In Time’s Echo, the award-winning critic and historian Jeremy Eichler makes a revelatory case for the power of music as culture’s memory, an art form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past. In conversation with Philippe Sands, he will describe how four towering composers – Shostakovich, Britten, Schoenberg, and Strauss – transformed their experiences of the Second World War and the Holocaust into deeply moving works of music.
‘A most rare book: extraordinarily powerful – magisterial, meticulously rich and unexpected, deeply affecting and human.’ Philippe Sands
‘The outstanding music book of this and several years.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘A masterpiece . . . We were stunned by its profundity, its masterful structure, its beautiful shimmering sentences.’ Jury of the Baillie Gifford Prize
‘Eloquent and thought-provoking . . . an insightful reflection on how we remember and who we forget.’ Leah Broad, Financial Times
‘A work of vast historical scholarship and acute musical insights.’ John Adams, New Yorker
‘If you ever doubted that music matters, Eichler has written the book to prove you wrong.’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
Jeremy will be in conversation with Philippe Sands.
Philippe Sands is Professor of Public Understanding of Law at UCL, visiting professor at Harvard Law School and a practising barrister at 11 KBW. He has been involved in many significant international cases in recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Guantanamo, Chagos and the Rohingya. He is the author of Lawless World, Torture Team, East West Street (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction) and Sunday Times bestsellers The Ratline and The Last Colony. He has served as President of English PEN and is a member of the board of the Hay Festival.
- This event is taking place at Faber’s premises at The Bindery, 51 Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8HN.
- The nearest underground stations are Chancery Lane Station (Central line) and Farringdon Station (Circle, Elizabeth, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan lines).
- Age guidance: this event is suitable for ages 18+
- Doors will open at 6.30 p.m.
- Ticket price includes a drinks reception.
- There will be a bookshop open with signed books available by card payment only.
- A concessionary rate of £5 off tickets is available for anyone who is a student, unemployed, low-waged, low-pensioned or who consider the cost of the event a barrier to attending. Use code Concession5 in the promo box in the checkout.
- This is a ticketless event - there will be a guest list with your name and the number of tickets you have bought.
An award-winning writer and cultural historian, Jeremy Eichler is the author of Time's Echo: Music, Memory, and the Second World War, which was named 'History Book of the Year' by the Sunday Times and hailed as 'the outstanding music book of this and several years' by the Times Literary Supplement. Chosen as a notable book of 2023 by the New York Times and the New Yorker, Time’s Echo was also recognized with the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award as well as three National Jewish Book Awards including “Book of the Year.” It was a finalist for the Baillie Gifford Prize, whose jury described it as 'a masterpiece of nonfiction writing.'
Eichler, who served for 18 years as chief classical music critic of the Boston Globe, teaches at Tufts University. During the 2024-25 season, he also serves as the first Writer-in-Residence of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. For more information, please visit www.jeremy-eichler.com.
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, a stirring account of how music acts as a witness to history and a medium of cultural memory in the post-Holocaust world.