Music of Germany
Encyclopedia
Forms of German-language
music include Neue Deutsche Welle
(NDW), Krautrock
, Hamburger Schule
, Volksmusik
, Classical
, German hip hop
, trance
, Schlager
, Neue Deutsche Härte
(NDH) and diverse varieties of folk music
, such as Waltz
and Medieval metal.
German Classical is among the most performed in the world; German composers include some of the most accomplished and popular in history, among them Johann Sebastian Bach
, Ludwig van Beethoven
, Franz Schubert
, Johannes Brahms
, and Richard Wagner
. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
, born in Salzburg
(now in Austria
), was among many opera
composers who created the field of German opera
.
The beginning of what is now considered German music could be traced back to the 12th century compositions of mystic abbess Hildegard of Bingen
, who wrote a variety of hymn
s and other kinds of Christian music
.
s, who were often master craftsmen in their main profession, whose music (meistergesang) was much more formalized and rule-based than that of the minnesingers. Minnesingers and meistersingers could be considered parallels of French troubadour
s and trouvère
.
Among the minnesingers, Hermann
, a monk
from Salzburg
, deserves special note. He incorporated folk styles from the Alpine regions in his compositions. He made some primitive forays into polyphony
as well. Walther von der Vogelweide
and Reinmar von Hagenau
are probably the most famous minnesingers from this period.
) were ethnically German. At the beginning of the 15th century, German classical music was revolutionized by Oswald von Wolkenstein
, who travelled across Europe learning about classical traditions, spending time in countries like France and Italy. He brought back some techniques and styles to his homeland, and within a hundred years, Germany had begun producing composers renowned across the continent. Among the first of these composers was the organist Conrad Paumann
.
, or the intertwining of multiple melodies
, arrived in Germany. Protestant
chorales predominated; in contrast to Catholic music, chorale was vibrant and energetic. Composers included Martin Luther
, leader of the Protestant Reformation
, as well as Dieterich Buxtehude
and Heinrich Schütz
.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Die Zauberflöte (1791) is usually said to be the beginning of German-language opera
, which was further advanced by composers like Ludwig van Beethoven
. An earlier starting date for German opera, however, could be Heinrich Schütz
's Dafne
from 1627. Schütz is said to be the first great German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach
, and was a major figure in 17th century music.
In the 19th century, two figures were paramount in German opera: Carl Maria von Weber
and Richard Wagner
. Wagner introduced devices like the leitmotiv, a musical theme which recurs for important characters or ideas. Wagner (and Weber) based his operas of German history and folklore, most importantly including the Ring of the Nibelung
(1874). Into the 20th century, opera composers included Richard Strauss
(Der Rosenkavalier
) and Engelbert Humperdinck
, who wrote operas meant for young audiences. Across the border in Austria, Arnold Schoenberg
innovated a form of twelve-tone music that used rhythm
and dissonance
instead of traditional melodies and harmonies, while Kurt Weill
and Bertold Brecht collaborated on some of the great works of German theater, including Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
and The Three-Penny Opera.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany during the 1930s, many musicians fled the country. Following the war, German composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Hans Werner Henze
began experimenting electronic
sounds in classical music.
in the modern sense, is also known for its ornamentation
and artistic use of counterpoint
. It originated in Northern Italy
at the end of the 16th century, and the style migrated quickly to Germany, which was one of the most active centers of early Baroque music. Early German Baroque composers included Heinrich Schütz
, Michael Praetorius
, Johann Schein
, and Samuel Scheidt
. The culmination of the Baroque era was undoubtedly in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach
in the first half of the 18th century. Bach wrote numerous Baroque works, including preludes
, cantatas
, fugue
s, concerto
s for harpsichord, violin and wind, orchestral suites, the Brandenburg Concertos, St Matthew Passion, St John Passion and the Christmas Oratorio
. Bach's contemporaries included Georg Philipp Telemann
and Georg Friedrich Händel
, the latter best known for the oratorio
Messiah
....
, Dresden
, Berlin
and Mannheim
had become the center for orchestral music. The Esterházy princes of Vienna, for example, were the patrons of Joseph Haydn
, an Austrian who invented the classic format of the string quartet
, symphony
and sonata. Later that century, Vienna's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
emerged, mixing German and Italian traditions into his own style.
The following century saw two major German composers come to fame early -- Ludwig van Beethoven
and Franz Schubert
. Beethoven, a student of Haydn's in Vienna, used unusually daring harmonies
and rhythm
and composed numerous pieces for piano
, violin
, symphonies
, chamber music
, string quartet
s and an opera
. Schubert created a field of artistic, romantic poetry and music called lied
; his lieder cycles included Die schöne Müllerin
and Der Erlkönig
.
Early in the 19th century, a composer by the name of Richard Wagner
was born. He was a "Musician of the Future" who disliked the strict traditionalist styles of music. He is credited with developing leitmotivs which were simple recurring themes found in his operas. His music changed the course of opera and of music in general, forever.
The later 19th century saw Vienna continue its elevated position in European classical music, as well as a burst of popularity with Viennese waltz
es. These were composed by people like Johann Strauss the Younger. Other German composers from the period included Albert Lortzing
, Johannes Brahms
, Robert Schumann
, Felix Mendelssohn
, Anton Bruckner
, Max Bruch
, Richard Strauss
, and Gustav Mahler
. These composers tended to mix classic and romantic elements.
and his pupils Alban Berg
and Anton Webern
moved along an increasingly avant-garde path, pioneering atonal music
in 1909 and twelve-tone music in 1923. Meanwhile, composers in Berlin took a more populist route, from the cabaret-like socialist operas of Kurt Weill
to the Gebrauchsmusik
of Paul Hindemith
. In Munich there was also Carl Orff
, whose "Carmina Burana" was and remains hugely popular. Many composers emigrated to the United States when the Nazi Party came to power, including Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Erich Korngold. During this period, the Nazi Party embarked on a campaign to rid Germany of so-called degenerate art
, which became a catch-all phrase that included music with any link to Jews, Communists, jazz, and anything else thought to be dangerous. Some figures such as Karl Amadeus Hartmann
remained defiantly in Germany during the years of Nazi dominance, continually watchful of how their output might be interpreted by the authorities.
After the dissolution of the Third Reich, musicians were also subjected to the Allied policy of denazification
. But here, the supposed non-political nature of music was able to excuse many, including Wilhelm Furtwängler
and Herbert von Karajan
(who had actually joined the Nazi Party in 1933). They both claimed to have concentrated mainly on music and to have ignored politics, but also to have conducted pieces in ways that were meant to be "gestures of defiance."
In West Germany in the second half of the 20th century, German and Austrian music was largely dominated by the avant-garde. In the 60s and 70s, the Darmstadt New Music Summer School
was a major center of European modernism; German composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Hans Werner Henze
and non-German ones such as Pierre Boulez
and Luciano Berio
all studied there. In contrast, composers in East Germany were advised to avoid the avant-garde and to compose music in keeping with the tenets of Socialist Realism
. Music written in this style was supposed to advance party politics as well as be more accessible to all. Hanns Eisler
and Ernst Hermann Meyer
were among the most famous of the first generation of GDR composers.
More recently, composers such as Helmut Lachenmann
and Olga Neuwirth
have extensively explored the possibilities of extended techniques. Hans Werner Henze largely dissociated himself from the Darmstadt school in favour of a more lyrical approach, and remains perhaps Germany's most lauded living composer. Although he has lived outside the country since the 1950s, he remains influenced by the Germanic musical tradition.
.
In both East and West Germany, folk songs called volkslieder
were taught to children; these were popular, sunny and optimistic, and had little relation to authentic German folk traditions. Inspired by American and English roots revival
s, Germany underwent many of the same changes following the 1968 student revolution in West Germany, and new songs, featuring political activism and realistic joy, sadness and passion, were written and performed on the burgeoning folk scene. In East Germany, the same process did not begin until the mid-70s, when folk musicians began incorporating revolutionary ideas in coded songs.
Popular folk songs included emigration songs from the 19th century, work song
s and songs of apprentices, as well as democracy-oriented folk songs collected in the 1950s by Wolfgang Steinitz. Beginning in 1970, the Festival des politischen Liedes, an East German festival focusing on political songs, was held annually and organized (until 1980) by the FDJ
(East German youth association). Musicians from up to thirty countries would participate, and, for many East Germans, it was the only exposure possible to foreign music. Among foreign musicians at the festival, some were quite renowned, including Inti Illimani (Chile
), Billy Bragg
(England), Dick Gaughan
(Scotland
), Mercedes Sosa
(Argentina
) and Pete Seeger
(United States), while German performers included, from both East and West, Oktoberclub, Wacholder
and Hannes Wader
.
s; it is associated with beer hall
s.
n folk music is likely the most well-known outside of Germany. Yodeling
and schuhplattler
dancers are among the stereotyped images of German folk life, though these are only found today in the southernmost areas, and to cater to tourists. Bavarian folk music has played a role in the Alpine New Wave, and produced several pioneering world music
groups that fuse traditional Bavarian sounds with foreign styles.
It was around the turn of the 20th century, across Europe and especially in Bavaria, many people became concerned about a loss of cultural traditions. This idea was connected to the Heimatschutz
movement, which sought to protect regional identities and boundaries. What is considered Bavarian folk music in modern Germany is not the same as what Bavarian folk music was in the early 20th century; like any kind of folk or popular music, styles and traditions have evolved over time, giving birth to new forms of music.
The popularity of the Volkssänger (people's singer) in Bavaria began in the 1880s, and continued in earnest until the 1920s. Shows consisting of duets, ensemble songs, humor and parodies were popular, but the format began changing significantly following World War I
. Bally Prell, the "Beauty Queen of Schneizlreuth
", was emblematic of this change. She was an attractive tenor
who sang lieder, chanson
and opera
and operetta
.
n folk music is most popularly represented by acts like Saiten Fell and Firlefanz and the singer-songwriter (and player of the hurdy-gurdy and guitar
) Thomas Felder.
nationalist music scene can be traced back to the first Sorbian song festival. Held in Bautzen
in 1845, and directed by Korla August Kocor, the festival helped revitalize Sorbian folk music
. The same period saw the publication of more than five hundred Sorbian songs by Smoler and Haupt in the collection Folksongs of Upper and Lower Sorbs.
. Danish folk music is typically based around a fiddle
and accordion
duo.
and World War II
, German music branched out to form new, more liberal and independent styles.
is said to be cabaret
, which arose during the Weimar Republic
in the 1920s as the sensual music of late-night clubs. Marlene Dietrich
and Margo Lion were among the most famous performers of the period, and became associated with both humorous satire and liberal ideas. "Wenn die beste Freundin" (1928) was an early lesbian
-themed song.
through the Hitler Youth
led to the emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were able better to exert their independence.
One of these consisted mainly of upper middle class youths, who based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting the völkisch music propagated by the Party in place of American jazz forms, especially Swing
. While musical preferences are often a feature of youthful rebellion - as the history of rock and roll shows - jazz and especially Swing were particularly offensive to the Nazi hierarchy: not only did they promote sexual permissiveness, but they were also associated with the American enemy and worse, with the African race they considered inferior. To the Nazis, jazz was "Negro music".
