AUSTRIAN STUDIES, I3, 2OO5 273 music analysis are avoided, though they are commented upon early in the study. Gerber-Wieland is sparing with musical examples demonstrating her integrated analytical techniques, and because they are placed in an Appendix (pp. 263-74) rather than located in the heart of the study, one has a sense of a physically manifested gap in the discourse unless one has themusical scores to hand. Nevertheless, her study,with its inventive, carefully conceived framework and rich network of references, is a valuable contribution to the growing body of interdisciplinary studies. Royal College of Music, London Darla M. Crispin The Setting of the Pearl Vienna underHitler. By Thomas Weyr. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 2005. xvi + 352 pp. ?16.99; $30.00. isbn 0-19-514679-4. One of the ironies of the 'victimmyth' identified by commentators on post-war Austria is that ithas seemingly eclipsed research into the seven-year period under Nazi rule, from Anschluss in 1938 to liberation in 1945. Although the theatre historian Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, whom Thomas Weyr quotes (p. 136), is among those who have done important work in the field, his is a rare attempt inEnglish to document those years, and to assess their lasting consequences for the cityofVienna. Weyr, an American journalist and native Viennese who was a schoolchild in 1938, describes the city's omission from CNN weather reports and overseas newspaper announcements about the Philharmonic as 'thefinal irrelevance' for a once-great capital (p. 316). This is the subtext of his chronicle, which argues thatNazi control from 1938 kick-started a long decline into provincialism that is now endemic. In part, Weyr blames Hitler's ambivalence towards the city (p. 191), but he ultimately laysblame on theViennese themselves for choosing, in his view, third-rate provincial status over cultural excellence. Weyr's account is a blend of eyewitness reports, historical sources, personal recollections and some questionable memoirs by former high-ranking Nazis. Under the influence of journalistic techniques, Weyr has pieced together a racy, chronological narrative thatmakes up in immediacy and readability what it lacks in precision. In particular, he has a tendency to quote verbatim and uncritically (for example, from thememoirs of actor and committed Nazi Fred Hennings, p. 80). Sources are not always recorded with scholarly care, with index numbers frequendy omitted (for example, footnote 51, p. 326), and there are a number of typographical errors, themost glaring of which renders Hugo von Hofmannsthal with a double (p. 113). Weyr might also have referred toBrigitte Hamann's bestselling study of the F?hrer 'sformative years in the city, Hitlers Wien. Lehrjahre einesDiktators ( 1996; translated as Hitler's Vienna. A Dictators Apprenticeship [1999]). Quibbles apart, it ishard not to be impressed by the volume ofmicroscopic detail on display, clearly the result of vigorous and passionate research. In keeping with the book's title, taken from a 1938 speech inwhich Hitler 274 Reviews declared he would give the 'pearl' of Vienna 'a proper setting' (pp. 72-73), Weyr focuses on the struggle by the city'sNazi governors to carve out a role for itwithin the Third Reich. Some of the detail is tantalizingly brief: in particular, plans tomake Vienna a centre of fashion (pp. 191-93); to turn it into a nodal point for Balkan trade ('The Hamburg of the Southeast', pp. 142-43); and to make it a focus for Axis diplomacy (pp. 193-94). Instead, Weyr chooses to focus on the personalities of Vienna's governors. After dispensing with the Rhinelander Josef B?rckel, who was not interested in promoting Vienna, Weyr devotes particular care to documenting the cultural initiatives of his successor, Baldur von Schirach, Gauleiter and ReichsstatthalterofVienna fromAugust 1940. Weyr casts him as a blend of haughty aristocrat, who lived in luxury while lecturing workers on sacrifice and sending children to arms, vocal anti-Semite and crypto-Austrian patriot in the arts.Quoting from Schirach's autobiography, Weyr appears to accept the suggestion that the Reichsstatthalter fell out of favour with Goebbels and eventually also Hitler for encouraging liberal and separatist tendencies by promoting Grillparzer, Mozart and photography exhibitions that verged on the 'degenerate' (p. 213). Schirach therefore emerges with qualified...