Rating: 
Summary: A gift
Review: Martin Goldsmith has given a gift to all who read his book, The Inextinguishable Symphony.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding achievement
Review: Martin Goldsmith has skillfully woven together many threads - a tender love story, a personal search for the family he never knew, an eye-opening look at a previously little known aspect of the Holocaust, and, above all, a tribute to the power of music to exorcise -- if only for a brief time -- the demons that can afflict all humankind. This is a universal story that everyone should read.
Rating:
Summary: It's a Bittersweet Symphony
Review: Martin Goldsmith takes the reader on an incredible journey that gives a chilling glimpse of life in Nazi Germany and the power of love and the human spirit to survive. After listening to Goldsmith's wonderful voice and commentary for years on NPR's "Performance Today," I could actually hear his voice as I read the words of his poignant stories about his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncle. Everyone should read this book. It would also be a compelling classroom supplement for students of history and music. The story is unforgettable. After I finished reading the book, one line from the song by The Verve keeps popping into my mind: "It's a bittersweet symphony, this life..."
Rating:
Summary: Poignant and Extremely Well-Written
Review: Martin Goldsmith, a senior commentator for National Public Radio, paints a vivid and poignant story about his own mother and father in "The Inextinguishable Symphony." Goldsmith's parents, both German Jewish musicians, were forced to work in one of Germany's Judische Kulturbunds, which were really little more than forced Nazi propaganda. By creating the Kulturbunds, which only Jews could join and attend, the Nazis hoped to cover up their inhumane treatment of this ethnic group.Both of Martin Goldsmith's parents were talented, highly trained musicians. His father, Gunther Goldschmidt, was the son of Alex Goldschmidt, a prosperous clothing store owner in Oldenburg, Germany and a World War I veteran. Gunther, a budding flutist, was eventually forced to leave music school simply because he was a Jew. Goldsmith's mother, Rosemarie, was a violinist who had been trained by her own father, the director and owner of the Gumpert Conservatory of Music in Dusseldorf, Germany. Both Gunther and Rosemarie considered themselves Germans first and Jews second, and both were happy to be accepted into the Kulturbund...at first. On 9. November 1938, the eve of the horrible "Kristallnacht," the Jewish community in Germany was forced to take another look at their comfortable Kulturbunds, for it is on that date that the Nazis chose to burn synagogues and Jewish places of business. When Alex Goldschmidt marched down the streets of Oldenburg with other young Jewish men in protest, he was rapidly taken to prison. The Nazis, however, attempted to "smooth things over" by telling the Jews they were only "protecting" them from other, angry German citizens. In 1941, when the Nazis closed the Kulturbunds, Gunther and Rosemarie escaped to freedom in New York City. Other patrons and musicians, however, did not make it to safety. As a memorial plaque at one Kulterbund reads, "Almost all of those who worked here were murdered in concentration camps." The Goldschmidts, now the Goldsmiths, eventually settled in Ohio where Martin Goldsmith was born in 1952. Although his father gave up music forever, his mother later became a member of the Cleveland Orchestra. "The Inextinguishable Symphony" is a book about Nazi Germany that gives us another view of the era and of the Holocaust. Rather than focusing on the camps as excellent authors such as Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi have done, Goldsmith focuses on the plight of Jews who managed to remain out of the camps, yet lived very restricted lives. This book is a fascinating account and one that is extremely well-written. I would recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in this period in world history.
Rating: 
Summary: A moving and exciting book . . .
Review: Martin Goldsmith, the familiar voice of National Public Radio's "Performance Today," writes simply in The Inextinguishable Symphony of his parents' meeting, courtship, and marriage during 1930s Nazi Germany. The irony of the situation is not lost on Goldsmith, who recognizes that the young Jewish couple would not have met (and he would not have been conceived) except for the Kulturbund, a group of Jewish artists, musicians, dancers, and writers who existed as a propaganda tool of the Third Reich. Thus, the purpose of the work is twofold: on the historical level, it traces the Kulturbond, describes its leaders, and explains the circumstances under which the unique group thrived for a few years. But on a more personal level, it is a love story about two young musicians working and living in a hostile regime while creating a safe haven for themselves, a world surrounded by the beautiful music of Bach, Mozart, and Mahler and the poetry of Heine, Shakespeare, and Goethe. The book is a page-turner, especially for anyone who is interested in music and the performing arts. While the purely historical books quote the facts and figures, Goldsmith places the reader right smack in the middle of Nazi Germany, viewing the action from the perspective of his father as a youth. Twenty-two year old Gunther Goldschmidt is a typical student; he has a crush on a beautiful harpist who rejects him. When his best female friend, a young German girl, is impregnated by a handsome, dashing young French art student, he stands by her. Later on, he meets Rosemarie, Goldsmith's mother, and elects to remain in Germany rather than immigrate to Sweden. It is an exciting, movingly written memoir somewhat in the tradition of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. Yet, like so many other Holocaust writers, Goldsmith really cannot answer the question that his narrative begs. Germany, the nation of Bach, Schumann, and Brahms, degenerates into a nightmare world dominated by thugs who seem intent on destroying the very cultural institutions that the Nazis claim to protect. The Germans are accurately, though rather shallowly, portrayed as monsters, particularly in the sections that describe the so-called Crystal Night. For example, one particularly horrifying photograph depicts a pair of attractive young German women laughing jubilantly at a group of Jewish men who have been dragged out of their homes, removed from their families, beaten, and are in the process of marching towards a prison. However, Hitler's documented personal hatred of the Jews neither excuses nor explains the sadistic behavior that ordinary Germans evidently exhibited toward this beleaguered group. In fact, the book does not shed any light on the circumstances that led to such moral bankruptcy, a predicament that is only partially explained by the Nazis. Goldsmith's Germans are, for the most part, mean and stupid; certainly they must have appeared that way to his talented and sensitive young parents. But what causes them to be psychologically predisposed toward abusing outsiders - not just Jews but Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and others? In defense of Goldsmith, a case certainly can be made for his memoir on the grounds that the answer to such a question is far beyond the scope of the book. It is, after all, a terrifically moving and exceptionally well-written work. I would highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Making Accessible the Unthinkable
Review: National Public Radio listeners have known Martin Goldsmith for years as the friendly, reassuring voice of "Performance Today." Encyclopedically knowledgeable about classical (and rock) music, Goldsmith has a relaxed and comfortable on-air style that helps to make classical music more accessible to broad audiences. That same style is found in "The Inextinguishable Symphony," helping to make another complex subject - the Holocaust - more accessible to audiences both familiar and unfamiliar with it. But this isn't just "another book about the Holocaust." Nor is it about tragically anonymous victims. It is instead about Goldsmith's parents - Gunther, a flutist, and Rosemarie, a violist - who meet and charmingly fall in love in Nazi Germany in the '30s, as well as about Grandfather Alex and Uncle Helmut and other family members and friends, each of whom Goldsmith makes real and sympathetic through his rich, exquisitely detailed, and heartbreakingly honest narrative. These are people that the reader comes to care about deeply, and we celebrate - and in some cases grieve - their fates. Goldsmith is a helluva storyteller. But the book is also not just a love story (Gunther literally does risk his life for his young sweetheart) or merely an author's purely personal journey in search of his own roots. Through the vehicle of his remarkable parents' own individual stories, Goldsmith explores the only-dimly known, but fascinating, story of the Judische Kulturbund - the Jewish Culture Association - to which Jewish musicians, actors, and others were artistically exiled in Nazi Germany. Goldsmith reveals much about this controversial and complicated organization which, although the only source of culture for German Jews, knowingly served the Nazis' propaganda purposes. The reader marvels at how much the "Kubu" was able to accomplish under such hateful conditions, but is also forced to ask, "What would I have done in these circumstances? Would I have risked my life just to make music?" This is a troubling, but ultimately triumphant, book about real people trying to live their lives, their love, and their music in unthinkable times. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in music, in the Holocaust, in cultural history, or simply in a good love story well told. Bravo, Gunther and Rosemarie and Martin Goldsmith!
