Der Kunste Research Articles

Covid, Crisis and Prognosis: Prospecting the Future of Theatre

In this article I discuss the current Covid-19 crisis in relation to an intensified reflection about the future of theatre. The argument proceeds via a review of crisis theory to a discussion of recent research into futurity, especially the idea of prospection. Specifically, I shall examine the interrelationship between crisis and prognosis as it pertains to theatre and the performing arts. Material is drawn from a database currently being assembled within the framework of the research project “Krisengefuge der Kunste” which is collating public discourse on how the pandemic is affecting the performing arts. A comparison is made between discourses in the UK and Germany which leads to some final reflections on how such discussions may impact on the institutional legitimacy of publicly funded theatre.

Review: Tanz auf dem Vulkan: Das Berlin der Zwanziger Jahre im Spiegel der Künste and 1A-Duft: Schwarzlose & Das Berliner Parfüm

Tanz auf dem Vulkan: Das Berlin der Zwanziger Jahre im Spiegel der Kunste Ephraim-Palais, Stadtmuseum Berlin 4 September 2015–31 January 2016 1A-Duft: Schwarzlose & Das Berliner Parfum Ephraim-Palais, Stadtmuseum Berlin, 4 September 2015–31 January 2016 With these two exhibitions, the larger Tanz auf dem Vulkan , or Dancing on the Volcano (involving more than five hundred exhibits), and the accompanying smaller show devoted to the Berlin perfume industry, the Stadtmuseum Berlin realized an ambitious project to present viewers with a multimedia account of the city's “golden twenties.” The historical terrain covered by Dancing on the Volcano —the Weimar Republic years from 1919 until 1933, when Hitler was named chancellor—is largely familiar territory (and not only in terms of the past: issues such as the divide between rich and poor, housing shortages, immigration, and growing nationalist sentiment undoubtedly resonated with today's visitors). Although the exhibition's subtitle heralded a history lesson as “mirrored” in the arts, the displays took a more dynamic and thought-provoking form than this might imply. Thematically organized over two floors, exhibits included work by well-known artists of the period (Kathe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz) as well as photographs, posters, architectural models, and recorded music. Sections devoted to Berlin's theater and entertainment industries, nighttime illumination, and women's fashion invoked …

Walking Freely on Firm Ground: Letters to Mary Virginia Foreman 1935–1951 by Artur Schnabel (review)

Walking Freely on Firm Ground: Letters to Mary Virginia Foreman 1935-1951. Bv Artur Schnabel, edited by Werner Grunzweig, Lynn Matheson, and Anicia Timberlake. Hofheim: Wolke, 2014. [370 p. ISBN 9783955931001. 39 [euro].] Illustrations, bibliography, index. There is no doubt that the pianist and composer Artur Schnabel was a man of strong opinions: he made no secret of his preferences in piano manufacturers, the impact of sound recording on artistic creation, and his devotion to the music of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. In this collection of letters, we see another side of his personality, as Schnabel candidly describes his feelings on politics, differences in European and American society and cultural values, and his deep affection for a young woman who was the recipient of more than 400 letters during their friendship. Through these letters to an aspiring pianist and music student, a portrait of Schnabel emerges to show an artist integrally connected to the world around him, both as a musician-composer and as an intellectual. The exact nature of Mary Virginia Foreman Le Garrec's relationship with Schnabel is rather ambiguous. The book's preface gives a recounting of their first meeting as well as some details about Foreman's life after Schnabel's death. Foreman herself wrote two books about Schnabel, and in 2002 donated his letters to her to the Berlin Akademie der Kunste; the letters selected for this anthology are drawn from that archive. Schnabel's first letters to Foreman date from January 1935 and occur somewhat regularly in a biweekly pattern until two months before his death in 1951. This collection provides readers with an in-depth view of the life of a musical virtuoso and composer of the mid-twentieth century. Schnabel describes in great detail the pitfalls of organizing concert series, the less than optimum conditions for recording sessions, and the struggle to integrate the economic necessity of touring with the need for the time and reflection required for musical composition. While these problems may not be unique to Schnabel, his letters (many written during the years of the Second World War), provide a compelling portrait showing how musicians and performing arts are adversely affected by the war and its aftermath. In poignant letters from October 1938, as the conflict drew closer to Italy, Schnabel describes his remorse at leaving his beloved home in Tremezzo, wondering when and if he would ever be permitted to return to a place that brought him not only solace from a hectic performance schedule, but was also the birthplace of much musical productivity. Schnabel laments the slight given to conductor Otto Klemperer who, because of his German background and the political climate, was not given the position of principal conductor at two major U.S. orchestras, pointing out the helplessness of artists within the wider pool of politics. While Schnabel admits to Foreman that he considers himself privileged because of his ability to travel out of Europe, he worries about the uncertainty of his future as he waits to see which country may offer him and his family asylum. Perhaps the most moving letter in the collection dates from July 1946, as Schnabel describes postcards sent to his cousin by his mother, describing her last days in a concentration camp before her death at the hands of the Nazis. That Schnabel lived through these emotionally charged events is tragic; that he was able to continuously work as a performer and composer as well is extraordinary. As primary source documents, these letters give readers a window into the creation of Schnabel's musical compositions and supply a context for the integration of his life and art. Despite his hectic schedule of public performances, recording sessions, master classes, and lectures, Schnabel was a composer of both large and small scale musical works. In his letters, Schnabel outlines his compositional process: a case in point is his Two Movements for Chorus and Orchestra. …

