Week 7: German “Musik”!

Wie geht’s Studenten?

Today I’ll go through a big part of every culture – music! Germany has a wonderful history of music both old and new, and has contributed more to classical music than any other place in the world. Instead of lots of reading, I’d rather you all spend your time on this post listening to the pieces of these various artists. I’ll include links to listen to pieces throughout. Try to listen to each link, even if just for 30 seconds or so. Let’s jump in!

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Great German Musicians

Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven was a German pianist and composer. He created some of the greatest symphonies of all time – despite being deaf for much of his career!

Johann Sebastian Bach

Bach is another great composer from Germany during the 17th century.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Technically, Mozart wasn’t German because he was from Austria. But since the Austrians are Germanic and have a very shared history with Germany, I’ll count him in the list. I’m sure there are some Austrians out there who aren’t happy with the decision…

Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner may be my favorite artist of all time. He was a true musical genius and had many elements of philosophy in his pieces. He even wrote an opera that was almost 20 hours long!

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Volksmusik – Folk Music

Folk music is a big part of Germany’s heritage. Though you won’t find it in the cities anymore, you can still find it in the villages – especially in Germany’s mountainous south. There is also the stereotypical yodeling and polka, but that is extremely rare nowadays.

This last one is kind of a joke nowadays, but yodeling used to be very big in Bavaria and Austria. I don’t think anybody does it much at all anymore though.

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Modern German Music

Much of Germany’s great contributions to music were in the past, but they still have produced some decently-popular music recently. Nowadays, most Germans just listen to American music. Here are some of Germany’s biggest groups and songs in recent times.

Nena – 99 Luftballons (99 Balloons)

CRO – Traum (Dream)

Kraftwerk – Die Roboter (The Robots)

Germans absolutely love their techno and electronic music. Kraftwerk was a big group that started this craze in the 1970s. Be warned though, this one’s pretty weird…

Die Prinzen – Deutschland (Germany)

Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is probably the most successful soundtrack producer of all time. He has composed music for such films as The Lion King, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Gladiator (my favorite movie), The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Interstellar. It may not be everyday listening music, but it shows that German greatness in composing lives on.

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My original list of music I wanted to have here was about twice as long, but I think this is a good sample for German music old and new. I hope you enjoyed listening!

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Was denkst du?
What do you think?

• What was your favorite song from here? Why?
• How many of these people/groups did you already know about?
• Do you think music should do anything beyond just “sounding good”?
• What role do you think music plays in culture?

Bis nächste Woche! (Biss nakestuh vo-kuh)

Until next week!
-GV