Here's how to butcher a book about early 20th century American classical music

 Now, I'm not a former music critic of the New York Times, unlike Joseph Horowitz, but when I was a Dallas Symphony Orchestra season-ticket holder years ago, I regularly conversed by email with Dallas Morning News critic Scott Cantrell. And, I've read plenty of in-depth books on various specific composers, histories, etc. Plus, I work in the media business myself, and know something about editing as well as writing.

So, I'm not speaking out of nowhere. First, my expanded-from-Goodreads review of "Artists in Exile," then my comments on how, IMO, this could have been made better.

Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts by Joseph Horowitz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One of the best two-star books I’ve read, but, it’s a two star book, in large part due to authorial framing combined with deceptive title.

Loses a star for deceptive title if not more. Not all the classical musicians were exiles and a majority of the film actors and directors were not. Started grokking more by page 250. “Artists” turns out to be selective. Other than briefly referencing Thomas Mann and Vladimir Nabokov as one last attempt to prove his thesis that “Russians” were flexible in exile, Germans not,” no authors are included. No painters or sculptors are included at all, besides a fleeting mention of de Kooning and one other. No architects are included. So, that’s really close to two full stars there. (Yes, he says that in his subtitle, the book is about "performing artists." But, he does mention, if briefly, non-performing artists, and again, Mann and Nabokov are dragged in to push a thesis that IMO isn't tenable.)

Some sort of physical-racialist essentialism by talking about a Balanchine body type that is “itself Africanist.” For a Jewish author writing about people who were, when actually exiles, largely Jewish, this seems dangerous territory.

Claims symphony and opera aren’t frequently revitalized in modern America? Really? Never heard of John Adams? (I’m not a big opera buff, to be honest.)

Stravinsky was in Paris before WWI and wasn’t “expelled.” Balanchine may be considered an economic refugee from 1930s Paris, but wasn’t an exile.

Stravinsky didn’t “capitulate” to Schoenberg. Also, why would an alleged “Germanophobe” regularly visit Weimar Germany?

Balanchine seems used as a foil to beat Stravinsky over the head. Insinuating he was unoriginal by being stimulated by Balanchine after Diaghilev and before Craft.

I didn't care for what seemed to be dissing of Stravinsky's later-life composing work in general. (He deserves fire for any antisemitism, and an epic firefight between Craft and Cal-Berkeley music professor Richard Taruskin shows just how bad it was, while at the same time showing that it can arguably be made even worse than it was.) Being an aficionado of both "Threni" (which may have been borrowed from Krenek's "Lamentatio" with its own serial technique mixed with Renaissance counterpoint that would have grabbed Stravinsky's ear — even he says it might have) and "Abraham and Isaac" (see link above) he wrote some good serial music. Maybe Craft gave him a nudge into that, but I think Stravinsky had long been interested in the idea. Craft discusses that more in an interview.

Having read Craft’s bio (or extended biographies) of Stravinsky, and articles about the Craft-Stravinsky relationship and the bio (a good overview here), let’s just say I’m not totally solid on Horowitz’s thesis.

I’m no more sold, if even as sold, on Horowitz's inflexible Germans and flexible Russians thesis. Perhaps that’s why authors are largely left out, and painters, sculptors and architects totally are; they would upset the thesis. In addition, exiles from places like Francoist Spain (Dali, for one) would further muddy the waters. Add in Duchamp (France) and Mondrian (Netherlands, but in France when he fled for Britain, then the US). I'm sure this would upset the thesis. This is just tagging a few names. To tag another, in music? Darius Milhaud.

Varese was clearly even more than Balanchine not an exile. Boris Aronson wasn’t, either. Rouben Mamoulian MAY have been an exile, but it was from Georgia more than Tsarist Russia per se. Don't forget that Georgia in all of its subsections did not become Russian imperially owned until the late 1820s; ditto for Armenia. So, considering Balanchine and Mamoulian "Russian" is a stretch; Horowitz seems to admit this by calling Mamoulian "deracinated." Of course, he also calls Hungarian Jews "German." Again, there's a thesis at work that he's determined to push, true or false.

Most the actors and directors, although eventually forced to remain in the US during the war years, weren't exiles, either. They freely came to the US in the late 1920s.

A few good things?

Arthur Farwell? Had never heard of him. Through the miracle of YouTube, I played Navajo War Dance No. 2.

Beyond the efforts of WRR every January, had not heard of one-third or more of Black composers mentioned.

That American modern classical music has suffered due to failure to follow Dvorak’s urging to ground itself on Black music is has a fair amount of truth. 

That said, I am not as big of a Dvorak fan as Horowitz appears to be. His American Suite, for example, has some generic descending fourths "American Indian chants." And, I don't think it's as "little-known" as he claims.

Also, jazz, its roots ultimately but not solely African-American, DID have some effect, of no little means, on American classical composers. So, too, in smaller degree, has the blues.

Going beyond Dvorak to the literary, calling James Fenimore Cooper an "Indianist"? Mark Twain is laughing in his grave.

Update: With further thought, I also think Horowitz's sub-thesis, that the "cult of the performer" is purely an American thing, is also overstated. Paganini comes immediately to mind. Joachim, for whom Brahms wrote his violin concerto, next. Liszt, even though composer first, certainly played on the cult of the performer when younger.

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OK, now, to make this better? 

First, drop the "Exiles" title. Sometimes, it's an editor or publisher that suggests a book title after not liking the author's, but in this case, I'm sure it was Horowitz.

Second, change that title to something about music, because it's clear that's what it's about.

Third, drop the Germans vs. Russians schtick.

Fourth, simply focus on the development of American classical music from the time of Dvorak's and Mahler's visits on, looking at "native" development, European visits, interactions or lack thereof and more. 

Film, to the degree it involves music scores, and the theater, with musicals and incidental music, comes along for the ride. You semi-ignored literature and totally ignored art and painting, so nothing lost.

Expand by 50 pages. Trim the Balanchine, as that's ballet first. Expand on American-born composers.