Regietheater in Transition: An Introduction to Barbara Beyer's "Interviews with Contemporary Opera Directors"

The following “Notes from the Stage” article is a translation of extracts from interviews with some of the most influential opera directors currently working in German-speaking countries. The interviews were conducted and published in 2005 by Barbara Beyer, in a book with the provocative title Warum Oper? (“Why Opera?”). A musicologist by training, Beyer is intimately acquainted with the world of operatic production, both as a dramaturg (at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, 1990–95) and as a director (at several opera houses, including Basel, Bonn, and Hannover). She also taught opera directing at the Universitat der Kunste and the Musikhochschule Hanns Eisler in Berlin for several years before being appointed, in 2009, as professor of music theater and scenic interpretation at the Kunstuniversitat Graz. Warum Oper? appeared at a time when the so-called Regietheater (often translated as “director’s theater”) had become virtually ubiquitous on German-language stages and had also begun to garner increasing interest elsewhere (if sometimes under the derogatory nickname “Eurotrash”). Amid this proliferation of Regietheater in opera, Beyer became interested in questioning some of its basic premises. In the book, she wonders, for instance, why the same old operas are being produced over and over again and whether new approaches could still be developed for this museum-like repertoire. In particular, she addresses the status of the operatic “material” (what David J. Levin has termed the “opera text,” that is, above all, the libretto and score) and its treatment on contemporary stages. Since this treatment appears to veer between interpretation and deconstruction, she also raises questions regarding the authorship of stage productions. Despite its (now) international presence, the phenomenon of Regietheater has remained notoriously difficult to define and demarcate, even for German critics. Although it can be traced back to the rise of independent Regie, or direction, in German theaters in the nineteenth century—as well as to avant-garde trends on early twentieth-century stages and to the clean-swept (entrumpelt) abstraction of the so-called “New Bayreuth” during the early postwar years—there is a widespread tendency to date its beginnings to the 1970s. Thus, Regietheater is often associated with the growing presence of film and theater directors working on

"Cette poétique du politique": Political and Representational Ecologies in the Work of Yto Barrada

GRADUATE OF HISTORY and political science, the FrancoMoroccan artist Yto Barrada was born in Paris in 1971 and studied in Tangier, Paris, and New York. Her work has been widely exhibited, for example in Paris (Elles, Centre Pompidou, 2009), New York (Tarjama/ Translation, Queens Museum of Art, 2009), Madrid (Casa Arabe—Arab Cosmovisions, Photo Espana, 2009), Amsterdam (Snap Judgements: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, Stedelijk Museum, 2008), and Oxford (Transmission Interrupted, Modern Art Oxford, 2009). In 2006 she was awarded the Ellen Auerbach Award by the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin and was also shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize. She is a founder and director of the Cinematheque de Tanger. Her practice, which encompasses video, photography, and sculptural installation, takes as its starting point her own dual nationality and the possibility this affords of traveling freely between Morocco and France, while the mobility of her Moroccan peers is increasingly constricted by strict visa and border controls. She writes, “I think I was a privileged child. I crossed borders without really thinking about it. My parents are Moroccan, but I was born in France. So I’m interested because I could have had the same destiny too—to dream of Europe and never see it come true.” 1 In this article, I will explore how Barrada engages with the unevenness of mobility and the “asymmetries of boundaries” 2 between Europe and Morocco, the global North and South. I will show how, in her work on the Strait of Gibraltar, she discloses the border not as a line, but as a shifting zone of political, economic, and cultural negotiation. In so doing, she draws our attention to the complex ecology of globalization, calling for an ethics of relation and representation that challenges both the disconnectedness described by the prevailing geopolitical imaginary and the politics of fear in which it is constituted and sustained. 3 In her own practice, I will suggest, Barrada reflects critically on the politics of representation and exhibition, seeking to negotiate a conceptual path between poetics and politics in order to describe the iniquity of prevailing global structures and the chronic socio-political configurations they produce, but also to create an openness that allows for creative interpre

