General Information

Author/Creator

Kater, Michael H., 1937-

Language

English.

Published

New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.

Physical Description

xv, 327 p. ; 24 cm.

Contents/Summary

Summary

Is music removed from politics? To what ends, beneficent or malevolent, can music and musicians be put? In short, when human rights are grossly abused and politics turned to fascist demagoguery, can art and artists be innocent? These questions and their implications are explored in Michael Kater's broad survey of musicians and the music they composed and performed during the Third Reich. Great and small--from Valentin Grimm, a struggling clarinetist, to Richard Strauss, renowned composer--are examined by Kater, sometimes in intimate detail, and the lives and decisions of Nazi Germany's professional musicians are laid out before the reader. Who collaborated? And to what extent? Who was persecuted, and to what effect? Along the way, Kater manages to debunk, authoritatively, old arguments and expose collaborators--notably Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the major opera diva of the 1950s and 60s, who has for years adamantly denied her affiliation to the Nazi party, is shown to have ingratiated herself with the Nazi rulers. More widely, Kater tackles the issue of whether the Nazi regime, because it held music in crassly utilitarian regard, acted on musicians in such a way as to consolidate or atomize the profession. Kater's examination of the value of music for the regime and the degree to which the regime attained a positive propaganda and palliative effect through the manner in which it manipulated its musicians, and by extension, German music, is of importance for understanding culture in totalitarian systems. This work, with its emphasis on the social and political nature of music and the political attitude of musicians during the Nazi regime, will be the first of its kind. It will be of interest to scholars and general readers eager to understand Nazi Germany, to music lovers, and to anyone interested in the interchange of music and politics, culture and ideology.

Subjects

Subject

Music > Germany > 20th century > History and criticism.

National socialism and music.

Music and state > Germany > History > 20th century.

Bibliographic Information

Responsibility

Michael H. Kater.

Content

1. National Socialism, the Third Reich, and the Music Scene -- 2. Musical Professionalism and Political Compromise -- 3. Persecuted and Exiled Jewish and Anti-Nazi Musicians -- 4. Music in the Institutions -- 5. Dissonance and Deviance.

Library Special Collection

The Roger Griffin ComFas Collection

ISBN

0195096207

Holdings

Item Type	Current Location	Collection	Call Number	Volume Info	Shelving Location	Public Note
Book	OSA Archivum Library	General collection	780/.943/09043 KAT		General Stacks	-

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