Time's Echo

In 1785, when Schiller penned his immortal “Ode to Joy,” he crystallized the deepest hopes and dreams of the European Enlightenment for a new era of peace and freedom, a time when millions would be embraced as equals. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony then gave wing to Schiller’s words, but barely a century later these same words were claimed by Nazi propagandists and twisted by a barbarism so complete that it ruptured, as one philosopher put it, “the deep layer of solidarity among all who wear a human face.”

When it comes to how societies remember these increasingly distant dreams and catastrophes, we often think of history books, archives, documentaries, or memorials carved from stone. But in Time’s Echo, the award-winning critic and cultural historian Jeremy Eichler makes a passionate and revelatory case for the power of music as culture’s memory, an art form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past.

As the living memory of the Second World War fades, Time’s Echo proposes new ways of listening to history, and learning to hear between its notes the resonances of what another era has written, heard, dreamed, hoped, and mourned. A lyrical narrative full of insight and compassion, this book deepens how we think about the legacies of war, the memory of culture, and the renewed promise of art for our lives today.

Jeremy Eichler will be in conversation with Jack Miles, an American author. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Price, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the MacArthur Fellowship. His writings on religion, politics, and culture have appeared in numerous national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.

"'Time’s Echo' offers the same kind of immersive experience that he encourages us to explore in music. His beautiful meditation on the dark shadows that compelled, propelled and ultimately haunted classical music in Europe during and after World War II inspires our ears." - New York Times Book Review

“Time’s Echo is a remarkable book. Jeremy Eichler shows how listening to history through its music can transport us in mind, body, and spirit — resulting in a profound, detailed resurrection of the past into the living present." - Yo-Yo Ma

"Delving into twentieth-century musical memorials by Richard Strauss, Schoenberg, Britten, and Shostakovich, Eichler evokes not only the smoldering power of the music but also the haunted lives and places from which these masterpieces sprang. It is a work of searching scholarship, acute critical observation, philosophical heft, and deep feeling." - Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker

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