Norman Lebrecht reviews a CD of violin/piano sonatas by Copland, Poulenc and Prokofiev who, he says, wrote works in 1942 that were escapism related to the war

https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2021/04/23/lebrecht-listens-expect-oracles-composers-ominous-times/

In the year 1942, while millions were being slaughtered on battlefields and in German extermination camps, three composers in different countries wrote sonatas for violin and piano. Nothing connects these works to contemporary events or to each other. They are acts of escapism by expert musicians who chose not to engage with the worst time in human history.…

[reviews violin sonatas composed by Copland, Poulenc and Prokofiev] 

We expect oracles from composers in ominous times. Here are three composers who preferred to bury their heads in scores. It is the interpreters, Benjamin Baker and Daniel Lebhardt, who bring out the terrors and anxieties that rumble beneath these works. Both are brilliant artists of independent mind and prodigious technique, one a New Zealander, the other Hungarian. Their Edinburgh recital was recorded last summer in the thick of the COVID pandemic. Different time, different crisis. This is a wonderfully timely album.

So musical acts of escapism are great if you're Aaron Copland, Francis Poulenc or Sergei Prokofiev?  I'm not really a Copland fan.  His whole Americana thing always sounded contrived to me.  Poulenc, on the other hand, I love his penitential motet settings and his Mass is one of the better 20th century masses I've heard.  I also enjoy Prokofiev (Piano Sonata No. 5, for instance)  

But escapism?  Maybe Lebrecht holds to some idea that artistic output is supposed to be both a reflection of the times and the psychological journey of the composers but not everyone has thought or composed in such a way.  One of my music teachers said that if Beethoven was in a bad mood you saw it in his scores whereas if Haydn or Mozart were ever in a bad mood you could not glean that from studying their scores.  

John Dowland was always sad and said so.  He was probably one of the goth/emo dudes of Renaissance music and also, of course, a legendarily skilled lutenist and songwriter.  But ... Lebrecht's surmise that "we expect oracles from composers in ominous times" sounds like something, 

If we need escapism now and then could that be why Godzilla vs Kong is doing okay at the box office? What kind of escapism does Lebrecht really have in mind?  Probably not Godzilla vs Kong the movie and most definitely not the send-up via trailer that is "Godzilla vs Cat (Owlkitty Parody)"

If Lebrecht likes the music already then the escapism he hears in it is "just what we need".