Music of the Other Germany

Music of the Other Germany By Leon Botstein Written for the concert Music of the Other Germany, performed on Jan 25, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. It is hard to believe that twenty years have passed since the fall of Communism. Almost until the very end, the idea that Communism would be…

Hann Eisler, Auferstanden aus Ruinen, Hymne der DDR By Laura Silverberg, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University Written for the concert Music of the Other Germany, performed on Jan 25, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Lionized in the GDR as the founding father of socialist German music, Hanns Eisler (1898–1962) was an ardent…

Rudolf Wagner-Régeny, Mythological Figures By Laura Silverberg, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University Written for the concert Music of the Other Germany, performed on Jan 25, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Rudolf Wagner-Régeny (1903–1969) had no strong socialist sympathies and composed little explicitly political music. While his contemporaries Eisler and Dessau voluntarily made their…

Paul Dessau, In Memoriam Bertolt Brecht By Laura Silverberg, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University Written for the concert Music of the Other Germany, performed on Jan 25, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Along with his contemporary Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau (1894–1979) was one of East Germany’s most prominent composers. The grandson of…

Udo Zimmermann, Sinfonia come un grande Lamento, in Memory of F. García Lorca By Laura Silverberg, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University Written for the concert Music of the Other Germany, performed on Jan 25, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. In 1971, Erich Honecker (General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party) declared that…

Siegfried Matthus, Responso: Konzert für Orchester By Byron Adams, University of California, Riverside Written for the concert Music of the Other Germany, performed on Jan 25, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. The distinguished German composer Siegfried Matthus was born in 1934 in what was then East Prussia. In 1944, fleeing the advancing Russian…