This is a groundbreaking study of the prestigious Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics during the Third Reich. Making extensive use of archival material, including some discussed here for the first time, Fritz Trumpi offers new insight into the orchestras' place in the larger political constellation.

Trumpi looks first at the decades preceding National Socialist rule, when the competing orchestras, whose rivalry mirrored a larger rivalry between Berlin and Vienna, were called on to represent "superior" Austro-German music and were integrated into the administrative and social structures of...