NAZIS AND CULTURE
• Nazi Minister of
Propaganda, Joseph
Goebbels, supervised
all of Germany’s
intellectual and cultural
activities
– Including music
NAZI AESTHETIC
• Music should be
consciously German
– Should not contain
foreign influences
• It should appeal to the
masses
– Familiar, tuneful, easy to
understand, and serious
• Nazi views on music were
narrow-minded
NAZI POLICY
• Nazis despised musical
modernism
– Especially the music of
Jewish composer,
Arnold Schoenberg and
his disciples
• To the Nazis, modern music
appealed to elite, cultured
audiences and was difficult
to understand
• Above all, Nazis wanted to
remove all Jewish influence
from German music
ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES
• Nazis denied employment
to Jewish musicians in
German concert halls,
opera houses
• Allowed anti-Semitic
musical propaganda to
flourish
• Prohibited Jews from
holding teaching jobs at
musical conservatories
• Denied Jews membership
in German musical
organizations
A LITTLE LEEWAY
• Nazis allowed Jews to form
their own cultural
organizations
– But the concerts they put
on were closed to the
general public
• Only Jews could attend
• Not allowed to
perform German
works
– Felt that Jews
would contaminate
these works
WHAT NAZIS LIKED I
• German folk songs
• German classical music
– Especially music by the
“three B’s” (Bach,
Beethoven, and Brahms,
sometimes Aton
Bruckner is added to
this group)
– Also music by Handel
and Wagner
WHAT NAZIS LIKED II
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Clear melody
Consonant harmonies
Steady rhythms
Goal-oriented
Noble, serious tone
Traditional instrumentation
Should not contain foreign
influences
– Such as jazz instruments
or syncopated rhythms
FIRST SOUND CLIP
• Symphony No. 5
– Beethoven
• Style characteristics:
– Classical orchestration
• Heavy use of strings
– Strong, incisive rhythms
– Very serious
SECOND SOUND CLIP
• “Ride of the Valkyries”
– Richard Wagner
• Style Characteristics
– Strong rhythms
• Like Beethoven
• Take-charge, forward
march, battle music
– Very serious
“DEGENERATE” MUSIC
• Name taken from the title of a 1938
exhibition in Dusseldorf
– Organized by Goebbels
– Translation of the German word
“entartete”
• Exhibition was a crusade against
certain types of music that the Nazis
deemed destructive
– Consisted of photographs and
portraits of specific composers
and crude propaganda
– Also recordings on gramophone
records
WHAT THE NAZIS DIDN’T LIKE
• Jazz
• Other American popular
music
– Fox-trot and Charleston
• Modern, experimental
music
• Any music written by a
Jewish composer
NAZIS REALLY HATED THIS STUFF
• Nazis especially hated modern,
experimental music
– Because they believed it was
primarily developed by Jewish
composers
– But this was not true for two
reasons
• This music was cultivated by
such non-Jewish composers as
Bela Bartok
• Some Jewish composers did
write traditional music
CHARACTERISTICS
• Dissonant harmonies
– Clashing, ugly
• Atonal
• Not tuneful or lyrical
• Texts of music are often
negative and concern
hallucinations and
nightmares
• Overall effect is shocking,
uncomfortable
SOUND CLIP 3
• “Nacht” from Pierre
Lunaire
– By Arnold Schoenberg
– About how the moon
can drive people crazy
• Music is ugly but it reflects
the times and the attitude
of the intelligentsia
SOUND CLIP 4
• Bela Bartok
– Despised Nazi policies on music
and was forced to flee Hungary
• “Music for Strings, Percussion, and
Celesta”
– 1938
– Style Characteristics
• Dissonance
• Unusual instrumentation
• High range of instruments
• Music was used in soundtrack of
“The Shining”
NAZI TREATMENT OF MODERN
COMPOSERS
• Their works were censored and
banned from concert halls
• Most were sent to camps or forced to
emigrate
• Many had a hard time making a living
in the U.S.
– Bartok forced to flee to US in 1940
and lived in New York just above
the poverty line
– Schoenberg lost teaching job in
Berlin and settled in California.
