Music of the GDR

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Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

The music written in the GDR (1949-1989) is much neglected nowadays although there were some very interesting composers.

The first generation of GDR composers was of quite diverse provenience: some of them were strong communists who risked their lifes in the Nazi era and therefore fled to exile (Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau and Ernst Hermann Meyer being the most important examples); some of them were socialists, but has to stay "hidden" in Nazi Germany by living an unobstusive life (like Max Butting); some of them were obedient servants to both regime, being successful composers under the NSDAP and the SED (like Otmar Gerster or Rudolf Wagner-Regeny).

Of course most GDR scores are still under copyright, but there is a lot of stuff which is out-of-print and isn't available commercially any more (without much hope of a re-publishing). So I will only post stuff which can't be obtained anymore.

As a starter here is the "Leipzig Piano Book", an anthology of pieces written for the 800th anniversay of Leipzig. It gives a good overview on the typical piano writing of the first decades in the GDR, which was much more of a continuation of the writing of all the Knabs, Reins et.alt. from the 1930s and 40s than in Western Germany where the Darmstadt avantgarde took a totally new and different direction.
Leipziger Klavierbuch (1965).pdf
There is BTW a similar anthology form the 1980s , the "Berlin Piano Book" which shows that in the 1970s and 80s GDR composer took much more liberties than before and alos used more "avantgarde" techniques. This anthology is still in print and can be obtained for 19,95 € which is a reasonable price for around 120 pages of music (http://www.verlag-neue-musik.de/verlag/ ... rbuch.html)
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

An interesting piano composer in the GDR was Max Butting (1888-1976), a pupil of Klose and Courvoisier. He started in the tradition of Brahms and Reger (especially the polyphonic Reger). In the 1920s his style went a bit towards Hindemith using a mainly linear style in a freely tonal harmonic language. The pieces op33 show this clearly. Most of them are anti-romantic, strictly linear, mostly in two-part writing. The last two pieces (Tango and March) are a bit different, but also a typical product of the 1920s.
Butting op33 15 Klavierstücke.pdf
In other works he also incorporated some expressionistic elements, e.g. in his third symphony which earned him a short international fame since this work was championed by Scherchen.

Since he was a socialist (he was an active part in the November group in the 20s) it became impossible for to work as a composer in the Nazi era and so he took over the ironware store of his father. During the war he even joined the NSDAP in order to be able to save his store.

After the war he immediatley settled down as a free composer in East Berlin. He composed a lot, both "Gebrauchsmusik" and traditional art music. The large-scale Piano Sonata from 1951 is his biggest piano work, being in a traditional 4 movement form. Although he uses even some allusions to twelve-tone technique in this work it's overall harmonic languageis rooted in a free tonality. The first movement is in sonata form, but very polyphonic and still full of linear thinking. The beautiful 2nd movement is build of variations on an expressive theme derived from teh 1st movement. The scherzo is in a linear canonic style, while the final rondo is relatively complex formally using variation techniques, contrapuntal writing.
Butting op82 Sonate.pdf
He wrote more piano music, which is still in print. I can recommend "Aus meiner Gartenlaube" from op102.
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by ilu »

Klavierelch:

This thread is extraordinary indeed, The music by German composers during the communism era provides a very close idea of the feelings and the emotions that prevailed in that period; and the composers deserve a recognition for their talent and their legacy must be honored by knowing and performing their works .

ILU
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

That's exactly the idea behind this thread.

Next out-of-print score is a "Kleine Klaviermusik" by Leipzig composer Johannes Weyrauch (1897-1977), a pupil of Karg-Elert and teacher of Siegfried Thiele. Since the 1920s Weyrauch's aesthetic views were near to the so-called "Jugendbewegung" which favored a typical German kind of "Hausmusik" based on tradition and folksong influences. Furthermore he became a church musician (working most of his life as a cantor in Leipzig); so traditional church music and chorals were another source of inspiration for him.

His "Kleine Klaviermusik" was written in 1949, the year of the foundation of both German states. It is a typical "Hausmusik", not difficult to play and to hear, which could easily have been written in the 1930s, but which is also characteristical for the piano music style in the early phase of the GDR until the 1960s (Indeed musical taste was not that different regarding Nazi or communist ideology!).

This is the major difference to the musical development in Western Germany. In the GDR all the avantgarde techniqued of serialism, aleatoric aspects, "musique concrete" and whatsoever were seen as part of a "bourgeois" ideology und thus avoided (But from the 1960s on these techniques found their way into GDR music). So in the 1950s traditionally rooted music with traces of folk music was seen as good socialist music (Interestingly the use of "bourgeois" music of former times was not seen as "bourgeois"!?!).

