1st Edition
by Brendan Fay (Author)
From Hitler's notorious fondness
for Wagner's operas to classical music's role in fuelling German
chauvinism in the era of the world wars, many observers have pointed to a
distinct relationship between German culture and reactionary politics.
In Classical Music in Weimar Germany,
Brendan Fay challenges this paradigm by reassessing the relationship
between conservative musical culture and German politics. Drawing upon a
range of archival sources, concert reviews and satirical cartoons, Fay
maps the complex path of classical music culture from Weimar to Nazi
Germany-a trajectory that was more crooked, uneven, or broken than
straight. Through an examination of topics as varied as radio and race
to nationalism, this book demonstrates the diversity of competing
aesthetic, philosophical and political ideals held by German music
critics that were a hallmark of Weimar Germany.
Rather than
seeing the cultural conservatism of this period as a natural prelude for
the violence and destruction later unleashed by Nazism, this
fascinating book sheds new light on traditional culture and its
relationship to the rise of Nazism in 20th-century Germany.
