music and books in the journal of Hélène Berr

Hélène Berr was a brilliant student and talented classical violinist. She was first in her class at a small Parisian private school, the Cours Boutet de Monvel taking honors in both philosophy and in Latin and modern languages. Entering the Sorbonne in 1938, she received her first degree in English language and literature, again with honors. In 1942 she registered for a doctorate at the Sorbonne with a thesis topic of Keats's Hellenism. She worked in the library at the Sorbonne and continued to attend lectures and seminars until prevented by the risk of being arrested and deported. She also took music lessons as long as she could and both played and listened to music with friends and relatives.

Her Journal records many of the books she read and gives extracts from ones that meant most to her, particularly poems of Keats and Shelley and Les Thibault by Roger Martin du Gard.

Here are some of the books and pieces of music of which she wrote.

Books Quoted or Mentioned in The Journal of Hélène Berr

• The Gospel According to St. Matthew
• The Book of Job
• Beowulf
• Baring, Maurice, Daphne Adeane (1927)
• Bromfield, Louis, The Rains Came (1937)
• Carroll, Lewis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865); Through the Looking Glass (1887)
• Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, Uncle Vanya (1899; quoted from Kuprin)
• Conrad, Joseph, Lord Jim (1900)
• De la Mare, Walter, Poems (1913); Peacock Pie (1913)
• Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment (1866); The Eternal Husband
• (1870); The Adolescent (1875); The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
• Duhamel, Georges, The New Book of Martyrs (1917)
• Galsworthy, John, The Freelands (1915)
• Gide, Andre, The Immoralist (1902); Strait Is the Gate (1909)
• Goldsmith, Oliver, The Good-Natured Man (1768)
• Goudge, Elizabeth, Island Magic (1934)
• Grahame, Kenneth, The Wind in the Willows (1908)
• Hardy, Thomas, The Return of the Native (1878); Jude the Obscure (1895)
• Heine, Heinrich, Gedichte; "Ich hab' in Traum geweinet" (c. 1826)
• Hemingway, Ernest, A Farewell to Arms (1929)
• Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, Prose Writings (French translation, 1927)
• Huxley, Aldous, Those Barren Leaves (1925); Point Counter Point (1928); Eyeless in Gaza (1936)
• Ibsen, Hendrik, Brand (1865)
• Keats, John, Endymion (1818); Hyperion, A Fragment (1819); Odes (1819); "This Living Hand ... " (1819); Letters to Bailey (Poetical Works)
• Kent, Rockwell, Salamina (1935)
• Kipling, Rudyard, The Jungle Book (1894); "My Sunday at Home" (1898)
• Kuprin, Aleksandr, The Duel (1904)
• Martin du Gard, Roger, Summer 1914 (1941) (Les Thibault)
• Melville, Herman, Moby-Dick (1851; illustrated by Rockwell Kent, 1930)
• Milne, A. A., Winnie-the-Pooh (1926); When We Were Very Young (1924)
• Morgan, Charles, Sparkenbroke (1936)
• Munthe, Axel, The Story of San Michele (1929)
• Pourtales, Guy de, Shadows Around the Lake (1937)
• Rilke, Rainer Maria, The Tale of the Love and Death of the Cornet Christoph Rilke (1904); The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) (Rilke)
• Shakespeare, William, Macbeth; Julius Caesar; Anthony and Cleopatra; Sonnets
• Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Prometheus Unbound (1820); Adonais (1821); A Defence of Poetry (1821)
• Sterne, Lawrence, A Sentimental Journey (1786)
• Tennyson, Alfred Lord, The Princess (1847)
• Tolstoy, Lev Nikolaevich, Resurrection (1900)
• Valery, Paul, Tel Quel (1941)
• Webb, Mary, Gone to Earth (1917)

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Music She Played or Heard

Beethoven

• Sonata for Violin & Piano No. 9: Nathan Milstein plays Beethoven Sonata for Violin & Piano No. 9 in A Major, Op. 47 ("Kreutzer"): 1st Movement. Pianist: Georges Pludermacher
• Quartet No. 4: String Quartet No. 4 C minor - Allegro (Performers not identified)
• Quartet No. 7: Beethoven Quartet op 131 1st movt - Budapest Quartet (1943)
• Quartet No. 15, in A minor, Op. 132, Adagio, Heilige Dankgesang: Budapest String Quartet (recorded live at The Library of Congress on December 20, 1945) From wikipedia: "Beethoven wrote this piece after recovering from a serious illness which he had feared was fatal. He thus headed the movement with the words, 'Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart' (Holy Song of Thanksgiving by a Convalescent to the Divinity, in the Lydian Mode)."
• Trio No. 1: Beethoven - Trio op.1 - Kempff, Szeryng, Hölscher - PART 1
• Trio No. 5, Adagio, Ghost: Performance of Ghost Trio op. 70 no. 5 by the Claremont Trio from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, complete in MP3 format

Schumann second violin sonata: Schumann 2nd Violin Sonata: 1st mov. Gidon Kremer vl. Martha Argerich pf.

Bach 1st violin sonata: Nathan Milstein playing Bach Sonata #1, Adagio and Fugue only.

Ravel Trio: Audio recording of Ravel's Piano Trio by the Claremont Trio from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, complete in MP3 format

Cesar Franck Sonata for Violin: Vadim Repin and Nikolai Lugansky Play Franck's Violin Sonata 2004, in Tokyo, 1st mov., 2nd mov., 3rd mov., 4th mov.

A personal note:

The Budapest Quartet was the first chamber group whose work I came to know and love. The version of the group that was active during World War II can be heard in two Beethoven Quartets listed above: Quartet No. 7, 1st mov. and Quartet No. 15, in A minor, Op. 132, Adagio, Heilige Dankgesang

{The Budapest String Quartet, from an early concert at the Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress; source: Library of Congress}