Europe's loss and California's gain: a review of Dorothy L. Crawford's "a windfall of musicians: Hitler???s emigres and exiles in Southern California."

A Windfall of Musicians is a fascinating account\ud of the diverse group of German musicians who immigrated to Los Angeles to escape the National Socialist\ud regime. Dorothy Lamb Crawford provides rich biographical and historical contexts for the thirty-one\ud musicians she examines. Moreover, she demonstrates\ud the enduring legacy of this European influx of musicians in the 1930s and 1940s on subsequent generations of musicians, including conductor Michael\ud Tilson Thomas, film composer Alfred Newman, and\ud pianist/conductor Jeffrey Kahane. Rather than rely\ud on a simplistic narrative of which musicians arrived\ud when, Crawford organized the analyses topically by\ud groups of musicians (such as teachers), with individual chapters dedicated to well-known figures like\ud Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky.The originating list for this review is H-German (April, 2010)