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Germany The Culture
The German people have made many noteworthy cultural contributions. However, the antecedents of contemporary German art, music, and literature are so thoroughly embedded in the broader European intellectual traditions as to defy most attempts to separate any specifically German cultural roots. A visitor, for example, can see abundant evidence of early medieval art and architecture in the many splendid cathedrals, monasteries, and castles of Germany, but these follow the same styles and style periods that are be found in other European countries—Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, and so on. German literature and music were similarly part of the larger European culture.
A Literature
From the beginnings of Germany in the 9th century through the Middle Ages, classical Latin was the language of literature and theology in the country. In the 12th and 13th centuries, a vernacular literature appeared, particularly of heroic epics told by wandering minstrel poets. Gottfried von Strassburg wrote Tristan und Isolt (1210) and Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote Parzival (about 1210), both of which dealt with Christian themes from the French Arthurian cycle. The two most important epics of the Middle Ages—the Nibelungenlied (about 1200-1210) and the Gudrunlied (about 1210)—are based on pagan Germanic traditions.
Two important events—the construction of a printing press using movable type around 1450 by German printer Johannes Gutenberg and the translation of the Bible into German in 1521 by religious reformer Martin Luther—had a profound impact on Western culture as a whole. They also opened new possibilities for a specifically German literature, because they founded a uniform High German language above the regional dialects, and made it accessible to all who could read. Religious unrest and the Thirty Years’ War put an end to most German literary efforts until a revival occurred in the 18th century.
One of the first writers to stand out beyond Germany was 18th-century dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, whose play Nathan the Wise (1779; translated 1781) argued for religious toleration. Philosopher and literary critic Johann Gottfried von Herder was an important contemporary of Lessing. The revival of German literature was marked by two great literary movements, classicism and romanticism, which were united in the works of Germany’s greatest poets, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. The lyrical poetry and novels of Goethe and his drama Faust (1808-1832; translated 1834) and the plays and poems of Schiller brought together classical form and the romantic emotions that marked much of the literature to come. The great inspiration for this golden age of German literature was classical antiquity, which was considered admirable for its balance and perfection. The romantics, on the other hand, often used German folk materials, such as medieval history and the fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers. Ancient Greek poetry inspired the romantic poems of Friedrich Hölderlin. The brothers August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Friedrich von Schlegel edited Athenaeum, which was the chief journal of the romantic movement, translated Shakespeare, and produced literary works based on classical antiquity.
In the mid-1800s the new literary schools of naturalism and symbolism developed. Naturalism regarded human behavior as controlled by instinct, social and economic conditions, and biological factors; it rejected free will. Naturalist playwright Gerhart Hauptmann explored hereditary factors that shaped the individual, while the work of symbolist poet Rainer Maria Rilke was marked by mystic lyricism and imagery. Austrian playwright and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal created aesthetic moods. Great German novelists of the early 1900s include Thomas Mann, author of The Magic Mountain (1924; translated 1927) and other famous novels, and Alfred Döblin, who is best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929; translated 1931). The most influential expressionist writer was Franz Kafka, whose novels and short stories present a world of oppression and despair.
Social criticism was also a common theme in the early 1900s; it provided the primary focus for the novelist Robert Musil and the playwrights Arthur Schnitzler and Frank Wedekind. In 1929 Erich Maria Remarque published the antiwar novel Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front), with grimly realistic portraits of World War I. Writers like Hermann Hesse, author of Siddhartha (1922; translated 1951), drew on Indian philosophy and religion. The narrative epic theater of see Bertolt Brecht during the 1920s in Berlin specifically attacked capitalist, bourgeois society. German writing, like many German arts, suffered when the Nazi Party (see National Socialism) took control of Germany in 1933; led by Thomas Mann, many creative minds fled the country and went into exile.
After World War II a new generation of German writers, which called itself Group 47, examined themes of overcoming the Nazi experience. Novelists Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and Uwe Johnson led this group. Playwrights Peter Weiss and Peter Handke and poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan made important contributions to German literature in the late 20th century.
