"This exhibition catalogue guides the visitor into Vienna, the city of music. The essays collected here seek to shed light on the role of the Jewish populations and the fin-de-siecle conflict between the avant-garde and the reactionaries and to show that contrary to traditional notions, Jews not always were to be found in the modernist camp. They also tell of the axis Vienna - Berlin during the interwar years and illuminate the Jewish-Austrian musical symbiosis, which in the end would turn out to have been no more than a dream: quasi una fantasia. We furthermore document the expulsion and murder of Jewish musicians between 1938 and 1945 and their work in exile. A critical look at Vienna after 1945 concludes the volume."--BOOK JACKET.