The history of 20th-century music is particularly characterized by the phenomenon of emigration
- often for political reasons such as the persecution of musicians by totalitarian regimes.
Many of these musical emigrants came from Eastern European countries. They also transferred
their artistic and cultural heritage to their temporary or long-term host countries where
their music concepts came into interaction with local traditions and thus contributed to the
internationalisation and global melting of ideas. This collective publication reinvestigates
the paths of these émigré composers music scholars and other artists. It examines their more
or less fruitful interaction with their host cultures as well as their impact on the rise of
new global trends of culture. A large part of the 14 articles written by musicologists and
other scholars from six countries is dedicated to Russian émigrés who left their country after
or even before the October Revolution. This first part is complemented by case studies on
Slovenian Czech Polish Lithuanian and Hungarian musicians from the avant-garde to popular
music cultures.