Weyrauch's style fitted this aesthetics, although it seems that Weyrauch himself was quite an unpolitical person, neither having important functions in Nazi Germany nor in the GDR.
Weyrauch Kleine Klaviermusik.pdf
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

A generation younger than Weyrauch was Fritz Geißler (1921-84). He was educated by Wilhelm Weismann and later on by Boris Blacher. His Sonata shows him as a composer who knew the modern techniques so widely used in the west. It's a quite typical work for this composer showing the contrast of dramatic and lyric episodes, using twelve-tone-techniques and a very fine sense for formal development. Thus the work is a good example for the musical development in the GDR in the late 60s.
Sadly this work is no longer available in print (as so many scores published by the VEB Leipzig, which now belongs to Breitkopf). That's why I post it here.
Geissler Sonata No1.pdf
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by Ferruccio »

Thanks, dear Klavierelch, for these scores. Especially the Weyrauch is very useful, also the Butting ...
Best regards, Ferruccio
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

Ottmar Gerster (1897-1969) was one of these composers who made career both in Nazi Germany and in the GDR. Like Hindemith he was also a violist and pupil of Sekles. Unlike Hindemith he tended from the beginning to a musical language which is relatively easy to grasp. So his aesthetics were compatible with the Nazis for which he composed some official works. With "Enoch Arden" and "Die Hexe von Passau" he became the most successful opera composer in Nazi Germany next to Werner Egk. And so both were listed on Hitler's "Gottbegnadetenliste" of artists who didn't have to do military services.

After the war he was blacklisted by the US government. So he went to the Soviet zone where his conservative aesthetics fitted very well the doctrin of socialist realism. While Egk made a career in Western Germany, he made career in Eastern Germany.

His Fantasy op9 was written early on in 1922 (admittedly a pre-GDR work, but the only one out-of-print) and is one of Gerster's most ambitious piano works.
Gerster op09 Fantasie in G.pdf
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

Again bumping this thread:

Johannes Paul Thilman (1906-1973) first studied with Hindemith and Scherchen in the 1920s. As early as 1933 he joined the NSDAP and wrote some music for the Nazis, but without much artistic success. After the war he served the SED regime in the GDR with much more success. He was highly honoured with official prizes and taught composers like Udo Zimmermann, Friedrich Goldmann or Jörg Herchet.

Stylistically he took his start from Hindemith and his polyphonic writing which is clearly seen in his "Polyphone Stücke".
Thilman Polyphone Stücke.pdf
This score (as most GDR scores of Breitkopf & Härtel) is out of print. Indeed it seems that Breitkopf burned down their GDR archives after the re-union, which is a shame. Peters on the contrary has most GDR works still in stock.
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by HullandHellandHalifax »

klavierelch wrote:Again bumping this thread:

Johannes Paul Thilman (1906-1973) first studied with Hindemith and Scherchen in the 1920s. As early as 1933 he joined the NSDAP and wrote some music for the Nazis, but without much artistic success. After the war he served the SED regime in the GDR with much more success. He was highly honoured with official prizes and taught composers like Udo Zimmermann, Friedrich Goldmann or Jörg Herchet.

Stylistically he took his start from Hindemith and his polyphonic writing which is clearly seen in his "Polyphone Stücke".
Thilman Polyphone Stücke.pdf
This score (as most GDR scores of Breitkopf & Härtel) is out of print. Indeed it seems that Breitkopf burned down their GDR archives after the re-union, which is a shame. Peters on the contrary has most GDR works still in stock.
Hi Klavierelch, are you sure about Peters, because my experience was that they literally dumped in the skip all their GDR stuff, it would be great if what you say is true. I know that Hofmeister kept their stock and may have taken over some of the Peters catalogue where a composer was represented in the Hofmeister catalogue. I also know though that the items in the Hofmeister catalogue may be listed they don't actually have them, I wonder if Peters have done the same.
As you know I am particularly involved with the music of Burghardt and our experience with both Peters and Hofmeister is reflected in my question
best wishes
Brian
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Re: Music of the GDR

Post by klavierelch »

Brian, my experience is that Peters took over all Peters Leipzig scores by GDR composers which were still in print in 1989 (they are still in their online catalogue and I saw some of them in music stores), but that they didn't re-print works which were out-of-print at that time. That's much more than you can say of Breitkopf; they erased nearly everything from the GDR from their catalogue.

Unfortunately Peters wasn't as "nice" concerning archives which they took over from e.g. Kahnt. Even simple request to their archive weren't answered :cry:
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