From Publishers Weekly
Horowitz's sophisticated case studies explore a tension in the art of 20th-century performers who emigrated from Europe or Russia: they both stayed foreign and became American. A one-time executive director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Horowitz (Classical Music in America) extends his domain beyond music into other performing arts, examining key exemplars in each discipline such as Igor Stravinsky in music composition, George Balanchine in ballet, and Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg in Hollywood. His understanding of the political nuances of immigrants' artistic work, influenced by the circumstances in which they fled their native countries, is fascinating. Yet Horowitz emphasizes the Americanization of the artworks at the expense of their European roots. Based on what Horowitz admits is a highly select group of artists, he often poses broad questions and makes bold, generalized statements, such as trivializing the plight of the immigrant artist in contemporary American society: the tensions of forced migration—of exile and nostalgia—have abated. Still, what Horowitz lacks in balance he more than makes up for in emotion, and in expounding on the political resonance of the immigrants' art, he composes an enlightening, informative read. 31 b&w photos. (Feb.)
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
During the first half of the twentieth century, thousands of artists fled Europe’s turmoil for the United States, in the process becoming more or less unwitting participants in "an ongoing national discussion about American identity." Though not all the émigrés thrived, some, like Arturo Toscanini, found that their work translated easily to their new audience, while others, like George Balanchine, adapted Old World techniques to New World sensibilities, creating art that came to be seen as quintessentially American. Noting that "the American experience is itself an experience of cultural exchange," Horowitz delineates the disciplines in which the process was relatively fluid (dance and cinema), and those in which it progressed in fits and starts. American theatre, he finds, was the slowest to accept outside influence, while classical music was a bit too eager.
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