B Art and Architecture
Medieval German art and architecture were embedded in the dominant European styles of the time. No monumental painting or sculpture, however, has survived from the earliest period except the 9th-century Carolingian cathedral at Aachen, one of the most important circular buildings in Europe.
The cathedrals of Hildesheim and Magdeburg, the illuminated manuscripts, the sculpture, and the church paintings of the 10th century reflect the spirituality of Byzantine art and architecture. The 11th- and 12th-century cathedrals of Speyer, Goslar, Mainz, and Worms are outstanding examples of the Romanesque style, with rounded arches and dark interiors. The cathedrals of Strasbourg, Trier, and Cologne are fine samples of the Gothic style and its soaring pillars, pointed arches, and flying buttresses. In the 14th century a family of architects and artists, the Parlers, helped spread Gothic designs and sculpture throughout southern Germany, from Ulm to Nürnberg and Prague. During the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, the great German artist Albrecht Dürer created extraordinary woodcuts and copper engravings and pioneered ways of reproducing and disseminating art. Other well-known artists of the time include the painters Matthias Grünewald, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Hans Holbein the Younger, and the superb wood altars and sculptures of Tilman Riemenschneider.
Another style, the opulently ornamented baroque, flourished in the Catholic churches and monasteries and the secular palaces of southern Germany and Austria during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its rich ornamentation accompanied the renewed style of the Catholic church service of the Counter Reformation, which was a reaction to the Protestant preference for stripping churches of statuary and paintings of saints. Andreas Schlüter designed the Royal Palace in Berlin in 1706, and architect Balthasar Neumann built the Bishop’s Residence in Würzburg with a great stair hall and a reception room decorated with ceiling paintings.
Outstanding examples of late baroque, or rococo style, include the Wies Church near Munich in southern Bavaria, a vision of light and lightness built by Dominikus Zimmermann, the Benedictine Abbey of Melk on the Danube, and the Royal Zwinger Palace in Dresden, a creation of Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. Rococo is distinguished by its fanciful use of curves and light, its flowing asymmetric lines, and its pierced shellwork. In the 19th century, great architects such as the painter and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel designed many of the representative buildings in Berlin, and Gottfried Semper pioneered the revival of Renaissance styles in Dresden and Vienna. Artists of the German romantic period include Caspar David Friedrich, who painted meditative landscapes and seascapes, and Carl Spitzweg, who provided humorous glimpses of small-town life.
At the beginning of the 20th century, German art and architecture developed a range of new styles, beginning with the Jugendstil (see Art Nouveau), whose rich and colorful ornamentation and graceful curves left an indelible imprint on the rest of the century. The Bauhaus school of design, under the direction first of Walter Gropius and later of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, pioneered a functional, severely simple architectural style during the years of the Weimar Republic. The Bauhaus also attracted great abstract painters such as Paul Klee and famous foreigners such as the Russian Wassily Kandinsky and the American Lyonel Feininger. In addition, the early 1900s produced the bitter caricatures of George Grosz, the tragic graphic art of Käthe Kollwitz, and the expressionist art of groups such as Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Among the leading expressionists were painters Max Beckmann, who produced highly dramatic and energetic paintings, and Emil Nolde, who used contorted brushwork and raw colors to visually shock the viewer. The Nazis pilloried their work as “degenerate art.” As with German literature, nearly every leading figure in art and architecture fled Germany during the Nazi years, and only a few returned after 1945. In postwar Germany, artists of note include sculptor and performance artist Joseph Beuys and painter Anselm Kiefer, who explored themes of the German cultural crisis under dictatorship and total war.
