Composers of the Nazi Era Eight Portraits

by Kater, Michael H.

• ISBN13: 9780195099249
• ISBN10: 0195099249
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate? Composers of the Nazi Era is the final book in a critically acclaimed trilogy that includes Different Drummers (OUP 1992) and The Twisted Muse (OUP 1997), which won the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association. Here, historian Michael H. Kater provides a detailed study of the often interrelated careers of eight prominent German composers who lived and worked amid the dictatorship of the Third Reich, or were driven into exile by it: Werner Egk, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Carl Orff, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. 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 may be discerned from their music. After chapters discussing the circumstances of each composer individually, Kater concludes with an analysis of the composers' different responses to the Nazi regime and an overview of the sociopolitical background against which they functioned. The final chapter also extends the discussion beyond the end of World War II to examine how the composers reacted to the new and fragile democracy in Germany.

Author Biography

Michael H. Kater is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the Centre for German and European Studies, York University, Toronto. He has published widely on modern Germany and is a Guggenheim Fellow as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	xi
The Enigmatic Opportunist	3	(28)
Werner EGK
The Reluctant Emigre	31	(26)
Paul Hindemith
A Survivor on Two Continents	57	(29)
Kurt Weill
The Composer as Dissident	86	(25)
Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Man of Legend	111	(33)
Carl Orff
Magister Teutonicus Miser	144	(39)
Hans Pfitzner
Musician of Contrasts	183	(28)
Arnold Schoenberg
Jupiter Compromised	211	(74)
Richard Compromised
Conclusion
Composers in the Postwar Era
Until the 1960s	264	(21)
Notes	285	(94)
Index	379