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Music of Germany

Germany claims some of the most renowned composers, singers, producers and performers of the world. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world. German classical

Minnesingers and Meistersingers (Man and Woman)#

The beginning of what is now considered German music could be traced back to the 12th-century compositions of mystic abbess Hildegard of Bingen, who wrote a variety of hymns and other kinds of Christian music. After Latin-language religious music had dominated for centuries, in the 12th century to the 14th centuries, Minnesinger (love poets), singing in German, spread across Germany. Minnesinger were aristocrats, traveling from court to court, who had become musicians, and their work left behind a vast body of literature, Minnelieder. The following two centuries saw the Minnesinger replaced by middle-class Meistersinger, who were often master craftsmen in their main profession, whose music was much more formalized and rule-based than that of the Minnesinger. Minnesinger and Meistersinger could be considered parallels of French troubadours and trouvère. Among the Minnesinger, Hermann, a monk from Salzburg, deserves special note. He incorporated folk styles from the Alpine regions in his compositions. He made some primitive forays into polyphony as well. Walther von der Vogelweide and Reinmar von Hagenau are probably the most famous minnesingers from this period.

Classical music of Germany#

Germans have played a leading role in the development of classical music. Many of the best classical musicians such as Bach, Händel, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, or Schoenberg (a lineage labeled the “German Stem” by Igor Stravinsky) were German. At the beginning of the 15th century, German classical music was revolutionized by Oswald von Wolkenstein, who travelled across Europe learning about classical traditions, spending time in countries like France and Italy. He brought back some techniques and styles to his homeland, and within a hundred years, Germany had begun producing composers renowned across the continent. Among the first of these composers was the organist Conrad Paumann. The largest summer festival for classical music in Germany is the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.

Chorale#

Beginning in the 16th century, polyphony, or the intertwining of multiple melodies, arrived in Germany. Protestant chorales predominated; in contrast to Catholic music, chorale was vibrant and energetic. Composers included Dieterich Buxtehude, Heinrich Schütz and Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation. Luther happened to accompany his sung hymns with a lute, later recreated as the waldzither that became a national instrument of Germany in the 20th century.

Opera#

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (1791) is usually said to be the beginning of German opera. An earlier starting date for German opera, however, could be Heinrich Schütz’s Dafne from 1627. Schütz is said to be the first great German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, and was a major figure in 17th-century music. In the 19th century, two figures were paramount in German opera: Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner. Wagner introduced devices like the Leitmotiv, a musical theme which recurs for important characters or ideas. Wagner (and Weber) based his operas of German history and folklore, most importantly including the Ring of the Nibelung (1874). Into the 20th century, opera composers included Richard Strauss (Der Rosenkavalier) and Engelbert Humperdinck, who wrote operas meant for young audiences. Across the border in Austria, Arnold Schoenberg innovated a form of twelve-tone music that used rhythm and dissonance instead of traditional melodies and harmonies, while Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht collaborated on some of the great works of German theater, including Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and The Three-Penny Opera. Following the war, German composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hans Werner Henze began experimenting electronic sounds in classical music. Germany is also very well known for its many subsidised opera houses, such as Semperoper, Munich State Theatre and the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

Baroque period#

Baroque music, which was the first music to use tonality in the modern sense, is also known for its ornamentation and artistic use of counterpoint. It originated in Northern Italy at the end of the 16th century, and the style migrated quickly to Germany, which was one of the most active centers of early Baroque music. Early German Baroque composers included Heinrich Schütz, Michael Praetorius, Johann Hermann Schein, and Samuel Scheidt. The culmination of the Baroque era was undoubtedly in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel in the first half of the 18th century. Bach established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and adapted rhythms, forms, and textures from Italy and France. Bach wrote numerous works, including preludes, cantatas, fugues, concertos for harpsichord, violin and wind, orchestral suites, the Brandenburg Concertos, St Matthew Passion, St John Passion and the Christmas Oratorio. Händel was a cosmopolitan composer that wrote music for virtually every genre of his time. His most famous works include the orchestral suites Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks and the oratorio Messiah. Another important composer was Georg Philipp Telemann, one of the most prolific musicians in history.

Classical era#

By the middle of the 18th century, the cities of Vienna, Dresden, Berlin and Mannheim had become the center for orchestral music. The Esterházy princes of Vienna, for example, were the patrons of Joseph Haydn, an Austrian who invented the classic format of the string quartet, symphony and sonata. Later that century, Vienna’s Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart emerged, mixing German and Italian traditions into his own style. Mozart was a prolific and influential composer who composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart.