Michael Hamburger: Voice of Lost Poetry

At a garden party in Norwich I saw Max Sebald kneel on one knee to a seated Michael Hamburger engaging him in conversation with an attitude that struck me at the time as reverential. Sebald was lecturer (later professor) in German in the School of European Studies at the University of East Anglia (Norwich), and his colleagues did not know of the extent of his ambitions and hopes as a writer, which came to light gradually only as he accumulated a reputation in Germany in the 1990s. They knew him only as a good colleague, with the interests of the department at heart, which he prosecuted with very effective humour in the classroom and committee rooms, where his sallies often carried the day. If he sometimes showed a touch of gallows humour in the corridors, that was all the more effective with over-worked colleagues. It was only in Michael Hamburger that he confided and to whom he appealed as an authority and deferred as a mentor. This seemed entirely natural to me, and confirmed my own experience of Michael. I had come to knowMichael in Berlin, not in Norfolk, and had already seen with my own eyes the respect in which he was held. I arrived in Berlin in 1976 on a six-month research fellowship, and contacted Michael, as he bade me do when I had recently met him in London. He was at the time at the Haus der Kunste (House of the Arts), of which he’d been elected a

Amerikanismus, Americanism, Weill: Die Suche nach kultureller Identitat in der Moderne (review)

Amerikanismus, Americanism, Weill. Die Suche nach kultureller Identität in der Moderne. Edited by Hermann Danuser and Hermann Gottschewski. Schliengen, Germany: Edition Argus, 2003. [330 pp. ISBN 3-931264-23-8. €46] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index.

Report of the 5th International Symposium for Qualitative Music Therapy Research

The 5th International Symposium for Qualitative Music Therapy Research of the International Music Therapy Institute of the Universitat der Kunste (UdK) Berlin was held from April 21-26, 2004. A group of 23 music therapists from ten different countries met at Gutshof Sauen, in the Brandenberg region. Gutshof Sauen is owned by the UdK and other Berlin colleges of the arts and has been specifically established for use by such meetings. The house was originally the home of Dr. August Bier, a surgeon of the Charite in Berlin. His grave is in the woods around the house. A beautiful garden and lovely woods surround the house, which has a quiet and restful atmosphere well suited for our symposium gathering. At the end of the meeting time in Sauen, the group returned to Berlin to give a public presentation at the UdK on April 26th, welcomed warmly by the Dean of Music and the Vice President of the University, Dr. Patrick Dinslage, followed by an introduction to the presentation by Dr. Mechtild Jahn-Langenberg.1 The presentation was well attended, with a lively and enthusiastic atmosphere. It was followed by an event to open the Faculty of Music for 2004 where the work of the International Music Therapy Institute (IMB) was highlighted. We are grateful for the generous reception that followed and the opportunity it provided to meet faculty members from the UdK. The meeting continues a tradition of such gatherings since 1994. The current Scientific Board of the IMB comprises Mechtild Jahn-Langenberg (IMB Director), Kenneth Aigen, Carolyn Kenny, Dorit Amir, and Barbara Wheeler. This group planned the symposium and decided the invitations for participants. Because it is not possible to invite every person involved in qualitative research in music therapy, the Board is responsible to create a group that can work effectively together, involving a larger number of experienced qualitative researchers with a smaller number of academics and graduate students who can benefit from the contact with the group. The Scientific Board members are due sincere thanks for their efforts in developing this group. In addition, the scientific assistant at the UdK, Hedwig Koch-Temming, undertook a large part of the organisational work for the symposium. She was also a participant in the programme, and we enjoyed and appreciated her great efforts to keep everything running smoothly in the lead up to the event as well as on a day-to-day basis when we were there. The funding for attendance at the symposium was provided partly by the participants in terms of airfares and the costs of staying in Berlin; however, the Faculty of Music at the UdK generously provided all of the funding for the accommodation and meals at Gusthof Sauen and the transport to and from Berlin. The support for the IMB from the Faculty of Music is impressive and has been much appreciated by the group participants. The structure of the symposium was decided by members of the Scientific Board and was advised to the participants before they arrived. Therefore, this structure held together the work of the group over the days in Sauen. There were plenary sessions involving the total group, as well as meetings in four smaller sub-groups. The four plenary sessions of the total group focused on a number of topics including Collaborating with clinicians, Connecting with other academic disciplines, an open session, and a reporting session where each of the small groups made a short report to the larger group for discussion and feedback. While some days involved quite hard work in terms of discussions in the small groups, reading materials and other preparations, and sometimes rushing to have a presentation or idea ready for the small or large group discussion, there was a more relaxed atmosphere in the evenings with singing, music and dancing filling our nights with fun and sociability. Many gifts and talents of the group members were demonstrated in this music making, showing music therapy to have a rich pool of talented and skilled professionals, and giving the group another way of interrelating and learning about each other. …

