Socialist laments : musical mourning in the German Democratic Republic /
"Antifascist and socialist monuments pervaded the landscape of the former German Democratic Republic (1949-1989), presenting a distorted vision of the national past. Official commemorative culture in East Germany celebrated a selective set of political heroes, seeming to leave no public space f...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2021]
|
| Series: | New cultural history of music.
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "Antifascist and socialist monuments pervaded the landscape of the former German Democratic Republic (1949-1989), presenting a distorted vision of the national past. Official commemorative culture in East Germany celebrated a selective set of political heroes, seeming to leave no public space for mourning those who were excluded from the country's founding myths. Socialist Laments: Musical Mourning in the German Democratic Republic examines the role of music in this nation's memorial culture, demonstrating how music facilitated the expressions of loss within spaces of commemoration for East German citizens. Music performed during state-sponsored memorial rituals no doubt bolstered official narratives of the German past. But it simultaneously provided an outlet for mourning in highly politicized environment. Socialist Laments presents both a history and theory of musical mourning in East Germany. Using a site-specific approach to analysis, author Martha Sprigge demonstrates how the multiple semantic networks opened up by these musical works facilitated many memorial associations without necessitating the overt articulation of a mourned subject. Throughout the country's forty-year existence, music offered East German citizens an audible outlet for working through traumatic losses-both collective and individual-that was distinct from other artistic expressive possibilities. The book reveals the ways that East Germany's extensive commemorative repertoire helped composers, performers, and audiences navigate between the inevitable need to mourn on the one hand, and the seeming impossibilities of mourning on the other"-- |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xx, 354 pages) : illustrations (some color), music. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197546338 0197546331 9780197546352 0197546358 019754634X 9780197546345 |