C Music
The earliest roots of German music lie in monastic chants and religious music. In the 12th century the mystic abbess Hildegard of Bingen wrote stirring compositions and hymns that sought to free musical expression from narrow conventions. From the 12th century to the 14th century, wandering nobles and knights called minnesingers wrote and recited courtly love poems in the tradition of French troubadours and trouvères. Of the approximately 160 known minnesingers from this time period, the most famous are Walther von der Vogelweide and Reinmar von Hagenau. In addition to the minnesingers, a secular folk music tradition also developed. Some collections of student and vagabond songs survive, including the Carmina Burana verses of 13th-century Bavaria, which in the 20th century were set to music by Carl Orff. From the 14th to the 16th century the German middle class favored the rigid musical style composed by the poets and musicians who belonged to the Meistersinger guild.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, polyphonic music, in which simultaneous melodies were interwoven, arrived in Germanyin the form of the Protestant chorale. In contrast to the music of the traditional Catholic service, the rousing Protestant chorale became the participant music of the faithful. Protestant leader Martin Luther himself contributed some of the most popular chorales, such as “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” to this genre of sacred songs written in the vernacular. Other leading religious composers included Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, and see Johann Pachelbel.
The age of baroque music, with its exuberant ornamentation, began with one of Germany’s greatest composers, Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach’s towering work of the early 1700s was admired for its artistic use of counterpoint. It includes the formal Brandenburg Concertos; four orchestral suites; concertos for violin, keyboard, and various wind instruments; preludes; fugues; and a huge volume of choral works, including his Christmas Oratorio, The Passion of St. Matthew, The Passion of St. John, and many cantatas. He also had two musically talented sons, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who became well-known composers in their own right. Two famous contemporaries of Bach were composers Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel—who wrote more than 40 operas, chamber music, and the famous oratorio Messiah.
By the 1740s princely courts in such cities as Berlin, Dresden, Mannheim, and Vienna had emerged as sponsors of orchestral music and of composers and musicians. In Mannheim, for example, Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz held the post of court composer. In Vienna, the Hungarian Esterházy princes extended their patronage to the immensely gifted and versatile Joseph Haydn, who gave the string quartet, the symphony, and the sonata their classic form. In Salzburg and also in Vienna in the late 1700s, child prodigy and musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart experimented with strains of the dominant Italian musical tradition until he developed his own unmistakable graceful and lyrical style. In his short but brilliant life he produced about 50 symphonies; concertos for piano, violin, and wind instruments; masses; and a requiem. His most famous operas, The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), and lighter operatic pieces, The Magic Flute (1791) and The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), still dominate the operatic stage.
The age of the French and American revolutions characterized the heroic emotion of the work of Ludwig van Beethoven, a student of Haydn’s in Vienna, who also revolutionized musical form and expression in the early 1800s. He used unorthodox harmonies in classical sonatas and symphonies to inspire exalted moods. His nine symphonies—including the Eroica (begun 1803) and the Symphony no. 9 (1824), with the famous Ode to Joy—five piano concertos, his violin concerto of haunting beauty, an opera, and a large volume of superb chamber music, including his brilliant string quartets, earned Beethoven a reputation as one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition. Another musical innovator of the 1800s, Franz Schubert, created the German lied (art song), usually a piece of romantic or lyrical poetry—some by Goethe—set to music and accompanied by a pianist. Schubert’s lieder cycles, such as The Miller’s Beautiful Daughter (1823), became the model for a long list of other romantic composers, including Hugo Wolf, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert had found Vienna a musical center of the highest creativity and the most refined musical tastes. But there was also a burst of more popular music with the Viennese waltzes of Johann Strauss the Younger and his immortal operettas Die Fledermaus (1874; The Bat) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885; The Gypsy Baron). There were also other operetta masters such as Albert Lortzing and the Hungarian Franz Lehár, whose Merry Widow (1905) brought operetta into the 20th century. Other composers such as the prolific Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler—a genius of romantic expression in his song cycles—continued the Vienna tradition in a serious vein.
Many 19th-century German composers mixed the style of classicism with the less-structured, more spontaneous style of romanticism. Brahms, for example, tended more toward the classical in his four symphonies, his violin and piano concertos, his requiem, and his chamber music. Schumann’s haunting melodies, including symphonies, piano pieces, and chorales, were more on the romantic side. His talented wife, Clara Schumann, also composed romantic pieces. Classicist Felix Mendelssohn produced orchestral, choral, and chamber works.
German opera of the 19th century enjoyed a dramatic evolution at the hands of Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner. Wagner developed a closer linkage between the music and the action on stage by using such devices as the leitmotiv, which presents a musical theme for each important figure or recurrent action. Both Weber and Wagner preferred themes from German history, particularly the Middle Ages. Among Wagner’s best-known operas are The Mastersingers of Nürnberg (completed 1867), The Flying Dutchman (1841), and the four-part epic cycle of the Ring of the Nibelungs (completed 1874). Later, Richard Strauss produced outstanding operas such as Der Rosenkavalier (1911), and Engelbert Humperdinck experimented with operas for children. At the same time, Austrian Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg devised a revolutionary twelve-tone music that abandoned traditional melodies and harmonies for emphasis on rhythm and dissonance. Composer Kurt Weill collaborated with writer Bertolt Brecht on two of the great works of the German popular stage, The Three-Penny Opera (1928; translated 1933) and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930; translated 1956). Germany has also produced a multitude of talented orchestra directors, including Otto Klemperer and Kurt Masur.
As it did in other fields, the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s choked off German musical development. Hundreds of musical artists fled Germany during the years of the Third Reich. After the war, only a few new modern composers appeared, notably Karlheinz Stockhausen and his electronic music, and Hans Werner Henze, known for his lyrical modern operas. However, the classical music tradition continues in Germanywith the performances and recordings of more than 150 major orchestras, including such world-renowned groups as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
D Libraries and Museums
German cultural life has flourished in the many cities that were once the capitals of near-independent states. Their rulers sponsored the arts, music, and theater, and established many fine libraries, galleries, and museums that survived long after the dynasties were gone. The kings of Prussia founded the Prussian State Library (now the Berlin State Library-Prussian Cultural Heritage), the National Gallery, and the Museum of Greek and Roman Antiquities in Berlin. In Munich the Bavarian kings founded the Bavarian State Library, the Alte Pinakothek art gallery, and the famous Deutsches Museum, a museum of scientific and technological inventions. The kings of Saxony founded a splendid art collection in the Zwinger Palace in Dresden. In addition, excellent university libraries and many city and monastery libraries exist throughout the country. Records of the Nazi period are located in the Federal Archives in Koblenz and in the Berlin Document Center, which houses 25 million Nazi Party documents. A large number of private archives of businesses and individuals and fine private museums, such as the Wallraf Museum in Cologne, are also found in Germany.
E Contemporary Culture
The German people have a long tradition of supporting the arts. Four-fifths of the $2-billion cost of opera performances annually come from public subsidies. Since unification, however, government funding for the arts has been dramatically reduced, especially in Berlin. Before 1990 East and West Berlin each supported their respective opera houses with public monies, particularly East Berlin, which supplied cheap tickets for the working class. After unification, Berlin ended up with two great opera houses and the excellent Comic Opera House, but it has only a fraction of the previous funding.
Popular music in Germany also enjoys a large audience. The concerts of German rock groups draw tens of thousands. Germans have their own groups and bands, and have also come to produce fine jazz in some of the big cities. However, much of the music and many of the artists are part of the international music scene. The popular music itself is overwhelmingly of American origin. The same is true of much of popular television fare in Germany. Germanyhas made few efforts to limit the market share of American cultural imports.
The cultural inundation from Hollywood has long overwhelmed the native motion-picture industry. German films make up less than 10 percent of those shown in German theaters. The flourishing German film industry of the Weimar years, which produced well-known directors such as Fritz Lang, became a wasteland during and after World War II. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, with the help of government subsidies and television contracts, a few new directors nurtured a modestly successful film industry. Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Jürgen Syberberg, and Margarethe von Trotta were among the new filmmakers honored by the Young German Film Trust and at international film festivals such as those held in Berlin and Mannheim. Many Germans, however, are not familiar with their work.
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