On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels
assembled some of the now jobless musicians from Germany and conquered countries into a big band called Charlie and His Orchestra
to perform Nazified versions of popular swing hits to be played in propaganda broadcasts.
and pop music in East Germany which developed in different directions. Pop music from West Germany was often heard in East Germany, had more variety and is still present today, while East German music had only little influence.
In West Germany, English-language pop music
became more and more important, and today most songs on the radio are English. Nevertheless there is a big diversity of German language pop music. There is also English-language pop music from Germany, some having international success (for instance the Scorpions
), but little with enduring broad success in Germany itself. There was hardly any English pop music from East Germany.
Germany has also had a thriving English-language pop scene since the end of the war, with several European and American acts topping the charts. However, Germans and German-oriented musicians have been successful as well. In the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century such European pop acts were popular as well as artists like Sarah Connor, Marc Terenzi
, No Angels
, Monrose
, and US5
all who performed various types of mainstream pop in English. Many of these acts have had success all over Europe and Asia as well, although few have cracked the American market.
s sung in German, popularized by singers such as Gitte Hænning
and Rex Gildo
in the 1960s, though not without a wide range within the style (Modern Schlager, Schlager-Gold, Volksmusik resp. "volkstümlicher Schlager"). Schlager/Volksmusik is strictly separated from international pop music and is only played on special format radio stations (sometimes mixed with international Oldies).
An important part of Schlager is volkstümliche Musik
, a Schlager-like interpretation of traditional German folk themes that is very popular in German speaking countries, especially among the older generation.
Schlager has a wide variety, and the artists with many different styles for example Heino
, Lou Hoffner
(Eurovision Entrant 2003
), Wolfgang Petry, Guildo Horn
and many others.
and French Chanson
styles.
Famous West German Liedermacher are Reinhard Mey
, Hannes Wader
and Konstantin Wecker
. Famous East German Liedermacher are Gerhard Schöne and Barbara Thalheim.
Very popular in Germany also is Herman van Veen
from the Netherlands.
Most Liedermacher artists also record special albums for children.
countercultural
explosion was peaking in the US and UK. At the time, the German musical avant-garde had been experimenting with electronic music
for more than a decade, and the first German rock bands fused psychedelic rock
from abroad with electronic sounds. The next few years saw the formation of a group of bands that came to be known as Krautrock
or Kosmische Musik groups; these included Amon Düül
, Embryo
, Embryo's Dissidenten, who later became the world music pioneers Dissidenten
, Tangerine Dream
, Popol Vuh
, Can
, Neu!
and Faust
.
German Rock had become a very popular kind of German music. Many people were influenced by Germany's great rock, so there were more and more fans excited to hear the sounds of this music. Before that development rock music in Germany was a negligible part of the schlager
genre covered by interprets like Peter Kraus
and Ted Herold who used to play Rock-n-Roll standards by Little Richard or Bill Haley, sometimes translated into German language.
A great impact on German postwar culture had the US military radio station American Forces Network
(AFN) which was formative for the further development of the German rock and jazz culture. Bill Ramsey
who appeared to be senior producer of AFN Frankfurt in 1953 later rose to a famous career as jazz and (later) Schlager singer in Germany while he remained almost unknown in his country of origin from Ohio
.
and New Wave
which appeared in the mid-to late 1970s. It was the first successful unique German music but was limited in its stylistic devices (funny lyrics and surreal composition and production). Though it was a huge success in Germany itself in the 1980s, this was not long-lasting mostly due to over-commercialization. Some artists became famous internationally:
Grönemeyer has managed best to maintain his success up to today. Maffay developed from Schlager to rock and has a large but delimited fan base - he is seldom played on the radio.
Annah Graefe is a German female folksinger whose web site has cultivated an international following.
(School of Hamburg) is an underground music-movement that started in the late 1980s and was still active till around the mid 1990s. It has similar traditions as Neue Deutsche Welle
and mixed all that with punk
, grunge
and experimental pop music
. Hamburger Schule has been an important part of Germany's youth and gave the term "Pop" a new definition, as now it was "ok" (or "cool") to sing in the German language. Hamburger Schule also includes intellectual lyrics with postmodern theories and social criticism. Important artists are:
There were some bands that were very popular in East Germany.
. On the other side of the Wall
, these bands tended to be stylistically more conservative than in the West, to have more reserved engineering, and often to include more classical and traditional structures (such as those developed by Kurt Weill
and Bertolt Brecht
in their 1920s Berlin theater songs). These groups often featured poetic lyrics loaded with indirect double-meanings and deeply philosophical challenges to the status quo. As such, they were a style of Krautrock
. The best-known of these bands were:
Only a few individual songs, such as "Am Fenster" by City
and "Über sieben Brücken mußt Du geh'n" by Karat, found wide popularity outside the GDR.
There was also a wide diversity of underground bands. Out of this scene later grew the internationally successful band Rammstein
(see Neue Deutsche Härte below).
, Rosenstolz
or Die Prinzen
.
This changed in 2002 with the success of Wir sind Helden
, a German band with a new musical self-confidence. This success was followed by several other bands and a broader acceptance of existing German-language recording artists, such as:
, and has one of the more vibrant scenes in the world. Hip hop arrived in the early 1980s, and graffiti
art
and breakdancing became well-known quickly, with hip hop crews appearing soon thereafter.
The huge commercial success started in 1992 with the hit "Die Da" from Die Fantastischen Vier
from Stuttgart
. This band makes rather funny and sophisticated hip hop. The Rödelheim Hartreim Projekt
tried to establish a more USA-like "gangster" rap. An early major influent group was Advanced Chemistry
including Torch
.
Advanced Chemistry was very important to German hip-hop and influential to German listeners. They sparked a huge interest in speaking out for the youth of Germany, especially the immigrants. Advanced Chemistry exploded onto the German hip hop scene in November 1992 with their first mixed single entitled "Fremd in eigenem Land" (Foreign in Your Own Country). This single was the first of its kind to go beyond simply imitating US rap and addressed the current issues of the time, which was the widespread racism that non-white German citizens faced. Immigration was a big issue in Germany and prompted hip-hop artists, who were children of immigrants, to use rap and hip hop as a way to defend themselves in their country. Advanced Chemistry frequently rapped about their lives and experiences as children of immigrants exposing what was experienced by most ethnic minorities in Germany, and the feelings of frustration and resentment that being denied a German identity can cause.
Fettes Brot, a hip-hop group from Hamburg, has been very successful since their beginning in 1992. They are well versed in pop-culture and sing about funny topics, such as infidelity and boasting about their prowess with women.
Whereas hip hop had a peak of success in the early first decade of the 21st century, with bands from Hamburg
dominating the scene, gangster rap became an important and controversial part of German music and youth culture just as late as 2004 with Aggro Berlin
.
German hip hop was an adopted style from several different places. There is often debate as to whether or not German hip hop is authentic or just a compilation of mimicry. German hip hop “started out as a transnational and cosmopolitan youth subculture that was...predominantly English raps.” Rap was also used by immigrant youth to create a type of exaggerated outsiderism as a mechanism of self defense in German society. It could be ventured that the authenticity of German hip hop only obtains its originality once the German language flows seemingly naturally with the music.
has a long and diverse history. Important rock band like Die Ärzte
, Die Toten Hosen
, Böhse Onkelz
originated from the underground punk scene in the 1980s.
Even most Germans don't know that there are a lot of punk bands with their primary audience in Japan, which stay relatively unknown to German listeners.
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Germany has a long and strong history with heavy metal
. It is considered by many to be one of Europe's heaviest contributors to the scene. The genre is quite popular within the country. Early Hard Rock
/ Heavy metal was brought to German soil with success of Scorpions
. Germany is today known for its large metal festivals including Wacken Open Air
, Summer Breeze Open Air
and Party.San Open Air
.
Germany has a strong tradition of Speed metal
and Power metal
. Early speed metal bands include Running Wild
, Grave Digger
, Rage
, and to some extent Accept
. The European style of Power metal, born in Germany, was popularized by German bands like Blind Guardian
, Helloween
, Gamma Ray
, and gained international recognition. In many cases these bands initially started out playing Speed metal, but later switched to Power metal.
Two local variants of metal subgenres exist in Germany. The teutonic thrash metal
scene is represented by such groups as Exumer
, Violent Force, Sodom
, Kreator
, Tankard
and Destruction
. Medieval metal, a branch of folk metal
incorporates German traditional music with industrial metal
. It includes Subway to Sally
, In Extremo
, Corvus Corax
and Schandmaul
(the last is considered folk rock
in Germany.)
More extreme German bands include:
These bands range from genres of death metal
, deathcore
, metalcore
, doom metal
and black metal
.
. It combines the common sound of metal with electronic samples and is mostly sung with German lyrics. It draws its audience from both the metalheads and goth scene. Some bands like Rammstein
or Oomph!
have gained mainstream success. Other famous artists include Stahlhammer
(from Austria), Megaherz
, Unheilig
, Eisbrecher
, Tanzwut
, and Joachim Witt
.
, Lacrimas Profundere
, Sieben Siegel, Xmal Deutschland
, Das Ich
, Deine Lakaien
, Untoten
, Erben der Schöpfung
(from Liechtenstein), No More
, Girls Under Glass
or Project Pitchfork
. Leipzig
is home of the largest event of this subculture
worldwide called the Wave-Gotik-Treffen with its regular 25,000 attendants. The WGT is closely followed by the annual M'era Luna festival in Hildesheim
.
, In Extremo
and Schandmaul
. The style is characterised by the prominent use of a wide variety of traditional folk and medieval instruments.
was one of the first bands in the world to make music entirely on electronic equipment, and the band Tangerine Dream
is often credited as being among the originators and primary influences of the "Berlin School" of electronic music, which would later influence trance music
. Some other bands like Liaisons Dangereuses, Tyske Ludder
, Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft
and Die Krupps
created a style later called Electronic body music
. Also well-known are Scooter
. Recently a few electronica artists have become successful in the mainstream, such as Monika Kruse
, Marusha
, Blümchen
and MIA.
Artists on the cutting edge of German-language techno include Klee. Both Einstürzende Neubauten (collapsing new buildings, translated literally) and KMFDM
(no majority for the pity, translated literally) are considered by many industrial and electronic music fans as the godfathers of their genre. Their sounds developed the modern styles of groups such as NIN, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, and New Order. Einstürzende Neubauten can be recognized by their Prince-esque logo, which has been subliminally fused into several mainstream American movies (such as a tattoo in the movie Bug, directed by William Friedkin, starring Harry Connick Jr.) Their sound resembles primitive banging of pots and pans and screaming rants in German about the Russian "famine." KMFDM has released many songs in English, making them more accessible to their huge American and world wide audience. Since 2006 producer and DJ Paul Kalkbrenner
gained popularity in Germany. He nowadays is one of the most famous performers of electronic music.
Trance music
is a style of electronic music that originated in Germany in the very late 1980s and early 1990s, upon German unification. Following the development of trance music in Germany, many Trance genres
stemmed from the original trance music and most trance genres developed in Germany, most notably "Anthem trance" or also called "uplifting" or "epic" trance, progressive trance, and "Ambient trance"
.
One of the most notable event referring to this scene was the Love Parade
festival with up to 1.5 million participants from all over the world.
and Die Toten Hosen
. Both were formed in the early 1980s but have very different approaches to punk. As successful as those two bands in number of sales and number one albums but much lesser accepted by the public and normally not played by German media but with a huge fan community were Böhse Onkelz
.
Very popular all over Germany also are BAP
, who sing in the hard-to-understand dialect of their hometown Cologne/Köln
.
Outside of Germany especially, the industrial metal
band Rammstein
and the gothic act Lacrimosa
are largely popular worldwide.
music in the 1980s, and has produced many of the most popular bands in the field since then. Controversially, many or most of the German klezmer bands are not, in fact, Jewish.
Before World War II
and the Holocaust, Jews in Germany had not taken much interest in klezmer, at least compared to Jews in places like the United States. During the Cold War, East German Jews like Lin Jaldati and Perry Friedman tried to establish a German Jewish musical scene, but failed due to interference by the Communist Party.
As a result, the East German klezmer scene didn't take off until the arrival of Aufwind in 1984. The West German klezmer scene, on the other hand, got started soon after the student revolutions of the late 1960s. The tour of Kapelye, an American klezmer band, in 1984 also added some energy to the scene, which soon began thriving.
.
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
music include Neue Deutsche Welle
Neue Deutsche Welle
Neue Deutsche Welle is a genre of German music originally derived from punk rock and New Wave music...
(NDW), Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
, Hamburger Schule
Hamburger Schule
The Hamburger Schule is a musical current in Germany during the 1980s and early 1990s. With some active bands and artists it is still present. It is encompassing elements from punk, grunge and experimental pop, and featuring intelligent lyrics...
, Volksmusik
Volksmusik
Volksmusik is the common umbrella designation of a number of related styles of traditional music from the Alpine regions of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrol...
, Classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, German hip hop
German hip hop
German Hip Hop refers to hip hop music produced in Germany. Elements of American hip hop culture, such as graffiti art and breakdancing, diffused into Western Europe in the early 1980s.-1980–1990:...
, trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
, Schlager
Schlager
Schlager music is a style of popular music prevalent in Central and Northern Europe and the Balkans and also in France and Poland. In Portugal, it was adapted and became pimba music...
, Neue Deutsche Härte
Neue Deutsche Härte
Neue Deutsche Härte is a genre of industrial metal. The term was invented by the German music press after the release of the debut album Herzeleid by Rammstein....
(NDH) and diverse varieties of folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, such as Waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
and Medieval metal.
German Classical is among the most performed in the world; German composers include some of the most accomplished and popular in history, among them Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, born in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
(now in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
), was among many opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
composers who created the field of German opera
German opera
Opera in German is the opera of the German-speaking countries, most notably Germany and Austria...
.
The beginning of what is now considered German music could be traced back to the 12th century compositions of mystic abbess Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen
Blessed Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and...
, who wrote a variety of hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s and other kinds of Christian music
Christian music
Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely across the world....
.
Minnesingers and Meistersingers
After Latin-language religious music had dominated for centuries, in the 12th century to the 14th centuries, minnesingers (love poets), singing in German, spread across Germany. Minnesingers were aristocrats traveling from court to court who had become musicians, and their work left behind a vast body of literature, Minnelieder. The following two centuries saw the minnesingers replaced by middle-class meistersingerMeistersinger
A Meistersinger was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part.-Guilds:...
s, who were often master craftsmen in their main profession, whose music (meistergesang) was much more formalized and rule-based than that of the minnesingers. Minnesingers and meistersingers could be considered parallels of French troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
s and trouvère
Trouvère
Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...
.
Among the minnesingers, Hermann
Hermann
Hermann or Herrmann is a German given name , and might refer to:-People:* Herrmann or Hermann der Cherusker, "Arminius", Germanic leader opposed to Roman conquest and victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest...
, a monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
from Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, deserves special note. He incorporated folk styles from the Alpine regions in his compositions. He made some primitive forays into polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
as well. Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide
Walther von der Vogelweide is the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets.-Life history:For all his fame, Walther's name is not found in contemporary records, with the exception of a solitary mention in the travelling accounts of Bishop Wolfger of Erla of the Passau diocese:...
and Reinmar von Hagenau
Reinmar von Hagenau
Reinmar also known as Reinmar von Hagenau or Reinmar der Alte was the most important Minnesinger before Walther von der Vogelweide....
are probably the most famous minnesingers from this period.
Classical music: sixteenth century to the present
Germans have played a leading role in the development of classical music. Many of the best classical musicians such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, or Schoenberg (A lineage labeled the "German Stem" by Igor StravinskyIgor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
) were ethnically German. At the beginning of the 15th century, German classical music was revolutionized by Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein
Oswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In the latter capacity, he traveled through much of Europe, even as far as Georgia , and was inducted into the Order of the Dragon...
, who travelled across Europe learning about classical traditions, spending time in countries like France and Italy. He brought back some techniques and styles to his homeland, and within a hundred years, Germany had begun producing composers renowned across the continent. Among the first of these composers was the organist Conrad Paumann
Conrad Paumann
Conrad Paumann was a German organist, lutenist and composer of the early Renaissance. Even though he was born blind, he was one of the most talented musicians of the 15th century, and his performances created a sensation wherever he went...
.
Chorale
Beginning in the 16th century, polyphonyPolyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
, or the intertwining of multiple melodies
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
, arrived in Germany. Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
chorales predominated; in contrast to Catholic music, chorale was vibrant and energetic. Composers included Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
, leader of the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, as well as Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...
and Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
.
Opera
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Die Zauberflöte (1791) is usually said to be the beginning of German-language opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, which was further advanced by composers like Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
. An earlier starting date for German opera, however, could be Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
's Dafne
Dafne
Dafne is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera. It was composed by Jacopo Peri in 1597, with a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini.-History:...
from 1627. Schütz is said to be the first great German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, and was a major figure in 17th century music.
In the 19th century, two figures were paramount in German opera: Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
and Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
. Wagner introduced devices like the leitmotiv, a musical theme which recurs for important characters or ideas. Wagner (and Weber) based his operas of German history and folklore, most importantly including the Ring of the Nibelung
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
(1874). Into the 20th century, opera composers included Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
(Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
) and Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
, who wrote operas meant for young audiences. Across the border in Austria, Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
innovated a form of twelve-tone music that used rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
and dissonance
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
instead of traditional melodies and harmonies, while Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Bertold Brecht collaborated on some of the great works of German theater, including Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed in Leipzig on 9 March 1930.-Composition history:...
and The Three-Penny Opera.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany during the 1930s, many musicians fled the country. Following the war, German composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
and Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
began experimenting electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
sounds in classical music.
Baroque period
Baroque music, which was the first music to use tonalityTonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
in the modern sense, is also known for its ornamentation
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
and artistic use of counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
. It originated in Northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
at the end of the 16th century, and the style migrated quickly to Germany, which was one of the most active centers of early Baroque music. Early German Baroque composers included Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
, Michael Praetorius
Michael Praetorius
Michael Praetorius was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to make better the relationship between...
, Johann Schein
Johann Schein
Johann Hermann Schein was a German composer of the early Baroque era. He was born in Grünhain and died in Leipzig...
, and Samuel Scheidt
Samuel Scheidt
Samuel Scheidt was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era.-Biography:...
. The culmination of the Baroque era was undoubtedly in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
in the first half of the 18th century. Bach wrote numerous Baroque works, including preludes
Prelude (music)
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. The prelude can be thought of as a preface. It may stand on its own or introduce another work...
, cantatas
Bach cantata
Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
, fugue
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
s, concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
s for harpsichord, violin and wind, orchestral suites, the Brandenburg Concertos, St Matthew Passion, St John Passion and the Christmas Oratorio
Christmas Oratorio
The Christmas Oratorio BWV 248, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It was written for the Christmas season of 1734 incorporating music from earlier compositions, including three secular cantatas written during 1733 and 1734 and a...
. Bach's contemporaries included Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
and Georg Friedrich Händel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
, the latter best known for the oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
....
Classical era
By the middle of the 18th century, the cities of ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
had become the center for orchestral music. The Esterházy princes of Vienna, for example, were the patrons of Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, an Austrian who invented the classic format of the string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
, symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
and sonata. Later that century, Vienna's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
emerged, mixing German and Italian traditions into his own style.
Romantic era
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
and Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
. Beethoven, a student of Haydn's in Vienna, used unusually daring harmonies
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
and rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
and composed numerous pieces for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s and an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
. Schubert created a field of artistic, romantic poetry and music called lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
; his lieder cycles included Die schöne Müllerin
Die schöne Müllerin
Die schöne Müllerin , is a song cycle by Franz Schubert on poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the earliest extended song cycle to be widely performed. The work is considered one of Schubert's most important, and it is widely performed and recorded....
and Der Erlkönig
Der Erlkönig
Der Erlkönig is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking or "Erlkönig"...
.
Early in the 19th century, a composer by the name of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
was born. He was a "Musician of the Future" who disliked the strict traditionalist styles of music. He is credited with developing leitmotivs which were simple recurring themes found in his operas. His music changed the course of opera and of music in general, forever.
The later 19th century saw Vienna continue its elevated position in European classical music, as well as a burst of popularity with Viennese waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es. These were composed by people like Johann Strauss the Younger. Other German composers from the period included Albert Lortzing
Albert Lortzing
Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.-Biography:Lortzing was born in Berlin to Johann Gottlieb Lortzing and Charlotte Sophie...
, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
, Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
, Max Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, and Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
. These composers tended to mix classic and romantic elements.
20th Century
The first half of 20th century saw a split between German and Austrian music. In Vienna, Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and his pupils Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
and Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
moved along an increasingly avant-garde path, pioneering atonal music
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
in 1909 and twelve-tone music in 1923. Meanwhile, composers in Berlin took a more populist route, from the cabaret-like socialist operas of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
to the Gebrauchsmusik
Gebrauchsmusik
Gebrauchsmusik is a German term, essentially meaning “utility music,” for music that exists not only for its own sake, but which was composed for some specific, identifiable purpose...
of Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
. In Munich there was also Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
, whose "Carmina Burana" was and remains hugely popular. Many composers emigrated to the United States when the Nazi Party came to power, including Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Erich Korngold. During this period, the Nazi Party embarked on a campaign to rid Germany of so-called degenerate art
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
, which became a catch-all phrase that included music with any link to Jews, Communists, jazz, and anything else thought to be dangerous. Some figures such as Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Karl Amadeus Hartmann was a German composer. Some have lauded him as the greatest German symphonist of the 20th century, although he is now largely overlooked, particularly in English-speaking countries.-Life:...
remained defiantly in Germany during the years of Nazi dominance, continually watchful of how their output might be interpreted by the authorities.
After the dissolution of the Third Reich, musicians were also subjected to the Allied policy of denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
. But here, the supposed non-political nature of music was able to excuse many, including Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
and Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
(who had actually joined the Nazi Party in 1933). They both claimed to have concentrated mainly on music and to have ignored politics, but also to have conducted pieces in ways that were meant to be "gestures of defiance."
In West Germany in the second half of the 20th century, German and Austrian music was largely dominated by the avant-garde. In the 60s and 70s, the Darmstadt New Music Summer School
Darmstadt New Music Summer School
Initiated in 1946 by Wolfgang Steinecke, the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt , held annually until 1970 and subsequently every two years, encompass both the teaching of composition and interpretation and include premières of new works...
was a major center of European modernism; German composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
and Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
and non-German ones such as Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
and Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
all studied there. In contrast, composers in East Germany were advised to avoid the avant-garde and to compose music in keeping with the tenets of Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
. Music written in this style was supposed to advance party politics as well as be more accessible to all. Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
and Ernst Hermann Meyer
Ernst Hermann Meyer
Ernst Hermann Ludimar Meyer was a German composer and musicologist.Meyer was a significant composer and musicologist, his works include numerous songs, as...
were among the most famous of the first generation of GDR composers.
More recently, composers such as Helmut Lachenmann
Helmut Lachenmann
Helmut Lachenmann is a German composer associated with musique concrète instrumentale.-Life and works:...
and Olga Neuwirth
Olga Neuwirth
Olga Neuwirth is an Austrian composer.As a child at the age of seven, Neuwirth began lessons on trumpet. She later studied composition in Vienna at the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts under Erich Urbanner, while studying at the Electroacoustic Institute...
have extensively explored the possibilities of extended techniques. Hans Werner Henze largely dissociated himself from the Darmstadt school in favour of a more lyrical approach, and remains perhaps Germany's most lauded living composer. Although he has lived outside the country since the 1950s, he remains influenced by the Germanic musical tradition.
Classical music festivals
The largest summer festival for classical music in Germany is the Schleswig-Holstein Musik FestivalSchleswig-Holstein Musik Festival
The Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival is a classical music festival held every year in summer time all over the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany....
.
Folk music
Germany has many unique regions with their own folk traditions of music and dance. Much of the 20th century saw German culture appropriated for the ruling powers (who fought "foreign" music at the same time). Most recently, the East German regime promoted folk music as long as it was what they saw as an expression of pure German tradition, and a tool for spreading party propaganda.In both East and West Germany, folk songs called volkslieder
Volkslieder
Volkslieder is the seventh studio album of Dieter Falk. The album has only appearance of the artist Senna Guemmour of Monrose and Rapsoul.- Track listing :#Heyo, spann den Wagen an#Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust...
were taught to children; these were popular, sunny and optimistic, and had little relation to authentic German folk traditions. Inspired by American and English roots revival
Roots revival
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
s, Germany underwent many of the same changes following the 1968 student revolution in West Germany, and new songs, featuring political activism and realistic joy, sadness and passion, were written and performed on the burgeoning folk scene. In East Germany, the same process did not begin until the mid-70s, when folk musicians began incorporating revolutionary ideas in coded songs.
Popular folk songs included emigration songs from the 19th century, work song
Work song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....
s and songs of apprentices, as well as democracy-oriented folk songs collected in the 1950s by Wolfgang Steinitz. Beginning in 1970, the Festival des politischen Liedes, an East German festival focusing on political songs, was held annually and organized (until 1980) by the FDJ
Free German Youth
The Free German Youth, also known as the FDJ , was the official socialist youth movement of the German Democratic Republic and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany....
(East German youth association). Musicians from up to thirty countries would participate, and, for many East Germans, it was the only exposure possible to foreign music. Among foreign musicians at the festival, some were quite renowned, including Inti Illimani (Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
), Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg
Stephen William Bragg , better known as Billy Bragg, is an English alternative rock musician and left-wing activist. His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, and his lyrics mostly deal with political or romantic themes...
(England), Dick Gaughan
Dick Gaughan
Richard Peter Gaughan usually known as Dick Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer, and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs.-Early years:...
(Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
), Mercedes Sosa
Mercedes Sosa
Haydée Mercedes Sosa, known as La Negra, was an Argentine singer who was popular throughout South America and some countries outside the continent. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She gave voice to songs written by both...
(Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
) and Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
(United States), while German performers included, from both East and West, Oktoberclub, Wacholder
Wacholder
Wacholder is a German gin, distilled with the juniper essence already added. The word is German for juniper. Wacholder is a speciality of the district of Lippe....
and Hannes Wader
Hannes Wader
Hannes Wader is a German singer-songwriter . He was an important figure in German leftist circles from the 1970s on, with his songs covering such themes as socialist and communist resistance to oppression in Europe and other places like Latin America...
.
Oom-pah
Oom-pah is a kind of music played by the brass bandBrass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
s; it is associated with beer hall
Beer hall
A beer hall is a large pub that specializes in beer. Bavaria's capital Munich is the city most associated with beer halls; almost every brewery in Munich operates a beer hall...
s.
Bavaria
BavariaBavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n folk music is likely the most well-known outside of Germany. Yodeling
Yodeling
Yodeling is a form of singing that involves singing an extended note which rapidly and repeatedly changes in pitch from the vocal or chest register to the falsetto/head register; making a high-low-high-low sound.The English word yodel is derived from a German word jodeln meaning "to...
and schuhplattler
Schuhplattler
The Schuhplattler is a traditional Austro-Bavarian folk dance evolved from the Ländler.-Origins:The origins of this social dance are found in an early courtship display...
dancers are among the stereotyped images of German folk life, though these are only found today in the southernmost areas, and to cater to tourists. Bavarian folk music has played a role in the Alpine New Wave, and produced several pioneering world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
groups that fuse traditional Bavarian sounds with foreign styles.
It was around the turn of the 20th century, across Europe and especially in Bavaria, many people became concerned about a loss of cultural traditions. This idea was connected to the Heimatschutz
Heimatschutz
Heimatschutz is a German word which literally translated means, "homeland protection."In 1916, Austrian Max Dvorak's Katechismus der DenkmalpfIege appeared...
movement, which sought to protect regional identities and boundaries. What is considered Bavarian folk music in modern Germany is not the same as what Bavarian folk music was in the early 20th century; like any kind of folk or popular music, styles and traditions have evolved over time, giving birth to new forms of music.
The popularity of the Volkssänger (people's singer) in Bavaria began in the 1880s, and continued in earnest until the 1920s. Shows consisting of duets, ensemble songs, humor and parodies were popular, but the format began changing significantly following World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Bally Prell, the "Beauty Queen of Schneizlreuth
Schneizlreuth
Schneizlreuth is a municipality in the district of Berchtesgadener Land in Bavaria in Germany....
", was emblematic of this change. She was an attractive tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
who sang lieder, chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
.
Swabia
SwabiaSwabia
Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.-Geography:Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined...
n folk music is most popularly represented by acts like Saiten Fell and Firlefanz and the singer-songwriter (and player of the hurdy-gurdy and guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
) Thomas Felder.
Sorbs
The beginning of a SorbianSorbs
Sorbs are a Western Slavic people of Central Europe living predominantly in Lusatia, a region on the territory of Germany and Poland. In Germany they live in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony. They speak the Sorbian languages - closely related to Polish and Czech - officially recognized and...
nationalist music scene can be traced back to the first Sorbian song festival. Held in Bautzen
Bautzen
Bautzen is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and administrative centre of the eponymous district. It is located on the Spree River. As of 2008, its population is 41,161...
in 1845, and directed by Korla August Kocor, the festival helped revitalize Sorbian folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
. The same period saw the publication of more than five hundred Sorbian songs by Smoler and Haupt in the collection Folksongs of Upper and Lower Sorbs.
Danish-Germans
Ethnic Danes living in Germany are clustered in the state of Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
. Danish folk music is typically based around a fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
and accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
duo.
Early popular music
Between World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, German music branched out to form new, more liberal and independent styles.
Cabaret
The first form of German pop musicPop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
is said to be cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
, which arose during the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
in the 1920s as the sensual music of late-night clubs. Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and Margo Lion were among the most famous performers of the period, and became associated with both humorous satire and liberal ideas. "Wenn die beste Freundin" (1928) was an early lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
-themed song.
Swing Movement
The strict regimentation of youth culture in Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
through the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
led to the emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were able better to exert their independence.
One of these consisted mainly of upper middle class youths, who based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting the völkisch music propagated by the Party in place of American jazz forms, especially Swing
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
. While musical preferences are often a feature of youthful rebellion - as the history of rock and roll shows - jazz and especially Swing were particularly offensive to the Nazi hierarchy: not only did they promote sexual permissiveness, but they were also associated with the American enemy and worse, with the African race they considered inferior. To the Nazis, jazz was "Negro music".
On the other hand, Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
assembled some of the now jobless musicians from Germany and conquered countries into a big band called Charlie and His Orchestra
Charlie and his Orchestra
Charlie and his Orchestra were a Nazi-sponsored German propaganda swing band...
to perform Nazified versions of popular swing hits to be played in propaganda broadcasts.
Post-War popular music
After World War II, German pop music was much influenced by music from USA and Great Britain. Apart from Schlager and Liedermacher, it is necessary to distinguish between pop music in West GermanyWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and pop music in East Germany which developed in different directions. Pop music from West Germany was often heard in East Germany, had more variety and is still present today, while East German music had only little influence.
In West Germany, English-language pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
became more and more important, and today most songs on the radio are English. Nevertheless there is a big diversity of German language pop music. There is also English-language pop music from Germany, some having international success (for instance the Scorpions
Scorpions (band)
Scorpions are a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, formed in 1965 by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, who is the band's only constant member. They are known for their 1980s rock anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and many singles, such as "No One Like You", "Send Me an Angel", "Still...
), but little with enduring broad success in Germany itself. There was hardly any English pop music from East Germany.
Germany has also had a thriving English-language pop scene since the end of the war, with several European and American acts topping the charts. However, Germans and German-oriented musicians have been successful as well. In the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century such European pop acts were popular as well as artists like Sarah Connor, Marc Terenzi
Marc Terenzi
Marc Eric Terenzi is an American pop singer formerly of the boy band Natural. He was married to German pop/soul singer Sarah Connor from 2005-2008. They have a son named Tyler and a daughter named Summer.-Early life:...
, No Angels
No Angels
The No Angels are an all-female pop trio from Germany, consisting of band members Lucy Diakovska, Sandy Mölling, and Jessica Wahls. Critically acclaimed, the band has won dozen of awards and prizes since their establishment in the early 2000s, including three ECHOs, a World Music Awards, a NRJ...
, Monrose
Monrose
Monrose was a German pop band, first established in November 2006. Formed on the fifth installment of the German adaption of the international television talent show Popstars on the ProSieben network, the trio consisted of singers and songwriters Mandy Capristo, Senna Guemmour, and Bahar...
, and US5
US5
US5 are a multinational pop boy band. The band originated in 2005 on the German RTL II television reality show Big in America and debuted in June of the same year on Lou Pearlman’s Transcontinental label...
all who performed various types of mainstream pop in English. Many of these acts have had success all over Europe and Asia as well, although few have cracked the American market.
Schlager and Volksmusik
Schlager is a kind of vocal pop music, frequently in the form of sentimental balladBallad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s sung in German, popularized by singers such as Gitte Hænning
Gitte Hænning
Gitte Hænning is a Danish singer and film actress, who rose to fame as a child star in the 1950s.Because her name was relatively unique, she was known primarily without a surname in Europe. She moved to Sweden in 1958. Her first hit in Swedish was "Tror du jag ljuger" from 1961...
and Rex Gildo
Rex Gildo
Rex Gildo was a German singer of Schlager ballads who reached the height of his popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, selling over 25 million records and starring in film and television roles....
in the 1960s, though not without a wide range within the style (Modern Schlager, Schlager-Gold, Volksmusik resp. "volkstümlicher Schlager"). Schlager/Volksmusik is strictly separated from international pop music and is only played on special format radio stations (sometimes mixed with international Oldies).
An important part of Schlager is volkstümliche Musik
Volkstümliche Musik
Volkstümliche Musik is a modern variation on the traditional music of German-speaking countries in general and their Alpine regions in particular...
, a Schlager-like interpretation of traditional German folk themes that is very popular in German speaking countries, especially among the older generation.
Schlager has a wide variety, and the artists with many different styles for example Heino
Heino
Heino is a German singer of popular music and traditional Volksmusik....
, Lou Hoffner
Lou (singer)
Lou is the stage name of Louise Hoffner , a German pop singer. She was the sixth child of her parents and was immediately surrounded by her elder brothers and sisters...
(Eurovision Entrant 2003
Eurovision Song Contest 2003
The Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the forty-eighth Eurovision Song Contest, held at the Skonto Hall in Riga, Latvia on 24 May 2003. The hosts were Marie N and Renārs Kaupers. Sertab Erener, the Turkish entrant, won the contest with "Everyway That I Can", scoring 167 points. The winning...
), Wolfgang Petry, Guildo Horn
Guildo Horn
Guildo Horn He is mainly famous for his eccentric stage persona, which includes outrageous clothes and very extroverted antics.At the Eurovision Song Contest 1998, he came in 7th with the title "Guildo hat euch lieb!" ....
and many others.
Liedermacher
Liedermacher (Songwriter) has sophisticated lyrics and is sung with minimal instrumentation, for instance only with acoustic guitar. Some songs are very political in nature. This is related to American Folk/AmericanaAmericana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
and French Chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
styles.
Famous West German Liedermacher are Reinhard Mey
Reinhard Mey
Reinhard Friedrich Michael Mey is a German singer-songwriter, known to fans as "Liedermacher". In France he is known as Frédérik Mey....
, Hannes Wader
Hannes Wader
Hannes Wader is a German singer-songwriter . He was an important figure in German leftist circles from the 1970s on, with his songs covering such themes as socialist and communist resistance to oppression in Europe and other places like Latin America...
and Konstantin Wecker
Konstantin Wecker
Konstantin Alexander Wecker is one of the best-known German singer-songwriters ; he also works as a composer, author, and actor.- Life and work :...
. Famous East German Liedermacher are Gerhard Schöne and Barbara Thalheim.
Very popular in Germany also is Herman van Veen
Herman van Veen
Hermannus Jantinus "Herman" van Veen is a Dutch stage performer, actor, musician and singer/songwriter and author. He is most famous as the creator of the Dutch-Japanese cartoon Alfred J...
from the Netherlands.
Most Liedermacher artists also record special albums for children.
Rock
Genuine German rock first appeared around 1968, just as the hippieHippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
countercultural
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
explosion was peaking in the US and UK. At the time, the German musical avant-garde had been experimenting with electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
for more than a decade, and the first German rock bands fused psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
from abroad with electronic sounds. The next few years saw the formation of a group of bands that came to be known as Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
or Kosmische Musik groups; these included Amon Düül
Amon Düül
-External links:* - Extensive bio @ Perfect Sound Forever* mainly focussed on their collaboration with Robert Calvert of Hawkwind...
, Embryo
Embryo (band)
Embryo is a musical collective from Munich which has been active since 1969, although its story started in the mid-1950s in Hof where Christian Burchard and Dieter Serfas met for the first time at the age of 10...
, Embryo's Dissidenten, who later became the world music pioneers Dissidenten
Dissidenten
Dissidenten are a German rock band known for their collaborations with Middle Eastern, African and Indian musicians and the main protagonists of what the New York Times described in the 1980s as "world beat movement, led by groups like Dissidenten...."...
, Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
, Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
, Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
, Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
and Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
.
German Rock had become a very popular kind of German music. Many people were influenced by Germany's great rock, so there were more and more fans excited to hear the sounds of this music. Before that development rock music in Germany was a negligible part of the schlager
Schlager
Schlager music is a style of popular music prevalent in Central and Northern Europe and the Balkans and also in France and Poland. In Portugal, it was adapted and became pimba music...
genre covered by interprets like Peter Kraus
Peter Kraus
Peter Kraus is a German singer and actor.Born Peter Siegfried Krausenecker in Munich, Kraus was popular especially in the 1950s, notably in those musical comedy films where he played opposite Cornelia Froboess.- Youth :...
and Ted Herold who used to play Rock-n-Roll standards by Little Richard or Bill Haley, sometimes translated into German language.
A great impact on German postwar culture had the US military radio station American Forces Network
American Forces Network
The American Forces Network is the brand name used by the United States Armed Forces American Forces Radio and Television Service for its entertainment and command internal information networks worldwide...
(AFN) which was formative for the further development of the German rock and jazz culture. Bill Ramsey
Bill Ramsey (singer)
Bill Ramsey is German - American jazz and pop singer, journalist and actor. Famous for his German-language hits.- Biography :...
who appeared to be senior producer of AFN Frankfurt in 1953 later rose to a famous career as jazz and (later) Schlager singer in Germany while he remained almost unknown in his country of origin from Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
.
Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW)
Neue Deutsche Welle is an outgrowth of British punk rockPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
which appeared in the mid-to late 1970s. It was the first successful unique German music but was limited in its stylistic devices (funny lyrics and surreal composition and production). Though it was a huge success in Germany itself in the 1980s, this was not long-lasting mostly due to over-commercialization. Some artists became famous internationally:
- NenaNenaGabriele Susanne Kerner , better known by her stage name Nena, is a German singer and actress. She rose to international fame in 1983 with the New German Wave song "99 Luftballons". In 1984, she re-recorded this song in English as "99 Red Balloons". Nena was also the name of the band with whom she...
- FalcoFalco (musician)Johann Hölzel , better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper. He had several international hits: "Der Kommissar", "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home " and posthumously, "Out Of The Dark"...
(from Austria) - Joachim WittJoachim WittJoachim Witt is a German musician and actor.- Life and work :Joachim Witt became a major star of the German pop scene during the eighties with huge hits such as "Der Goldene Reiter"...
Popular solo artists
In the 1980s most German-language popular music was sung by male solo artists. Here are few very popular singers:- Udo LindenbergUdo LindenbergUdo Lindenberg is a German rock musician and composer.-Career:Lindenberg started his musical career as a drummer. In 1969 Lindenberg founded his first band Free Orbit and also appeared as a studio and guest musician . In 1970 he collaborated as a drummer with jazz-saxophonist Klaus Doldinger in...
- Herbert GrönemeyerHerbert GrönemeyerHerbert Grönemeyer is a German musician and actor, popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He starred as war correspondent Lieutenant Werner in Wolfgang Petersen's movie Das Boot, but later concentrated on his musical career...
- Marius Müller-WesternhagenMarius Müller-WesternhagenMarius Müller-Westernhagen is a German actor and musician.Possibly best known for the maudlin hit "Johnny Walker", Marius Müller Westernhagen has been a feature in German rock music since the mid seventies...
- Peter MaffayPeter MaffayPeter Alexander Makkay better known as Peter Maffay is a German musician.- Biography :Born in Brasov, Romania, the son of a German , he was 14 when his family relocated to his parents' Germany in 1963. In the same year, he started his first band, The Dukes...
Grönemeyer has managed best to maintain his success up to today. Maffay developed from Schlager to rock and has a large but delimited fan base - he is seldom played on the radio.
Annah Graefe is a German female folksinger whose web site has cultivated an international following.
Hamburger Schule
Hamburger SchuleHamburger Schule
The Hamburger Schule is a musical current in Germany during the 1980s and early 1990s. With some active bands and artists it is still present. It is encompassing elements from punk, grunge and experimental pop, and featuring intelligent lyrics...
(School of Hamburg) is an underground music-movement that started in the late 1980s and was still active till around the mid 1990s. It has similar traditions as Neue Deutsche Welle
Neue Deutsche Welle
Neue Deutsche Welle is a genre of German music originally derived from punk rock and New Wave music...
and mixed all that with punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
and experimental pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
. Hamburger Schule has been an important part of Germany's youth and gave the term "Pop" a new definition, as now it was "ok" (or "cool") to sing in the German language. Hamburger Schule also includes intellectual lyrics with postmodern theories and social criticism. Important artists are:
- BlumfeldBlumfeldBlumfeld was an indie-pop band from Hamburg, Germany, formed by singer and songwriter Jochen Distelmeyer. The name of the band was coined by the main character of the short story "Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle" by Franz Kafka...
- Die SterneDie SterneDie Sterne is a two/three/four-piece indie pop band, from Hamburg, Germany. They were formed in 1992 and have released eight studio albums, the most recent in 2010.-Members:...
- TocotronicTocotronicTocotronic is a German rock band founded in 1993 . Similar to Blumfeld or Die Sterne they are considered a part of the Hamburger Schule movement...
Popular music from East Germany
Ostrock
By the early 1970s, experimental West German rock styles had crossed the border into East Germany and influenced the creation of an East German rock movement referred to as OstrockOstrock
Ostrock is rock music from the formerly communist East Germany. The word derives from the German word "ost" , and "rock" .-Notable ostrock bands:* City* Feeling B* Gerhard Gundermann* Nina Hagen* Karat* Keimzeit* Lift...
. On the other side of the Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
, these bands tended to be stylistically more conservative than in the West, to have more reserved engineering, and often to include more classical and traditional structures (such as those developed by Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
in their 1920s Berlin theater songs). These groups often featured poetic lyrics loaded with indirect double-meanings and deeply philosophical challenges to the status quo. As such, they were a style of Krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
. The best-known of these bands were:
- The PuhdysPuhdysThe Puhdys are a veteran German rock band, formed in Oranienburg , in what was then the German Democratic Republic, in 1969, although they had been performing together, with various lineups, as the Puhdys since 1965. They continue to record and tour...
- Karat
- CityCity (band)City is a German rock band, formed in East Berlin in 1972, best known for the song "Am Fenster" from its 1978 first album....
- SillySilly (band)Silly is a German rock band. Founded in East Germany in the year 1978, Silly was one of the country's most popular music acts, and was well known for its charismatic lead singer Tamara Danz. Her death in 1996 ended the band's recording career for 14 years...
Only a few individual songs, such as "Am Fenster" by City
City (band)
City is a German rock band, formed in East Berlin in 1972, best known for the song "Am Fenster" from its 1978 first album....
and "Über sieben Brücken mußt Du geh'n" by Karat, found wide popularity outside the GDR.
There was also a wide diversity of underground bands. Out of this scene later grew the internationally successful band Rammstein
Rammstein
Rammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
(see Neue Deutsche Härte below).
New German popular music
In the 1990s, German-language groups had only limited popularity, and only a few artists managed to be played on the radio, for example RammsteinRammstein
Rammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
, Rosenstolz
Rosenstolz
Rosenstolz is a German music band from Berlin. Their music combines several styles including rock, pop and ballads. AnNa R. and Peter Plate form the duo. They had their breakthrough in 1998 with the song Herzensschöner...
or Die Prinzen
Die Prinzen
Die Prinzen is a German music group. The band is made up of former members of the Thomanerchor and a former member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor.-Overview:Early albums consist of a cappella music...
.
This changed in 2002 with the success of Wir sind Helden
Wir sind Helden
Wir sind Helden is a German Alternative Rock band from Berlin, established in 2001 in Hamburg. The quartet is composed of lead singer Judith Holofernes and musicians Pola Roy, Mark Tavassol, and Jean-Michel Tourette. The group's style has often been considered similar to that of the Neue Deutsche...
, a German band with a new musical self-confidence. This success was followed by several other bands and a broader acceptance of existing German-language recording artists, such as:
- BeatsteaksBeatsteaksBeatsteaks are a punk rock band from Berlin, Germany, formed in 1995.- History :Peter Baumann, Stefan Hircher, Alexander Rosswaag and Bernd Kurtzke founded the Beatsteaks in 1995. Shortly after Arnim Teutoburg-Weiß joined the band as a singer and additional guitarist...
- Sportfreunde StillerSportfreunde StillerSportfreunde Stiller is a German antifascist rock band from Germering, near Munich, in Bavaria.The band was founded in 1996 by Peter "Balboa" Brugger , Florian "Rakete" Weber , and Rüdiger "Rüde" Linhof . They took their original name, Stiller, from their former football manager, Hans Stiller, at...
(already before 2002) - JuliJuliIn the German, Dutch, Scandinavian, South Slavic , and Indonesian languages, the name for "July" , but also:* The name of a female...
- SilbermondSilbermondSilbermond is a German rock band from Bautzen, Saxony. The band consists of Stefanie Kloß, Andreas Nowak, Johannes and Thomas Stolle.-Biography:...
- MIA.MIA.MIA. is a German rock/pop band from Berlin.-Biography:MIA. originally formed in 1997 when TV host Sarah Kuttner introduced schoolmates Mieze and Andreas Ross to Robert Schütze and Ingo Puls...
- Annett LouisanAnnett LouisanAnnett Louisan is a German singer. She lives in Berlin, Germany. Louisan is her stage name, derived from the name of her grandmother, Louise....
- Tokio HotelTokio HotelTokio Hotel is a pop rock band from Germany, founded in 2001 by singer Bill Kaulitz, guitarist Tom Kaulitz, drummer Gustav Schäfer and bassist Georg Listing...
- Oomph!Oomph!Oomph! is a German rock band that was formed in Wolfsburg, Germany in 1989. The band is considered to be the original Neue Deutsche Härte musical group. In the 22-year history of the band, there have been no line-up changes.-Early years :...
Hip hop
Outside of the United States, Germany generates the most sales for recorded hip hopHip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, and has one of the more vibrant scenes in the world. Hip hop arrived in the early 1980s, and graffiti
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
and breakdancing became well-known quickly, with hip hop crews appearing soon thereafter.
The huge commercial success started in 1992 with the hit "Die Da" from Die Fantastischen Vier
Die Fantastischen Vier
Die Fantastischen Vier , also known as Fanta 4, is a German hip hop group from Stuttgart, Germany. The members are Michael Bernd Schmidt alias Smudo, Andreas Rieke alias And.Ypsilon, Thomas Dürr alias Hausmeister Thomas D and Michael 'Michi' Beck alias Dee Jot Hausmarke...
from Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. This band makes rather funny and sophisticated hip hop. The Rödelheim Hartreim Projekt
Rödelheim Hartreim Projekt
The Rödelheim Hartreim Project , for short RHP, was a mid-nineties German rap group from Rödelheim, a part of Frankfurt. The group comprised two members, Moses P. and Thomas H....
tried to establish a more USA-like "gangster" rap. An early major influent group was Advanced Chemistry
Advanced Chemistry
Advanced Chemistry is a German hip hop group from Heidelberg, a scenic city in Baden-Württemberg, South Germany. Advanced Chemistry was founded in 1987 by Toni L, Linguist, Gee-One, DJ Mike MD and MC Torch...
including Torch
Torch (rapper)
Frederik Hahn , better known by his stage name Torch, is a German rapper with Haitian roots. He was among the first German rappers who began rapping in German in the mid-1980s in Heidelberg, laying the foundation for the success of German hip hop music...
.
Advanced Chemistry was very important to German hip-hop and influential to German listeners. They sparked a huge interest in speaking out for the youth of Germany, especially the immigrants. Advanced Chemistry exploded onto the German hip hop scene in November 1992 with their first mixed single entitled "Fremd in eigenem Land" (Foreign in Your Own Country). This single was the first of its kind to go beyond simply imitating US rap and addressed the current issues of the time, which was the widespread racism that non-white German citizens faced. Immigration was a big issue in Germany and prompted hip-hop artists, who were children of immigrants, to use rap and hip hop as a way to defend themselves in their country. Advanced Chemistry frequently rapped about their lives and experiences as children of immigrants exposing what was experienced by most ethnic minorities in Germany, and the feelings of frustration and resentment that being denied a German identity can cause.
Fettes Brot, a hip-hop group from Hamburg, has been very successful since their beginning in 1992. They are well versed in pop-culture and sing about funny topics, such as infidelity and boasting about their prowess with women.
Whereas hip hop had a peak of success in the early first decade of the 21st century, with bands from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
dominating the scene, gangster rap became an important and controversial part of German music and youth culture just as late as 2004 with Aggro Berlin
Aggro Berlin
Aggro Berlin was a German hip-hop independent record label based in Berlin, Germany that existed from 1 January 2001 until 1 April 2009. Three artists; Sido, Tony D and Kitty Kat were signed with the label at the time of its closure....
.
German hip hop was an adopted style from several different places. There is often debate as to whether or not German hip hop is authentic or just a compilation of mimicry. German hip hop “started out as a transnational and cosmopolitan youth subculture that was...predominantly English raps.” Rap was also used by immigrant youth to create a type of exaggerated outsiderism as a mechanism of self defense in German society. It could be ventured that the authenticity of German hip hop only obtains its originality once the German language flows seemingly naturally with the music.
Punk
German punkGerman punk
Punk rock and punk subculture have created a popular scene in Germany since punk music became popular in the 1970s.- The beginning :When bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash became popular in West Germany, a number of Punk bands were formed, which led to the creation a German punk scene...
has a long and diverse history. Important rock band like Die Ärzte
Die Ärzte
Die Ärzte is a punk band from Berlin. Die Ärzte are one of the best-known German punk rock bands and have released over 20 albums. The band consists of guitarist Farin Urlaub, drummer Bela B. and bass player Rodrigo González...
, Die Toten Hosen
Die Toten Hosen
Die Toten Hosen is a German punk band from Düsseldorf. They have enjoyed decades-long mass appeal in Germany.The band's name literally means "The Dead Pants" in English, although the phrase "tote Hose" is a German expression meaning "nothing going on" or "boring"...
, Böhse Onkelz
Böhse Onkelz
The Böhse Onkelz were a German rock group that existed from 1980 to 2005. Although being ignored by the mass media for their controversial past, since Viva los tioz in 1998 almost every album reached number one on the German album charts. According to record certifications and additional sources...
originated from the underground punk scene in the 1980s.
Even most Germans don't know that there are a lot of punk bands with their primary audience in Japan, which stay relatively unknown to German listeners.
Metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
. It is considered by many to be one of Europe's heaviest contributors to the scene. The genre is quite popular within the country. Early Hard Rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
/ Heavy metal was brought to German soil with success of Scorpions
Scorpions (band)
Scorpions are a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, formed in 1965 by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, who is the band's only constant member. They are known for their 1980s rock anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and many singles, such as "No One Like You", "Send Me an Angel", "Still...
. Germany is today known for its large metal festivals including Wacken Open Air
Wacken Open Air
Wacken Open Air is a summer open air heavy metal music festival. It takes place annually in the small town of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany...
, Summer Breeze Open Air
Summer Breeze Open Air
Summer Breeze Open Air is a heavy metal music festival in Germany. It takes place annually in Dinkelsbühl, Bavaria. It was first held in 1997. The festival had been held in Abtsgmünd until 2006 when it was moved to its new location of Dinkelsbühl. The festival draws around 40,000 attendees annually...
and Party.San Open Air
Party.San Open Air
Party.San Open Air is a metal festival held annually in Bad Berka, Germany since 1996. The 2012 edition will took place on August 9 - August 11.-History:The festival was founded in 1996 as an open air birthday party with a few local bands...
.
Germany has a strong tradition of Speed metal
Speed metal
Speed metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that originated in the late 1970s from NWOBHM and hardcore punk roots. It is described by Allmusic as "extremely fast, abrasive, and technically demanding" music....
and Power metal
Power metal
Power metal is a style of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional metal with speed metal, often within symphonic context. The term refers to two different but related styles: the first pioneered and largely practiced in North America with a harder sound similar to speed metal, and a...
. Early speed metal bands include Running Wild
Running Wild (band)
Running Wild is a German heavy metal band, formed in 1976 in Hamburg. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid 1980s. The band has carved its niche in the metal world as the first "pirate metal" band, a theme which took off with the release of Under...
, Grave Digger
Grave Digger (band)
Grave Digger are a German heavy metal/power metal band formed in 1980. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid 1980s.-Band history:...
, Rage
Rage (band)
Rage are a German heavy metal band, formed in 1984. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid 1980s, along with bands such as Helloween, Running Wild and Blind Guardian.-Background:...
, and to some extent Accept
Accept
Accept is a German heavy metal band from the town of Solingen, originally assembled by former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes. Their beginnings can be traced back to the late 1960s...
. The European style of Power metal, born in Germany, was popularized by German bands like Blind Guardian
Blind Guardian
Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres...
, Helloween
Helloween
Helloween is a German power metal band founded in the mid 1980s by members of Iron Fist and Powerfool. The band was a pioneering force in the European Power Metal movement and their second and third studio albums, Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt...
, Gamma Ray
Gamma Ray (band)
Gamma Ray is a power metal band from Hamburg, northern Germany, founded and fronted by Kai Hansen after his departure from the German power metal Helloween. Hansen is the current lead vocalist, guitarist as well as the chief songwriter of Gamma Ray. The band is known as one of the most prominent...
, and gained international recognition. In many cases these bands initially started out playing Speed metal, but later switched to Power metal.
Two local variants of metal subgenres exist in Germany. The teutonic thrash metal
Teutonic thrash metal
Teutonic thrash metal is a regional scene of thrash metal music that originated during the 1980s in Germany. Along with Bay Area thrash metal, East Coast thrash metal, and Brazilian thrash metal, it was one of the major scenes of thrash metal in the 1980s....
scene is represented by such groups as Exumer
Exumer
Exumer is a German thrash metal band formed in 1985.They disbanded after two demos and two albums and reunited again in 2001.- History :...
, Violent Force, Sodom
Sodom (band)
Sodom is a German Thrash metal trio from Gelsenkirchen, formed in 1981.Along with the bands Kreator and Destruction, Sodom is considered one of the "big three" of Teutonic thrash metal...
, Kreator
Kreator
Kreator is a thrash metal band from Essen, Germany, formed in 1978, but formalized in 1982 under the name Tormentor. They originally performed a speed metal style with Venom influences. Their style of music is similar to their compatriots Destruction and Sodom, the other two big German thrash metal...
, Tankard
Tankard (band)
Tankard is a thrash metal band from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, founded in 1982. After losing their guitarist because of their image as a bunch of drunks, they moved on to issue their first record in 1986. From that point on, the band has continuously made songs and records in the same style they...
and Destruction
Destruction (band)
Destruction is a German thrash metal band. They are considered one of the "three kings" of the Teutonic thrash metal scene, the others being Kreator and Sodom...
. Medieval metal, a branch of folk metal
Folk metal
Folk metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. As the name suggests, the genre is a fusion of heavy metal with traditional folk music...
incorporates German traditional music with industrial metal
Industrial metal
Industrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
. It includes Subway to Sally
Subway to Sally
Subway to Sally was founded in Potsdam, Germany, in the early 1990s. It is a rock band with clear folk and medieval influences, later also with gothic and metal elements added to the mix...
, In Extremo
In Extremo
In Extremo is a German medieval metal band originating from Berlin. The band's musical style combines metal with medieval traditional songs, blending the sound of the standard rock/metal instruments with historical instruments...
, Corvus Corax
Corvus Corax (band)
Corvus Corax is a German band known for playing Neo-Medieval music using an abundance of authentic instruments. Their name is the latin name for the Common Raven. The band was formed in 1989 by Castus Rabensang, Wim and Meister Selbfried in East Germany...
and Schandmaul
Schandmaul
Schandmaul is a German medieval folk rock band from the vicinity of Munich.As well as using modern instruments like the bass or electric guitar, the band utilizes instruments typically used in Medieval folk songs, such as the bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy or shawm, to produce their trademark folk rock...
(the last is considered folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
in Germany.)
More extreme German bands include:
- AbsurdAbsurd (band)Absurd is one of the best-known black metal and pagan metal bands in Germany, classified as right-wing extremist by the Thuringian Landesbehörde für Verfassungsschutz....
- AEBA
- AgathodaimonAgathodaimon (band)Agathodaimon is a gothic/melodic black metal band from Mainz, Germany.-Biography:The band began in September 1995, when guitarist Sathonys and drummer Matthias got together to assemble a dominant death metal band with harmonic arrangements . They put adverts in several music magazines in the hopes...
- AhabAhab (band)Ahab is a German funeral doom metal band founded in 2004 by Midnattsol guitarists Christian Hector and Daniel Droste and former Endzeit guitarist Stephan Adolph. The band is named after Captain Ahab, a character in the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville...
- AtrocityAtrocity (band)Atrocity is a German Heavy Metal band formed in Ludwigsburg.-History:First started in 1985 as Instigators and playing grindcore, Atrocity arose as a death metal band with their debut EP, Blue Blood, in 1989, followed soon by Hallucinations, a concept album about drug use...
- BethlehemBethlehem (German band)Bethlehem is a German extreme metal band from Grevenbroich, formed in 1991 by Jürgen Bartsch and Kläus Matton. Before starting Bethlehem, Bartsch and Matton used to play in a German Thrash metal band called Morbid Vision...
- CalibanCaliban (band)Caliban are a five-piece metalcore band from Germany. They have released seven studio albums to-date, and two split albums with the band Heaven Shall Burn.-History:...
- CrematoryCrematory (band)Crematory is a gothic/melodic death metal band formed in Mannheim, Germany in 1991.- History :The band received its earliest recognition in the mid-1990s by touring with My Dying Bride, Tiamat and Atrocity. Much like the latter two groups, the band had begun as traditional death metal, then evolved...
- Dark FortressDark FortressDark Fortress is a black metal band from Landshut, Germany, formed in 1994. They have released six studio albums, a split album and a demo album.-Early:...
- Darkened Nocturn SlaughtercultDarkened Nocturn SlaughtercultDarkened Nocturn Slaughtercult is a German black metal band from Dormagen. They are considered to be a very "pure" Black metal band, and as such has been interviewed in 2006 by the Franco-German TV network Arte....
- DeadlockDeadlock (metal band)Deadlock is a German melodic death metal band from Schwarzenfeld, Bavaria, Germany. In 2010 they supported Lacuna Coil.-History:Formed in 1997 as a death metal band by vocalist Johannes Prem, guitarist Sebastian Reichl and drummer Tobias Graf, they released the 7" vinyl Deadlock in 1999...
- DebaucheryDebauchery (band)- History :They are currently signed to German label AFM Records and have toured extensively through Europe. The band was formed in 2000 as Maggotcunt, but changed their name in 2002 to Debauchery. Debauchery consisted of Thomas Gurrath and Dani until Dani was forced to leave the band in 2006...
- Defeated SanityDefeated sanityDefeated Sanity is a German death metal band from Dachsbach, Bavaria, that was formed in 1994, originally as a side project of guitarist Wolfgang Teske and his son, drummer Lille Gruber. Gruber is the only original remaining member left in the band, following the departure of Teske in July 2008....
- Die Apokalyptischen ReiterDie Apokalyptischen ReiterDie Apokalyptischen Reiter is a Weimar, Germany based heavy metal band signed to Nuclear Blast in Europe and The End Records in North America...
- DisbeliefDisbeliefDisbelief is a metal band from Hesse, Germany. Their music is rooted in death metal, but has melancholic tendencies.- Biography :...
- EndstilleEndstilleEndstille is a black metal band from Germany. It was founded in 2000 by L. Wachtfels , Mayhemic Destructor , Iblis and Cruor in Kiel. L. Wachtfels and Mayhemic Destructor had previously played in the band Tauthr, while Iblis and Cruor came from the band Octoria...
- EquilibriumEquilibrium (band)Equilibrium is a Folk metal band from Germany. The band's music combines elements of folk and symphonic metal with various instruments including electric guitars, strings and flutes. Their riffs reflect traditional Germanic melodies....
- FalkenbachFalkenbachFalkenbach is a Viking metal group from Germany that is currently signed to Prophecy Productions. The name means "Falconbrook" in German. The one permanent member is Vratyas Vakyas.-History:...
- FleshcrawlFleshcrawlFleshcrawl is a death metal band formed in 1987 in Illertissen, Bavaria, Germany. Their most recent album, Structures Of Death, was released in 2007, under Metal Blade Records.-1987-1997:...
- Fragments of UnbecomingFragments of unbecomingFragments of Unbecoming is a melodic death metal band from Laudenbach, Germany. The band's guitarist Sascha Ehrich is also a renowned artist in the metal world, having designed album covers for bands such as Necrophagist...
- GolemGolem (band)Golem is a German extreme death metal band. They took part in the 2007 Chronical Moshers Open Air festival. They should not be confused with a 1970s progressive rock band from Germany with the same name.-History:...
- GrailknightsGrailknightsGrailknights is an epic melodic death metal band, with Viking metal influences, from Hanover.- History :The band was founded at the end of 2002 by musicians from Wunstorf and Hanover as Galactic Grailknights...
- Heaven Shall BurnHeaven Shall BurnHeaven Shall Burn is a German heavy metal band from Saalfeld, formed in 1996. They combine an aggressive metal sound with lyrics that show a militant support of anti-racism and fighting social injustice. All members of the band are vegan.-Biography:...
- Katharsis
- Lunar Aurora
- Milking The Goatmachine
- MoonbloodMoonbloodMoonblood is a black metal band from Schneeberg, , Germany.- History :Demoniac was formed in May 1990 by Occulta Mors, Necromanic and L.O.N.S. In September 1990, Gaamalzagoth joined the band. Their style was melodic black metal. Under this name, they released two untitled demos.In January 1994,...
- MorgothMorgoth (band)Morgoth is a German death metal band that was formed in 1985 by Rüdiger Hennecke and Carsten Otterbach in Meschede. Originally the name Cadaverous Smell was used and the band played grindcore / noise style. When Harry Busse joined the band they renamed themselves to "Minas Morgul". In 1985 the band...
- NagelfarNagelfarNagelfar were a German black metal band founded in 1993 by Zorn and Rhyktius V. Grhabakk von Meilenwald . After a long search for a lead vocalist, Smaug was selected; Sveinn von Hackelnberg became acquainted with Smaug and Rhyktius at a party and entered the band's lineup as bassist in 1995...
- Nargaroth
- NeaeraNeaera (band)Neaera is a melodic death metal band from Münster, Germany, currently signed to Metal Blade Records. Recently, they have completed their fifth album, Forging the Eclipse, which was released on October 22/25, 2010 in Europe and on October 26, 2010 for the rest of the world.-Musical style:Tobias Buck...
- NecrophagistNecrophagistNecrophagist is a German death metal band, founded and fronted by Muhammed Suiçmez; a German-born, Turkish guitarist and vocalist. The band is known for its rapid and technical compositions....
- ObscuraObscura (band)-History:Obscura was founded in 2002 by Steffen Kummerer. The band was named after the Gorguts album Obscura. In 2006 Obscura self-released their debut album Retribution and toured alongside Suffocation within Europe. A European headlining tour through East and South Europe followed in 2007...
- Secrets of the MoonSecrets of the MoonSecrets of the Moon is a black metal band from Osnabrück, Germany, founded in 1995. They played at the Summer Breeze Open Air in August 2007 and at the Hellfest Summer Open Air in June 2007.-Current members:* sG - Vocals, guitars, synth...
- SuidakraSuidakraSuidAkrA is a melodic death metal band from Germany with Celtic folk influences. During their fourteen-year career, they have performed over 200 live shows for several European and Russian tours, as well as a North American tour...
These bands range from genres of death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
, deathcore
Deathcore
Deathcore is an extreme metal music genre that combines elements of death metal with elements of metalcore or hardcore punk, or both. It is defined by an "excessive" use of death metal riffs, blast beats and use of hardcore punk breakdowns...
, metalcore
Metalcore
Metalcore is a subgenre of heavy metal combining various elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. The name is a portmanteau of the names of the two genres. The term took on its current meaning in the mid-1990s, describing bands such as Earth Crisis, Deadguy and Integrity...
, doom metal
Doom metal
Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres...
and black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....
.
Neue Deutsche Härte
Neue Deutsche Härte (engl. "New German Hardness") is a term for extremely popular German wave of Industrial metalIndustrial metal
Industrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
. It combines the common sound of metal with electronic samples and is mostly sung with German lyrics. It draws its audience from both the metalheads and goth scene. Some bands like Rammstein
Rammstein
Rammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
or Oomph!
Oomph!
