germany - AHK - AHKs

MUSIC
Classical Influence - By Anna Wallace
Composers such as Richard Wagner and Ludwig
van Beethoven have become synonymous with
the great pinnacles of classical music, as have their
works, The Ring Cycle and the legendary Ode to
Joy. Alongside France and Italy, Germany was a
cradle for some of the Western world’s greatest
musical talents, witnessing a golden age through
the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras, and
continuing with a thriving classical music scene
that sees its German heritage celebrated through a
plethora of musical festivals and concerts.
One of the most important movements of the
classical music scene has been the German opera.
It was in the 17th century that the first Germanlanguage
opera made its debut (a translation
of Jacopo Peri’s Italian opera Dafne, by Heinrich
Schütz). However, it was only with the emergence
of the prodigal (Austrian) Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart that opera, which has been dominated
by the Italian and French languages, suddenly
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven
by Joseph Karl Stieler, dated 1820.
found itself at home in German, leading to the
emergence of the father of German opera: Wagner.
What is it then, about German classical music,
specifically opera, that set it apart from its Western
counterparts? “There are two main differences,”
explains tenor, lecturer and singing teacher
Andrés Hernández-Salazar. “Firstly; the Italians
were more concerned with the voice, and with
vocal acrobatics, as it were, with vocal virtuosity
and melody at the fore, while the Germans were
more interested in the harmonic construction of
the music. Secondly, unlike the more international
scope of French and Italian operas, beginning with
composers such as Carl Maria von Weber, you have
this quest of German opera that focuses on the
German people and its history, psyche and legends
– this of course culminates in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.”
Through the 17th and 18th centuries, Germany
produced Baroque composers (1600–1760) such
With its rich cultural history and
diverse musical outpouring,
Germany remains one of the
world’s great classical music
influences, with a wide array of
musical festivals, concerts and
events celebrating the lives of its
composers, both past and present.
as Telemann, who experimented with the
opera form, paving the way for the thundering
composers of the late Classical (1730 -1 820)
through to the Romantic (1815 -1 910) periods
– Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann, Mendelssohn,
Strauss and Brahms perhaps being the most
famous. Possibly the greatest composer of
his generation, Beethoven took the opera
form introduced by his Classical Austrian
predecessor, Mozart, and used it to create his
one and only opera, Fidelio, which has gone on
to become one of the most important pieces in
German opera.
And then there is the inimitable Wagner –
synonymous with great, nationalistic themes,
expansive choruses and epic four- to five-hourlong
performances. “The two great figures of
Romantic German music were, in fact Wagner
and Brahms,” explains Hernández-Salazar.
“Wagner was the great innovative, Avant-garde
composer of his time, harmonically speaking,
while Brahms, though we see him also as a
Romantic composer, saw himself as a Classical
composer, following in the footsteps of Mozart
and Beethoven. In the second half of the 19th
century, there were two main camps in German
music – you were either a Wagnerite or a
Brahmsian, and these two completely opposite
sides of modern music making dominated
music in the second half of the 19th century
in Germany.”
Johan Botha and Emily Magee in a production of
Richard Wagner’s ‘Lohengrin’. Photography by Dan Rest.
38 | GERMANY SUPPLEMENT GERMANY SUPPLEMENT | 39