Music and Urban Life in Baroque Germany

Music and Urban Life in Baroque Germany
Author: Tanya Kevorkian
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2022-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813947022

Music and Urban Life in Baroque Germany offers a new narrative of Baroque music, accessible to non-music specialists, in which Tanya Kevorkian defines the era in terms of social dynamics rather than style and genre development. Towns were crucial sites of music-making. Kevorkian explores how performance was integrated into and indispensable to everyday routines, celebrations such as weddings, and political culture. Training and funding likewise emerged from and were integrated into urban life. Ordinary artisans, students, and musical tower guards as well as powerful city councilors contributed to the production and reception of music. This book illuminates the processes at play in fascinating ways. Challenging ideas of "elite" and "popular" culture, Kevorkian examines five central and southern German towns—Augsburg, Munich, Erfurt, Gotha, and Leipzig—to reconstruct a vibrant urban musical culture held in common by townspeople of all ranks. Outdoor acoustic communication, often hovering between musical and nonmusical sound, was essential to the functioning of these towns. As Kevorkian shows, that sonic communication was linked to the music and musicians heard in homes, taverns, and churches. Early modern urban environments and dynamics produced both the giants of the Baroque era, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, and the music that townspeople heard daily. This book offers a significant rediscovery of a rich, unique, and understudied musical culture. Received a subvention award from the Margarita M. Hanson Fund and the Donna Cardamone Jackson Fund of the American Musicological Society.

Singing Like Germans

Singing Like Germans
Author: Kira Thurman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2021-10-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 150175985X

In Singing Like Germans, Kira Thurman tells the sweeping story of Black musicians in German-speaking Europe over more than a century. Thurman brings to life the incredible musical interactions and transnational collaborations among people of African descent and white Germans and Austrians. Through this compelling history, she explores how people reinforced or challenged racial identities in the concert hall. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, audiences assumed the categories of Blackness and Germanness were mutually exclusive. Yet on attending a performance of German music by a Black musician, many listeners were surprised to discover that German identity is not a biological marker but something that could be learned, performed, and mastered. While Germans and Austrians located their national identity in music, championing composers such as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as national heroes, the performance of their works by Black musicians complicated the public's understanding of who had the right to play them. Audiences wavered between seeing these musicians as the rightful heirs of Austro-German musical culture and dangerous outsiders to it. Thurman explores the tension between the supposedly transcendental powers of classical music and the global conversations that developed about who could perform it. An interdisciplinary and transatlantic history, Singing Like Germans suggests that listening to music is not a passive experience, but an active process where racial and gendered categories are constantly made and unmade.

Music-Study in Germany

Music-Study in Germany
Author: Amy Fay
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2014-05-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0486173496

Famous letters by a young American pianist, dating from 1869 to 1875, uniquely describe study with Liszt, Tausig, and other luminaries. Fay offers firsthand impressions of performances by Rubinstein, Clara Schumann, Wagner (as conductor), Joachim, and many others.

Composers of the Nazi Era

Composers of the Nazi Era
Author: Michael H. Kater
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2000
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0195099249

How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate? The final book in a critically acclaimed trilogy that includes Different Drummers (OUP 1992) and The Twisted Muse (OUP 1997), this is a detailed study of the often interrelated careers of eight outstanding German composers who lived and worked amid the dictatorship of the Third Reich: Werner Egk, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Carl Orff, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. Noted historian Michael H. Kater weighs issues of accommodation and resistance to ask whether these artists corrupted themselves in the service of a criminal regime -- and if so, whether this is evident in their music. He also considers the degrees to which the Nazis poetically, socially, economically, and aesthetically succeeded in their treatment of these individuals, whose lives and compositions represent diverse responses to totalitarianism.