Romantic era#

The following century saw two major German composers come to fame early—Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. Beethoven, a student of Haydn’s in Vienna, used unusually daring harmonies and rhythm and composed numerous pieces for piano, violin, symphonies, chamber music, string quartets and an opera. Schubert created a field of artistic, romantic poetry and music called lied; his lieder cycles included Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. Franz Schubert was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. He is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical era and early Romantic era. Early in the 19th century, a composer by the name of Richard Wagner was born. He was a “Musician of the Future” who disliked the strict traditionalist styles of music. He is credited with developing leitmotivs which were simple recurring themes found in his operas. Carl Maria von Weber was a composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. His operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon greatly influenced the development of the Romantic opera in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was a composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. He was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist. He wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. Robert Schumann was a composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann’s published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Johannes Brahms honored the music pioneered by Mozart and Beethoven and advanced his music into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. The later 19th century saw Vienna continue its elevated position in European classical music, as well as a burst of popularity with Viennese waltzes. These were composed by people like Johann Strauss the Younger. Richard Strauss was a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems. Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.

20th century#

The first half of 20th century saw a split between German and Austrian music. In Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern moved along an increasingly avant-garde path, pioneering atonal music in 1909 and twelve-tone music in 1923. Meanwhile, composers in Berlin took a more populist route, from the cabaret-like socialist operas of Kurt Weill to the Gebrauchsmusik of Paul Hindemith. In Munich there was also Carl Orff, who was influenced by the French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy. He began to use colorful, unusual combinations of instruments in his orchestration. His most popular work is Carmina Burana. Many composers emigrated to the United States when the Nazi Party came to power, including Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Erich Korngold. During this period, the Nazi Party embarked on a campaign to rid Germany of so-called degenerate art, which became a catch-all phrase that included music with any link to Jews, Communists, jazz, and anything else thought to be dangerous. Some figures such as Karl Amadeus Hartmann remained defiantly in Germany during the years of Nazi dominance, continually watchful of how their output might be interpreted by the authorities. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, musicians were also subjected to the Allied policy of denazification. But here, the supposed non-political nature of music was able to excuse many, including Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan (who had actually joined the Nazi Party in 1933). They both claimed to have concentrated mainly on music and to have ignored politics, but also to have conducted pieces in ways that were meant to be “gestures of defiance.” In West Germany in the second half of the 20th century, German and Austrian music was largely dominated by the avant-garde. In the 60s and 70s, the Darmstadt New Music Summer School was a major center of European modernism; German composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hans Werner Henze and non-German ones such as Pierre Boulez and Luciano Berio all studied there. In contrast, composers in East Germany were advised to avoid the avant-garde and to compose music in keeping with the tenets of Socialist Realism. Music written in this style was supposed to advance party politics as well as be more accessible to all. Hanns Eisler and Ernst Hermann Meyer were among the most famous of the first generation of GDR composers. More recently, composers such as Helmut Lachenmann and Olga Neuwirth have extensively explored the possibilities of extended techniques. Hans Werner Henze largely dissociated himself from the Darmstadt school in favour of a more lyrical approach, and remains perhaps Germany’s most lauded contemporary composer. Although he had lived outside the country since the 1950s and until his death in 2012, he remained influenced by the Germanic musical tradition.

Folk music#

Germany has many unique regions with their own folk traditions of music and dance. Much of the 20th century saw German culture appropriated for the ruling powers (who fought “foreign” music at the same time). In both East and West Germany, folk songs called “volkslieder” were taught to children; these were popular, sunny and optimistic, and had little relation to authentic German folk traditions. Inspired by American and English roots revivals, Germany underwent many of the same changes following the 1968 student revolution in West Germany, and new songs, featuring political activism and realistic joy, sadness and passion, were written and performed on the burgeoning folk scene. In East Germany, the same process did not begin until the mid-70s, where some folk musicians began incorporating revolutionary ideas in coded songs. Popular folk songs included emigration songs from the 19th century, work songs and songs of apprentices, as well as democracy-oriented folk songs collected in the 1950s by Wolfgang Steinitz. Beginning in 1970, the Festival des politischen Liedes, an East German festival focusing on political songs, was held annually and organized (until 1980) by the FDJ (East German youth association). Musicians from up to thirty countries would participate, and, for many East Germans, it was the only exposure possible to foreign music. Among foreign musicians at the festival, some were quite renowned, including Inti-Illimani (Chile), Billy Bragg (England), Dick Gaughan (Scotland), Mercedes Sosa (Argentina) and Pete Seeger (United States), while German performers included, from both East and West, Oktoberklub, Wacholder and Hannes Wader. Oom-pah is a kind of music played by the brass bands; it is associated with beer halls.