• Had short-term teaching jobs
at UCLA and USC
NAZI IDEOLOGY AND MUSIC I
• Was narrow-minded and repressive
– Only “German” music by
German composers could be
heard and played
– Considered any foreign
influence as a threat to the
purity of German culture
– Hated any Jewish influence
• And therefore isolated
Jewish music activity
• Removed all Jewish works
from concert programs
• Prohibited collaboration
between Jews and “Aryans”
NAZI IDEOLOGY AND MUSIC II
• Nazis espoused music that was tuneful,
pleasing, and that had strong, vigorous
rhythms
– And therefore abhorred much
modern music
• Because it was harsh and
unmelodic
• Thought it was subversive,
difficult to understand, and
written largely by Jews
– even though much of it was
actually written by non-Jews
such as Richard Strauss
FLAWS
Nazi ideology on music was
full of inconsistencies and
contradictions
– There was no such
thing as pure German
music and Jews and
non-Jews alike wrote
modern music
DISTORTED VIEW OF HISTORY
• Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn
rediscovered music of German
composer, J.S. Bach
• Nazis tried to “Aryanize” Handel’s
oratorios
– Claimed he really wanted to write
oratorios based on Nordic legends
but his English audiences did not
know about them
– Also erased Jewish words from
Handel’s texts
Handel
MUSIC IN THE CAMPS
• Many camps allowed music
– Auschwitz-Birkenenau
– Terezin
• Also had theatrical
productions,
lectures, poetry
readings, and sports
activities
– The Warsaw, Lodz, and
Vilna ghettos
TEREZIN
• Had greatest number of musical
organizations
– Because it was “model” camp
designed to show outside world
that Jews were treated well
• just a stopping off place for
victims going to the
extermination camps
– Because a large number of
prominent Jews were sent there
• Including famous musicians and
members of intelligentsia
– Because it was huge
• Had space needed to mount
musical productions
TEREZIN: THE REALITY
• 140,000 people sent to
Terezin between 1941
and 1945
– 33,000 died there
from disease
– 87,000 sent to
Auschwitz
• Where 95% of
them perished
WHY MUSIC?
• Way of keeping inmates
calm
• Viewed as creative outlet
for inmates
– Nazi view was “let them
have their fun—
tomorrow they are
going to die”
– Therefore allowed
instruments and sheet
music to be smuggled in
TYPES OF CAMP MUSIC
• Auschwitz had two symphonic
orchestras
– One for men and one for
women
• Warsaw ghetto had an orchestra
• Terezin had a jazz band called
“Ghetto Swingers”
• Marching bands
• Chamber music ensembles
• Variety shows, caberets,
choruses, operas
• Music education for children
TREATMENT OF CAMP MUSICIANS
• Were lucky compared to
other prisoners
• Excluded from manual
work
• Resented by other
prisoners
• But did not have lives of
luxury
– Half-starved and always
in fear of SS dismantling
their ensembles and
sending back with other
prisoners
REASONS FOR CAMP MUSIC
• To show that the musical
style of camp music was
often experimental
– Contained dissonance
and foreign influence
• To show that much of this
music was personal
– Depicted life in the
camps and feelings of
intense pain,
hopelessness, and
sadness
OLIVIER MESSIAEN
• Wrote “Quartet for the End of
Time” in 1941
• One of France’s most
prominent young composers
• Born in 1908, died in 1998
• Was not Jewish but was a
devout Catholic
• Joined army in 1939
– Captured by Germans has
he was trying to escape on
old bicycle
• Imprisoned in Gorlitz, Silesia
MESSIAEN AGAIN
• Quartet was written while
Messaien was in prison
• Scored for four instruments
– Violin, cello (only had 3
strings), clarinet, and
piano
• First performed on January
15, 1941 to an audience of
5000 prisoners
• Eight movements to the
piece
SOUND CLIP 5
• Movement 2 is a musical
depiction of death and the
afterlife
• Two parts
– End of the world as we
know it
• Depicted as a cataclysm
– Eternity
• Sounds spooky
• No sense of progression
KAREL BERMAN
• Jewish Czech composer born in
1920
• Sent to Terezin in 1943
– Already an established singer,
conductor, and composer
• Later sent to Kauffering and then
Auschwitz
• Wrote “Suite for Piano” between
1938-1945
– Autobiographical
– Not recorded until 1984
– Eight movements
SOUNDCLIPS 6, 7, 8
• FAMILY HOME
– Starts off and ends tuneful and childlike
– Middle is more intense and expressive
• AUSCHWITZ CORPSE FACTORY
– Starts of soft, then picks up to be very harsh and ugly (sounds
barbaric and monstrous)
– Contains factory elements: musically repetitive, mechanical, and
heartless
• TYPHUS
– Inspired by typhus outbreak in April 1945 which left prisoners
under strict quarantine for two weeks
– Music sounds erratic
SUMMARY I
• Musicians in camps were
ordered to play certain
styles of music
– Like band and
symphonic music
• Were not allowed to play
German music
– Because Nazis felt they
would contaminate
great German
masterpieces
SUMMARY II
• There is not one type of original
music written at the camps
– Experimental music dominated
– But some, like Gideon Klein,
wrote old-fashioned music
– Most wrote experimental
music that gave an
autobiographical depiction of
life in the camps
• Such as Karel Berman and
Olivier Messiaen
SCHOENBERG
• Never imprisoned in a
camp but has left us one of
the moving and emotional
reenactments of the
prisoners last moments
– “A Survivor from
Warsaw”
• Composed in 1949
• Based on accounts of
the Nazi’s treatment
of Jews in the
Warsaw Ghetto
LAST SOUND CLIP
• Essentially a traumatic
story
– Sounds as if the speaker
has half-forgotten the
events
– He is obsessed by what
has happened to him
– Recalls the Nazi’s brutal
screaming
– Ends with a chorus of
men singing “Shema
Yisroel,” the command
to love God as they are
put to death