Rating:
Summary: Making Accessible the Unthinkable
Review: National Public Radio listeners have known Martin Goldsmith for years as the friendly, reassuring voice of "Performance Today." Encyclopedically knowledgeable about classical (and rock) music, Goldsmith has a relaxed and comfortable on-air style that helps to make classical music more accessible to broad audiences. That same style is found in "The Inextinguishable Symphony," helping to make another complex subject - the Holocaust - more accessible to audiences both familiar and unfamiliar with it. But this isn't just "another book about the Holocaust." Nor is it about tragically anonymous victims. It is instead about Goldsmith's parents - Gunther, a flutist, and Rosemarie, a violist - who meet and charmingly fall in love in Nazi Germany in the '30s, as well as about Grandfather Alex and Uncle Helmut and other family members and friends, each of whom Goldsmith makes real and sympathetic through his rich, exquisitely detailed, and heartbreakingly honest narrative. These are people that the reader comes to care about deeply, and we celebrate - and in some cases grieve - their fates. Goldsmith is a helluva storyteller. But the book is also not just a love story (Gunther literally does risk his life for his young sweetheart) or merely an author's purely personal journey in search of his own roots. Through the vehicle of his remarkable parents' own individual stories, Goldsmith explores the only-dimly known, but fascinating, story of the Judische Kulturbund - the Jewish Culture Association - to which Jewish musicians, actors, and others were artistically exiled in Nazi Germany. Goldsmith reveals much about this controversial and complicated organization which, although the only source of culture for German Jews, knowingly served the Nazis' propaganda purposes. The reader marvels at how much the "Kubu" was able to accomplish under such hateful conditions, but is also forced to ask, "What would I have done in these circumstances? Would I have risked my life just to make music?" This is a troubling, but ultimately triumphant, book about real people trying to live their lives, their love, and their music in unthinkable times. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in music, in the Holocaust, in cultural history, or simply in a good love story well told. Bravo, Gunther and Rosemarie and Martin Goldsmith!
Rating:
Summary: A musical gift in prose
Review: Some of the best books I have ever read have been ones not of my own choosing. This is the case with "The Inextinguishable Symphony", a book given to me by a friend for a recent birthday. It became one of my most cherished gifts. I am a music teacher and roughly the same age as the author, Martin Goldsmith. I must confess that I had never heard of the "Kulturbund" and certainly had not an inkling as to the effect it had on so many lives. This is one of those accounts that is not taught in school, and like "Schindler's List", presents a brand new aspect to life in Nazi Germany. Mr. Goldsmith weaves a marvelous chronicle of his parents' devotion to each other in the years with the Kubu, an organization that found them together and bound them together. In historical terms, many of us believed for years that everything had to have been clear in Germany in the 1930s....if you were Jewish you had to leave. The author reminds us that many Jews who did leave early on also came back and subsequently met their deaths as the situation got worse. This book is a loving tribute not only to Mr. Goldsmith's parents but to all who tried to find some happiness in music and friendship at a most difficult time. It is a wonderful memorial to those who perished and a testament to those who survived.
Rating:
Summary: "In an ugly time, the best protest is beauty."
Review: The author credits his father with the above insight. This book is about the author's parents, how they met in Nazi Germany as musicians in the Jewish Culture Association, married, and eventually escaped to the United States. Sometimes the focus is not specifically on his parents, but on broader aspects of this apparently little-known Association, or of life under the Nazis as a whole. It's a beautiful book about a very ugly time. Since the musicians were prohibited from playing the music of Beethoven and the other most familiar German composers (eventually Austrian composers such as Mozart fell under the ban), their music often included less familiar works, such as the title piece (the nickname of Nielsen's fourth symphony), so the reader will almost surely get a broader insight to the classical repertory as well.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: The Inextinguishable Symphony is a moving as well as educational account of what life was like for Jews in Nazi Germany. It explores this topic in a new and interesting way through the eyes of two Jewish musicians struggling to keep art and culture alive amidst the oppression and cruelty of the Nazi regime. Martin Goldsmith does a masterful job of presenting the poignant story of his parents' relationship within the historical context. He uses their life story as a springboard to explore the life of the entire Jewish community of Berlin under Nazi rule. It is a well-written and incredibly moving book, one that I would recommend highly.
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