1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook to Music under German Occupation, 1938-1945 Propaganda, Myth and Reality

Edited By David Fanning, Erik Levi Copyright 2020
    572 Pages 95 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    572 Pages 95 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Following their entry into Austria and the Sudetenland in the late 1930s, the Germans attempted to impose a policy of cultural imperialism on the countries they went on to occupy during World War II. Almost all music institutions in the occupied lands came under direct German control or were subject to severe scrutiny and censorship, the prime objective being to change the musical fabric of these nations and force them to submit to the strictures of Nazi ideology.



    This pioneering collection of essays is the first in the English language to look in more detail at the musical consequences of German occupation during a dark period in European history. It embraces a wide range of issues, presenting case studies involving musical activity in a number of occupied European cities, as well as in countries that were part of the Axis or had established close diplomatic relations with Germany. The wartime careers and creative outputs of individual musicians who were faced with the dilemma of either complying with or resisting the impositions of the occupiers are explored. In addition, there is some reflection on the post-war implications of German occupation for the musical environment in Europe.



    Music under German Occupation is written for all music-lovers, students, professionals and academics who have particular interests in 20th-century music and/or the vicissitudes of European cultural life during World War II.

    Introduction: the foundations of Nazi musical imperialism

    David Fanning and Erik Levi

    Section 1 Musical life, resistance and destruction in occupied European capitals

    1 Composers as critics in occupied Paris

    Nigel Simeone

    2 The Conservatoire in occupied Kiev (19 September 1941 to 6 November 1943)

    Elena Zinkevych, Translated by Michelle Assay

    3 Nazi musical imperialism in occupied Poland

    Katarzyna Naliwajek

    4 Music and musical life in occupied Athens

    Alexandros Charkiolakis

    Section 2 Adaptation and opportunism

    5 The Rome-Berlin Axis: musical interactions between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in redrawing a ‘New Order for European Culture’

    Erik Levi

    6 In search of a musical identity in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands

    Dario van Gammeren

    7 Symphonic music in occupied Belgium (1940–1944): the role of ‘German-friendly’ music societies

    Eric Derom

    8 Music, culture and the Church in the German-occupied USSR: the Smolensk area and other provinces

    Svetlana Zvereva

    Section 3 Appropriations and reputations

    9 Celebrating a Mozart anniversary in occupied Belgium: the Mozart Herdenking in Vlaanderen (1942)

    Marie-Helene Benoit-Otis and Cecile Quesney

    10 The ambiguous reception of Antonin Dvorak’s music during the Reichsprotektorat Bohmen und Mahren (The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), 1939–1945

    Katerina Nova, Translated by Štepan Kana

    11 Celebrating the Nordic tone – fighting for national legacy: the Grieg Centenary, 1943

    Michael Custodis & Arnulf Mattes

    Section 4 Between two evils

    12 The song collector, the year of terrors and the catastrophe that followed: a life in occupied Latvia

    Kevin C. Karnes

    13 The music of Ciurlionis in the context of resistance and Lithuanian national identity during the Nazi occupation (1941–1944)

    Vytaute Markeliuniene

    14 Power through music: strategies of the German occupation authorities in Estonia

    Kristel Pappel and Anu Kolar

    Section 5 The limits of tolerance

    15 Getting away with Cultural Bolshevism: the first European performance of Porgy and Bess in Copenhagen, 1943

    Michael Fjeldsoe

    16 Music criticism in the Swedish Nazi daily press: the case of Dagsposten

    Henrik Rosengren

    Section 6 Damaged careers

    17 (Re)visiting the (Jewish) archive of Gideon Klein – Terezin, 1941–1944

    David Fligg

    18 Eugeniusz Morawski: life under the Nazi occupation of Warsaw

    Oskar Lapeta

    Section 7 Symphonies of war and resistance

    19 Religious patriotism and grotesque ridicule: responses to Nazi oppression in Pavel Haas’s unfinished war-time Symphony

    Martin Curda

    20 Paul von Klenau’s Ninth Symphony: a case study

    Niels Krabbe

    21 Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony: music of endurance

    David Fanning and Michelle Assay

    Section 8 Complex and uneasy legacies

    22 Listening in the Grey Zone

    Michael Beckerman

    23 The marketing of backstories: approaches to the legacies of music composed in fraught circumstances

    Mirjam Frank

    24 Nazism, music and Tyrolean identity

    Kurt Drexel

    25 Bartok against the Nazis: the Italian premieres of Bluebeard’s Castle (1938) and The Miraculous Mandarin (1942)

    Nicolo Palazzetti

    26 Contemporary music and cultural politics in Switzerland during World War II: between neutrality and nationalism

    Simeon Thompson

    Biography

    David Fanning is Professor of Music at the University of Manchester and author and editor of books, articles and critical editions on Nielsen, Shostakovich, Weinberg, Expressionism and the 20th-century symphonic tradition. An experienced chamber music pianist and accompanist, he is also active as a critic for Gramophone and the Daily Telegraph.





    Erik Levi is Visiting Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is author and editor of several books relating to music during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich and is active as a broadcaster and critic for BBC Music Magazine. Amongst his recent publications are Music and Displacement, co-edited with Florian Scheding (2010); Mozart and the Nazis (2010); The Impact of Nazism on Twentieth-Century Music (2014); and Hanns Eisler and England (2014).

    "eloquently written and always annotated with exactitude"..."This is a timely tour-de-force that takes the evaluation of music under totalitarianism to a new level." ¿¿¿¿¿

    Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine