This week in our online class we’re going to Germany…hurrah! Okay, so Germany had what one could only most, most generously describe as “a complicated 20th century,” but this season we’ve chosen to focus more on the genres of music from each of our Western European countries than on each nation’s history. So, let’s celebrate Germany by learning about its music…which, as we’ll see, is complicated enough.
Germany has long been a nation of musical visionaries. From the 12th century, when German Benedictine nun Saint Hildegard explored the idea of wedding Catholic “plainchant” with moral drama, through the “common practice period” (1600-1920), during which German composers regularly reinvented both opera and instrumental classical music, way into the late 20th century–wherever would we be without Kraftwerk?–German musicians have consistently found new ways to think about music, in turn inspiring new ways to think about the world.