Max Beckmanns Liebespaar in der "Messingstadt" Ein Traum von 1944

A paper presented at the Hochschule der Kunste in Leipzig, Germany, in January 1995. The writer discusses Max Beckmann's 1944 painting Messingstadt (Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrucken, Germany). Beckmann created the painting, a beautiful, melancholic picture of a pair of lovers, when he was living in exile in Amsterdam. The writer focuses on Beckmann's individual-psychological context and the question of the interpretation of the work, and he considers Beckmann's contemporary self-portraits and some of his other pictures of couples of the later 1930s and 1940s.

Strategies under Surveillance: Reading Irmtraud Morgner as a GDR Writer

Westgate, Geoffrey. Strategies under Surveillance: Reading Irmtraud Morgner as a Writer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002. 276 pp. $47.00 paperback. My interest in this book was initially piqued by the fact that its author is male. After the appearance of Trobadora Beatriz in 1974, the writer Irmtraud Morgner became the domain of (above all, western) feminist critics who focused on questions of female subjectivity, emancipation and creativity. Male critics tended to write Morgner off as a women's author, and few bothered to read the long, involved novels for which Morgner was mainly known. What would a male British Nachwuchsgermanist-Westgate's book is based on his University of Oxford dissertation-have to say about Irmtraud Morgner, and especially now, more than a decade after the demise of the and the subsequent relativization of literature? After acknowledging and reviewing the previous scholarship on Morgner, Westgate sets out in a new direction, placing Morgner in the political and cultural of the and looking at the entire trajectory of her work, from her early days as Lektorin at neue deutsche literatur in the late 1950s up through Das heroische Testament, the fragmentary third part of her trilogy, left unfinished at the author's death in 1990. It is Westgate's thesis that Morgner was a political writer, that her writing was primarily influenced by the ideal and its deformation in the GDR (3), that her texts walked the political tightrope within the context (12), and therefore must be read against this background in order to be properly understood. His overall objective is to show that Morgner deserves a lasting place in the literary canon. In carrying out his study, Westgate made ample use of numerous archives which were generally inaccessible before 1989/1990: the party archives of the SED, archives of the Ministry of Culture (of the Hauptverwaltung in charge of publishing), the Stasi archives administered by the Gauck-Behorde, archives of the national and Berlin offices of the Schriftstellerverband, as well as publishers' archives and those of the East Berlin Akademie der Kunste. he also had access to Morgner's Nachlass, and spoke and corresponded with former functionaries, friends and family members, in his effort to piece together and weigh the information he had gathered. The book is divided into five parts: three literary critical chapters, in which he traces the development of Morgner's writing from the relative orthodoxy of the 1950s, through the socialist modernism of her 'breakthrough' novel Rumba auf einen Herbst, which, written in the early 1960s, became a victim of the infamous 11^sup th^ Plenum in 1965-a pivotal point in her life, as Westgate shows-to the avant-garde experiments of the underdiscussed texts of the late 1960s, to the grand self-confidence (17) of Trobadora Beatriz and the ultimate disillusion and cultural pessimism of Amanda and the posthumously published Das heroische Testament. …

Paul Klee: the nature of creation, works 1914-1940

This study explores diversity as the mainspring of Klee's creative practice. Drawing on Klee's own classifications for his work, along with those of distinguished Klee scholars, the book traces the development of the artist's rich visual language not as a single line of enquiry, but as a series of movements, counter-movements and interconnections. By the time of his death in 1940, Klee was an acknowledged modern master, his fame and influence both as an artist and a teacher recognized throughout the western world. However, his work lost prominence for many years from the early 1960s, only re-emerging into view in much later years. Featuring an essay by Robert Kudielka, Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at the Universitat der Kunste, Berlin, along with a personal response to Klee's work by renowned British artist Bridget Riley, this book brings to the fore the seminal role Klee had in the development of 20th-century art and signals the ongoing relevance of his work.

L'armonia sonora: continuo orchestration in Monteverdi's Orfeo

Journal Article L'armonia sonora: continuo orchestration in Monteverdi's Orfeo Get access Stephen Stubbs Stephen Stubbs Stephen Stubbs is professor of lute and historical performance practices at the Akademie für Alte Musik and the Hochschule der Kunste in Bremen. He is also the director of the ensemble Tragicomedia, which has recently issued two Monteverdi recordings. He has directed staged performances of all three of Monteverdi's extant operas. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XXII, Issue 1, February 1994, Pages 86–100, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XXII.1.86 Published: 01 February 1994