In the years 1936 and 1937, conductor Otto Klemperer gave a series of lectures to university students in Los Angeles about concerts for children and adolescents. The lectures dealt with the works of Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Strauss among others. Important to Klemperer was not only to look at the compositions in question, but above all to get across the cultural and historical background behind the works and their composers. The lectures highlight the deep bond that Klemperer felt towards German and Austrian musical culture. And yet he does not once mention his own feeling of being excluded from this musical culture or talk about his exile.

On 4 April 1936, Klemperer spoke in great detail about Anton Bruckner’s 7^th Symphony. To his mind, Bruckner's music had been very late in asserting itself in the USA concert scene. As a reason for this, the composer suggested among other things that there had been a great deal of “suspicion” towards “German art” in the USA following the First World War, leading many to reject it.

Bruckner’s music also faced the same kind of prejudice after the end of the Nazi period. His 7^th Symphony in particular was often used for political ends in Nazi Germany. The adagio in Anton Bruckner’s 7^th Symphony was played on national radio, for example, following the announcement of Adolf Hitler’s death on 1 May 1945.