Overview

Volume 13 deals with the interaction of music and politics, considering a broad range of genres, authors, composers, and artists in Germany since the nineteenth century. A particularly iconic image of German Reunification is that of Mstislav Rostropovich playing from J. S. Bach's cello suites in front of the Berlin Wall on November 11, 1989. Thirty years on, it is timely to reconsider the cross-fertilization of music and politics within the German-speaking context. Frequently employed as a motivational force, a propaganda tool, or even a weapon, music can imbue a sense of identity and belonging, triggering both comforting and disturbing memories. Playing a key role in the formation of Heimat and ""Germanness,"" it serves ideological, nationalistic, and propagandistic purposes conveying political messages and swaying public opinion. This volume brings together essays by historians, literary scholars, and musicologists on topics concerning the increasing politicization of music, especially since the nineteenth century. They cover a broad spectrum of genres, musicians, and thinkers, discussing the interplay of music and politics in ""classical"" and popular music: from the rediscovery and repurposing of Martin Luther in nineteenth-century Germany to the exploitation of music during the Third Reich, from the performative politics of German punk and pop music to the influence of the events of 1988/89 on operatic productions in the former GDR - up to the relevance of Ernst Bloch in our contemporary post-truth society.

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9781640140608

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SIOBHÁN DONOVAN is Lecturer in German Studies at University College Dublin. MARIA EUCHNER is a Faculty Fellow in the Foundation Year Program at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Florian Gassner received his PhD in Germanic Studies from the University of British Columbia; followed by lectureship at Mount Allison University, postdoctoral fellowship at the New Europe College in Bucharest, and DAAD-Lektorat at the Donetsk National University. He is Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia. DAVID ROBB is Senior Lecturer in Music at Queens University Belfast. SIOBHÁN DONOVAN is Lecturer in German Studies at University College Dublin. MARIA EUCHNER is a Faculty Fellow in the Foundation Year Program at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. ROLF J. GOEBEL is Distinguished Professor of German, Emeritus, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. WOLFGANG MARX is Associate Professor of Historical Musicology at University College Dublin. He is co-editor with Louise Duchesneau, of György Ligeti. Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds (Boydell Press, 2011) and with Nicole Grimes and Siobhán Donovan (eds), Rethinking Hanslick. Music, Formalism, and Expression(URP, 2013).

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