down, they were so tragic. Donat had access to many different streets within the Ghetto so it is almost like he is giving you a tour of the daily occurences that transpired. This book reinforces the belief that sometimes it is more honorable to die than to commit certain acts, such as some of the panic-driven people were desperate enough to commit. The killing of the children was indeed horrific. ...

I am glad he, his wife, and son survived the war, but I know it was at a great cost.

The Holocaust Kingdom.......2000-03-25

I read this book many years ago, and have regretted losing my copy. It is intense, almost overwhelming. Leon Uris used some of the same scenes in his "Mila 18", but this one is a memoir, not a novel. Pay attention to the narrator/author's name--I have remembered what happened to it for 25+ years.

Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933-1939: Before War and Holocaust

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Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933-1939: Before War and Holocaust
Dan Stone
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

This book examines the large and previously-neglected body of literature on Nazism that was produced in the years 1933-1939. Shifting attention away from high politics or appeasement, it reveals that a remarkably wide range of responses were available to the reading public. From sophisticated philosophical analyses of Nazism to pro-Nazi apologias, the book shows how Nazism informed debates over culture and politics in Britain, and how, before the war, and the Holocaust made Nazism anathema it was often discussed in ways that seem surprising today.

Ghetto Kingdom: Tales of the Lodz Ghetto (Jewish Lives)

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Must read

Ghetto Kingdom: Tales of the Lodz Ghetto (Jewish Lives)
Isaiah Spiegel
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto: Book One: On the Brink of the Precipice, 1939 (Library Of World Fiction)

ASIN: 0810116251

Customer Reviews:

Must read.......2000-04-13

I have read this book and I want to encourage everyone to read it.This book is soo touching and moving,I will naver forget it! I t is worthy of 5 stars and it's a must read!

Great Power Discord in Palestine: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine 1945-46

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Great Power Discord in Palestine: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine 1945-46
Amikam Nachmani
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0714632988

Book Description

A reconstruction of the proceedings of the "Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the problems of European Jewry and Palestine, 1945 to 1946". This study places the inquiry within the wider context of Anglo-American relations in the Middle East.

Britain and the Holocaust: The Failure of Anglo-Jewish Leadership?

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Britain and the Holocaust: The Failure of Anglo-Jewish Leadership?
Meier Sompolinsky
Manufacturer: Sussex Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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