Bavaria and Swabia#

Bavarian folk music is likely the best known outside of Germany. Yodeling and schuhplattler dancers are among the stereotyped images of German folk life, though these are only found today in the southernmost areas. Bavarian folk music has played a role in the Alpine New Wave, and produced several pioneering world music groups that fuse traditional Bavarian sounds with foreign styles. Around the turn of the 20th century, across Europe and especially in Bavaria, many people became concerned about a loss of cultural traditions. This idea was connected to the Heimatschutz movement, which sought to protect regional identities and boundaries. What is considered Bavarian folk music in modern Germany is not the same as what Bavarian folk music was in the early 20th century; like any kind of folk or popular music, styles and traditions have evolved over time, giving birth to new forms of music. The popularity of the Volkssänger (people’s singer) in Bavaria began in the 1880s, and continued in earnest until the 1920s. Shows consisting of duets, ensemble songs, humor and parodies were popular, but the format began changing significantly following World War I. Bally Prell, the “Beauty Queen of Schneizlreuth”, was emblematic of this change. She was an attractive tenor who sang lieder, chanson and opera and operetta. Swabian folk music is most popularly represented by acts like Saiten Fell and Firlefanz and the singer-songwriter (and player of the hurdy-gurdy and guitar) Thomas Felder.

Christmas carols#

Some Christmas carols familiar in English are translations of German Christmas songs (Weihnachtslieder). Pastoral Weihnachtslieder are sometimes called Hirtenlieder (shepherd songs). Three well-known examples are “O Tannenbaum” (“O Christmas Tree”), from a German folksong arranged by Ernst Anschütz; “Silent Night” (“Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”), by the Austrians Franz Xaver Gruber and Joseph Mohr; and “Still, still, still”, an Austrian folksong also from the Salzburg region, based on an 1819 melody by Süss, with the original words, slightly changed over time and location, by G. Götsch.

Between World War I and World War II, German music branched out to form new, more liberal and independent styles.

Kabarett#

The first form of German pop music is said to be cabaret, which arose during the Weimar Republic in the 1920s as the sensual music of late-night clubs. Marlene Dietrich and Margo Lion were among the most famous performers of the period, and became associated with both humorous satire and liberal ideas.

Swing Movement#

The strict regimentation of youth culture in Nazi Germany through the Hitler Youth led to the emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were able better to exert their independence. One of these consisted mainly of upper middle class youths, who based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting the völkisch music propagated by the Party in place of American jazz forms, especially Swing. While musical preferences are often a feature of youthful rebellion—as the history of rock and roll shows—jazz and especially Swing were particularly offensive to the Nazi hierarchy: not only did they promote sexual permissiveness, but they were also associated with the American enemy and worse, with the African race they considered inferior. On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels assembled some of the now jobless musicians from Germany and conquered countries into a big band called Charlie and His Orchestra.

After World War II, German pop music was greatly influenced by music from USA and Great Britain. Apart from Schlager and Liedermacher, it is necessary to distinguish between pop music in West Germany and pop music in East Germany which developed in different directions. Pop music from West Germany was often heard in East Germany, had more variety and is still present today, while East German music has had little influence. In West Germany, English-language pop music became more and more important, and today most songs on the radio are English. Nevertheless, there is great diversity in German language pop music. There is also original English-language pop music from Germany, some having international success (for instance the Scorpions and James Last), but little with enduring broad success in Germany itself. There was very little English pop music from East Germany. Germany has also had a thriving English-language pop scene since the end of the war, with several European and US acts topping the charts. However, Germans and German-oriented musicians have been successful as well. In the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century such European pop acts were popular as well as artists such as Sarah Connor, No Angels and Monrose who performed various types of mainstream pop in English. Many of these acts have had success all over Europe and Asia.

Schlager and Volksmusik#

Schlager is a kind of vocal pop music, frequently in the form of sentimental ballads sung in German, popularized by singers such as Gitte Hænning and Rex Gildo in the 1960s, though not without a wide range within the style (Modern Schlager, Schlager-Gold, ). Schlager is strictly separated from international pop music and is only played on special format radio stations (sometimes mixed with international Oldies). An important part of Schlager is volkstümliche Musik, a Schlager-like interpretation of traditional German folk themes that is very popular in German-speaking countries, especially among the older generation. Schlager has a wide variety, and the artists with many other styles, for example: Heino, Katja Ebstein, Wolfgang Petry, Guildo Horn, Roland Kaiser, Helene Fischer and many others.

Liedermacher#

Liedermacher (Songwriter) has sophisticated lyrics and is sung with minimal instrumentation, for instance only with acoustic guitar. Some songs are very political in nature. This is related to American Folk/Americana and French Chanson styles. Famous West German Liedermacher are Reinhard Mey, Klaus Hoffmann, Hannes Wader and Konstantin Wecker. A famous East German Liedermacher was Wolf Biermann. Herman van Veen from the Netherlands was also very popular in Germany. Several Liedermacher artists also record special albums for children.