FHS 2010
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MUSIC IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
Revision Lecture 2: Art in Society
Structure:
1. Americanism and Technology
2. Taste and Decency
3. New Political Styles
--4. Group Discussion
1. Americanism and Technology
‘Schnabel was at that time very enthusiastic about America, and brought back some
examples of their entertainment music from his concert tours there – hits from people
like Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and others. These were clever composers
who could utilise many different jazz ideas (syncopation, certain harmonic
progressions), but couldn’t write actual jazz music: as was little known in Europe, this
was improvised mostly in the southern states of the USA. Anyway, I loved the
[Gershwin et al] kind of entertainment music, and took it to be jazz, and since one
tended to associate the figure of the black saxophone-playing man with that concept,
something resulted straight away: I saw that the antagonist to my introverted Max
would have to be the fiddler in a jazzband’.
Trans. from Krenek, ‘Die Geschichte von Jonny’, quoted in Arne Langer, ‘Das
Amerika-Bild in der Oper der Weimarer Republik’, in (eds) Wolfgang Rathert and
Giselher Schubert, Musikkultur in der Weimarer Republik (Mainz, 2001), p. 168.
Krenek, Jonny spielt auf, Scene 7:
Chor der Hotelgäste:
Hören Sie die Stimme an!
Sie klingt göttlich schön!
Schade, daß sie so gern moderne Musik
singt!
Und doch, wie sie’s singt, meint man fast,
es wäre Musik.
Chorus of Hotel Guests:
Just listen to that voice!
It sounds so divinely beautiful!
Shame that she likes to sing such modern
music!
And yet, the way she sings it, one could
almost believe it were music.
[Jazzmusik aus dem Lautsprecher, Geige [Jazz music from the loudspeaker – violin
und Klavier]
and piano]
Gott sei Dank!
Thank God!
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[Sie geraten auf ihren Stühlen in
rhythmische Bewegungen, ohne zunächst
eigentlich zu tanzen.
Später fangen
manche von den Gästen an, auf der
Terrasse zu tanzen. Jubelnd.]
[They move around rhythmically on their
chairs, without actually starting to dance.
Shortly, many of them start to dance on
the terrace. Jubilation.]
Das ist Jonnys Jazzband!
That’s Jonny’s Jazz Band!
Key issues: America as model for German reconstruction; images of the metropolis;
authenticity of ‘jazz’ styles; advantages and disadvantages of radio broadcasting;
‘funkeigene [radio-specific] Musik’
Key works: Krenek, Jonny spielt auf (1927)
Franz Schreker, Kleine Suite für Orchester (1928)
Bibliography: Susan C. Cook, ‘Jazz: The Sound of the New World’, in Opera for a
New Republic: The Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill, and Hindemith (Michigan, 1988), pp.
41-75
Cook, ‘Ernst Krenek: Jonny spielt auf’, in Opera for a New Republic, pp. 77-114
Christopher Hailey, ‘Rethinking Sound: Music and Radio in Weimar Germany’, in
Music and Performance during the Weimar Republic (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 13-36
J. Bradford Robinson, ‘Jazz Reception in Weimar Germany: In Search of a Shimmy
Figure’, in Bryan Gilliam (ed.), Music and Performance during the Weimar Republic
(Cambridge, 1994), pp. 107-134
2. (Inter)marital relations
Key issues: shifting of gender roles (‘emanzipierte Frau’?); disruption of marriage;
reconsideration of love; emphasis moves from soul to body, eternity to entertainment;
tolerance of sexual difference
Key works: Hindemith, Neues vom Tage (1929)
Bibliography: Cook, ‘Paul Hindemith: Neues vom Tage’, in Opera for a New
Republic, pp. 147-71
Walter Laqueur, ‘Berlin s’amuse’, in Weimar: A Cultural History (New York, 1974)
pp. 224-53
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3. New Political Styles
Key issues: foundation of KPD (‘Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands’) and NSDAP
(‘Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei’); aggressive approaches to culture of both;
forcing out of the former by the latter
Bibliography: Eberhard Kolb, ‘Origin and consolidation of the Republic’ and ‘The
rise of National Socialism in the shadow of the world economic crisis’, in The
Weimar Republic (2nd edn, London, 2005), pp. 3-52 and 101-115
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4. Group Discussion
Americanism and Technology
How might the spread of radio technology have aided and informed the ideals of Neue
Sachlichkeit?
(Inter)marital relations
In what senses is Hindemith and Schiffer’s Neues vom Tage a good example of
Zeitoper?
New Political Styles
How accurate is it to speak of a Communist and Fascist (or National Socialist) music
in the 1920s and early 1930s?