History in Mighty Sounds

History in Mighty Sounds
Author: Barbara Eichner
Publisher: Boydell Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843837544

An indispensable study of nineteenth-century German music, history and nationalism. Music played a central role in the self-conception of middle-class Germans between the March Revolution of 1848 and the First World War. Although German music was widely held to be 'universal' and thus apolitical, it participated- like the other arts - in the historicist project of shaping the nation's future by calling on the national heritage. Compositions based on - often heavily mythologised - historical events and heroes, such as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest or the medieval Emperor Barbarossa, invited individual as well as collective identification and brought alive a past that compared favourably with contemporary conditions. History in Mighty Sounds mapsout a varied picture of these 'invented traditions' and the manifold ideas of 'Germanness' to which they gave rise, exemplified through works by familiar composers like Max Bruch or Carl Reinecke as well as their nowadays little-known contemporaries. The whole gamut of musical genres, ranging from pre- and post-Wagnerian opera to popular choruses to symphonic poems, contributes to a novel view of the many ways in which national identities were constructed, shaped and celebrated in and through music. How did artists adapt historical or literary sources to their purpose, how did they negotiate the precarious balance of aesthetic autonomy and political relevance, and how did notions of gender, landscape and religion influence artistic choices? All musical works are placed within their broader historical and biographical contexts, with frequent nods to other arts and popular culture. History in Mighty Sounds will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century German music, history and nationalism. Barbara Eichner is Senior Lecturer in Musicology at Oxford Brookes University.

My Musical Life

My Musical Life
Author: Walter Damrosch
Publisher: Namaskar Book
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2024-02-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 2023091608

Embark on a captivating journey through the world of music with "My Musical Life" by Walter Damrosch. Join Damrosch, a renowned conductor and music educator, as he shares his personal experiences, insights, and anecdotes from a lifetime dedicated to the art of music. Experience the passion and dedication that fueled Damrosch's musical career as he reflects on his encounters with legendary composers, performers, and cultural figures. Through his engaging storytelling, readers are invited to witness the transformative power of music and its profound impact on both individuals and society. But amidst the exploration of Damrosch's musical journey lies a fundamental question: What role does music play in shaping our lives, enriching our experiences, and connecting us to one another? Are there universal truths about the power of music to transcend boundaries and touch the human soul? Delve into the depths of Damrosch's musical insights as he delves into the nuances of composition, performance, and interpretation. With each chapter, readers are treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of classical music and the creative process. Are you ready to discover the magic of music through the eyes of a maestro with "My Musical Life"? Prepare to be inspired by Damrosch's passion for music and his unwavering commitment to sharing its beauty with the world. Engage with the transformative power of music as you immerse yourself in "My Musical Life." Whether you're a seasoned musician or a casual listener, Damrosch's memoir offers something for everyone, illuminating the universal appeal and enduring significance of music. Join the symphony of life through the lens of music. Let Damrosch's memoir guide you on a journey of discovery, appreciation, and celebration of the art form that transcends time and space! Don't miss your chance to experience the joy and wonder of "My Musical Life." Purchase your copy by Walter Damrosch now and embark on a harmonious adventure that will resonate with music lovers of all ages and backgrounds.

My Musical Life

My Musical Life
Author: Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
Publisher: London : M. Secker
Total Pages: 458
Release: 1923
Genre: Composers
ISBN:

Art, Play, Labour: the Music Profession in Germany (1850–1960)

Art, Play, Labour: the Music Profession in Germany (1850–1960)
Author: Martin Rempe
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004542728

Germany is considered a lauded land of music: outstanding composers, celebrated performers and famous orchestras exert great international appeal. Since the 19th century, the foundation of this reputation has been the broad mass of musicians who sat in orchestra pits, played in ensembles for dances or provided the musical background in silent movie theatres. Martin Rempe traces their lives and working worlds, including their struggle for economic improvement and societal recognition. His detailed portrait of the profession ‘from below’ sheds new light on German musical life in the modern era.

Five Lives in Music

Five Lives in Music
Author: Cecelia Hopkins Porter
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2012-08-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0252037014

A century later, Josephine Lang, a prodigiously talented pianist and dedicated composer, participated at various times in the German Romantic world of lieder through her important arts salon. Lastly, the twentieth century brought forth two exceptional women: Baroness Maria Bach, a composer and pianist of twentieth-century Vienna's upper bourgeoisie and its brilliant musical milieu in the era of Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and Erich Korngold; and Ann Schein, a brilliant and dauntless American piano prodigy whose career, ongoing today though only partially recognized, led her to study with the legendary virtuosos Arthur Rubinstein and Myra Hess.