Oomph! is a German rock band that was formed in Wolfsburg, Germany in 1989. The band is considered to be the original Neue Deutsche Härte musical group. In the 22-year history of the band, there have been no line-up changes.-Early years :...
have gained mainstream success. Other famous artists include Stahlhammer
Stahlhammer
Stahlhammer is a Neue Deutsche Härte band from Austria that formed in 1992. They incorporate elements from hardcore, groove metal, industrial metal and symphonic metal into their songs. The band has to this date produced six albums, where the majority of songs are in German...
(from Austria), Megaherz
Megaherz
Megaherz is an industrial metal group formed in Munich, Germany in 1993. One of the band's most famous songs is "Gott sein" on their first full album Wer Bist Du? . Megaherz has gone through many changes in musical style since their founding...
, Unheilig
Unheilig
Unheilig is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band with various pop and electronic influences. The band founded in 2000 and now consists of principally Der Graf , with his live musicians Licky, Henning Verlage and Potti.-Early years 1999–2009:In 1999, together with Grant Stevens Unheilig (German for...
, Eisbrecher
Eisbrecher
Eisbrecher is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band that consists primarily of Alexander Wesselsky and Noel Pix , with live support from Jürgen Plangger , Domonik Palmer , Achim Färber . In the United States and Canada, their record label is currently Metropolis Records...
, Tanzwut
Tanzwut
Tanzwut is a German Neue Deutsche Härte and medieval metal band which originated as a sideproject of Corvus Corax-members.- History :Their name is the German term for "dancing mania", but is directly translated with "dance-rage". Tanzwut are known for their heavy use of bagpipes, an unusual...
, and Joachim Witt
Joachim Witt
Joachim Witt is a German musician and actor.- Life and work :Joachim Witt became a major star of the German pop scene during the eighties with huge hits such as "Der Goldene Reiter"...
.
Goth
Germany is the home of a vivid Goth scene, and has a large scene of musicians from the spectrum who are typically known as Goth musicians. Most notable artists for example are LacrimosaLacrimosa (band)
Lacrimosa is a duo led by German Tilo Wolff, the main composer, and Finnish Anne Nurmi, currently based in Switzerland, but originally from Germany...
, Lacrimas Profundere
Lacrimas Profundere
Lacrimas Profundere is a gothic metal band from Germany. Their name means "to shed tears" in Latin. Their stylistic aesthetic has evolved over time, originally a death doom rooted gothic metal band, they have progressively changed their style to a more mainstream gothic style with the late...
, Sieben Siegel, Xmal Deutschland
Xmal Deutschland
Xmal Deutschland , often written as X-Mal Deutschland, was a musical group from Hamburg, Germany. Founded in 1980 with a completely female line-up, they became successful outside their native country. The lead singer of the band is vocalist Anja Huwe...
, Das Ich
Das Ich
Das Ich is a German electronic music group formed in 1989. The group, fronted by Stefan Ackermann and Bruno Kramm, were one of the prominent founders of and contributors to "Neue Deutsche Todeskunst" a musical movement in the early 1990s...
, Deine Lakaien
Deine Lakaien
Deine Lakaien is a German Darkwave group composed of Macedonian vocalist Alexander Veljanov and the classically trained composer, pianist and drummer Ernst Horn.- History :...
, Untoten
Untoten
Untoten is a German musical group based in Berlin. It was founded by David A. Line and female vocalist Greta Csatlós in 1994. The lyrics are written primarily in German and English, supported by female vocals.-History:...
, Erben der Schöpfung
Erben der Schöpfung
Erben der Schöpfung is a dark-gothic-metal/EBM band from Liechtenstein, founded in 1998/99 by Oliver Falk.-History:...
(from Liechtenstein), No More
No More
No More may refer to:*"No More" , a 1941 song by Bob Russell and Toots Camarata*"No More" , a 1961 version of "La Paloma" recorded by Elvis Presley and Dean Martin*"No More," a 1989 song by Neil Young from the album Freedom...
, Girls Under Glass
Girls Under Glass
- Biography :1986Girls Under Glass were founded by Thomas Lücke , Hauke Harms and Zaphor aka Volker Zacharias as an offshoot of the gothic rock formation Calling Dead Red Roses.1987...
or Project Pitchfork
Project Pitchfork
Project Pitchfork is an electronic musical group from Hamburg, Germany.-History:Project Pitchfork was formed by Peter Spilles and Dirk Scheuber. Having agreed to work together, they then picked the project's name by picking a word at random from the dictionary. The demo K.N.K.A. was recorded...
. Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
is home of the largest event of this subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
worldwide called the Wave-Gotik-Treffen with its regular 25,000 attendants. The WGT is closely followed by the annual M'era Luna festival in Hildesheim
Hildesheim
Hildesheim is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located in the district of Hildesheim, about 30 km southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste river, which is a small tributary of the Leine river...
.
Medieval metal
Medieval metal or medieval rock is a subgenre of folk metal that blends hard rock or heavy metal music with medieval folk music. Medieval metal is mostly restricted to Germany where it is known as Mittelalter-Metal or Mittelalter-Rock. The genre emerged from the middle of the 1990s with contributions from Subway to SallySubway to Sally
Subway to Sally was founded in Potsdam, Germany, in the early 1990s. It is a rock band with clear folk and medieval influences, later also with gothic and metal elements added to the mix...
, In Extremo
In Extremo
In Extremo is a German medieval metal band originating from Berlin. The band's musical style combines metal with medieval traditional songs, blending the sound of the standard rock/metal instruments with historical instruments...
and Schandmaul
Schandmaul
Schandmaul is a German medieval folk rock band from the vicinity of Munich.As well as using modern instruments like the bass or electric guitar, the band utilizes instruments typically used in Medieval folk songs, such as the bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy or shawm, to produce their trademark folk rock...
. The style is characterised by the prominent use of a wide variety of traditional folk and medieval instruments.
Electronic music and techno
Germany has the largest electronic music scene in the world. The band KraftwerkKraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
was one of the first bands in the world to make music entirely on electronic equipment, and the band Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
is often credited as being among the originators and primary influences of the "Berlin School" of electronic music, which would later influence trance music
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
. Some other bands like Liaisons Dangereuses, Tyske Ludder
Tyske Ludder
Tyske Ludder is a German EBM band. Their members include Claus Albers, Olaf A. Reimers and Ralf Homann. In 2008 they appeared at the Infest in Bradford. And in May 2009 they appeared at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig and the M'era Luna Festival in Hildesheim Germany...
, Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft
Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft
Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft or D.A.F. is an influential German electropunk/NDW band from Düsseldorf, formed in 1978 featuring Gabriel "Gabi" Delgado-López , Robert Görl , Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke , Michael Kemner and Wolfgang Spelmans...
and Die Krupps
Die Krupps
Die Krupps is a German industrial rock/EBM band, formed in 1980 by Jürgen Engler and Bernward Malaka in Düsseldorf.-History:Their initial sound throughout the 1980s combined synthesizers with metallic percussion...
created a style later called Electronic body music
Electronic body music
Electronic body music or industrial dance is a music genre that combines elements of industrial music and electronic dance music...
. Also well-known are Scooter
Scooter (band)
Scooter are a German hard dance band founded in Hamburg, who have sold over 25 million records and earned over 80 gold and platinum awards. Scooter are considered the most successful single-record German act with 23 top ten hits. The band is currently composed of members H.P. Baxxter, Rick J....
. Recently a few electronica artists have become successful in the mainstream, such as Monika Kruse
Monika Kruse
Monika Kruse is one of Germany´s most successful Techno- DJ, Music producer and Record Label owners.- Biography :Kruse was born in 1971 in Berlin but grew up in Bavaria’s capital Munich....
, Marusha
Marusha
Marusha, real name Marusha Aphrodite Gleiß is a German Techno, Happy hardcore, Breakbeat and Eurodance artist/DJ, who was on the hit lists in the mid '90s....
, Blümchen
Blümchen
Jasmin Wagner , better known as Blümchen , is a multi-platinum selling pop and dance music singer, aspiring actress, model/spokeswoman. Although she releases her English albums under the name Blossom, her German stage name "Blümchen" actually translates to "floret" or "small flower"...
and MIA.
MIA.
MIA. is a German rock/pop band from Berlin.-Biography:MIA. originally formed in 1997 when TV host Sarah Kuttner introduced schoolmates Mieze and Andreas Ross to Robert Schütze and Ingo Puls...
Artists on the cutting edge of German-language techno include Klee. Both Einstürzende Neubauten (collapsing new buildings, translated literally) and KMFDM
KMFDM
KMFDM is an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko, who founded the group in 1984 as a performance art project...
(no majority for the pity, translated literally) are considered by many industrial and electronic music fans as the godfathers of their genre. Their sounds developed the modern styles of groups such as NIN, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, and New Order. Einstürzende Neubauten can be recognized by their Prince-esque logo, which has been subliminally fused into several mainstream American movies (such as a tattoo in the movie Bug, directed by William Friedkin, starring Harry Connick Jr.) Their sound resembles primitive banging of pots and pans and screaming rants in German about the Russian "famine." KMFDM has released many songs in English, making them more accessible to their huge American and world wide audience. Since 2006 producer and DJ Paul Kalkbrenner
Paul Kalkbrenner
Paul Kalkbrenner is a German electronic musician and actor from Berlin.-History:As of 2010, Paul Kalkbrenner has tallied up more than 15 years of experience as a producer and live act...
gained popularity in Germany. He nowadays is one of the most famous performers of electronic music.
Trance music
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
is a style of electronic music that originated in Germany in the very late 1980s and early 1990s, upon German unification. Following the development of trance music in Germany, many Trance genres
Trance genres
A list of trance music sub-genres. Several crossover with other major forms of electronic music....
stemmed from the original trance music and most trance genres developed in Germany, most notably "Anthem trance" or also called "uplifting" or "epic" trance, progressive trance, and "Ambient trance"
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
.
One of the most notable event referring to this scene was the Love Parade
Love Parade
The Love Parade was a popular electronic dance music festival and parade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany. It was held in Germany annually between 1989 and 2003 in Berlin, and then from 2006 to 2010 in the Ruhr region...
festival with up to 1.5 million participants from all over the world.
Other notable artists
There are few German language bands who managed to be successful for a longer period. The best known are the punk bands Die ÄrzteDie Ärzte
Die Ärzte is a punk band from Berlin. Die Ärzte are one of the best-known German punk rock bands and have released over 20 albums. The band consists of guitarist Farin Urlaub, drummer Bela B. and bass player Rodrigo González...
and Die Toten Hosen
Die Toten Hosen
Die Toten Hosen is a German punk band from Düsseldorf. They have enjoyed decades-long mass appeal in Germany.The band's name literally means "The Dead Pants" in English, although the phrase "tote Hose" is a German expression meaning "nothing going on" or "boring"...
. Both were formed in the early 1980s but have very different approaches to punk. As successful as those two bands in number of sales and number one albums but much lesser accepted by the public and normally not played by German media but with a huge fan community were Böhse Onkelz
Böhse Onkelz
The Böhse Onkelz were a German rock group that existed from 1980 to 2005. Although being ignored by the mass media for their controversial past, since Viva los tioz in 1998 almost every album reached number one on the German album charts. According to record certifications and additional sources...
.
Very popular all over Germany also are BAP
BAP (German band)
Bap is a German rock group. With ten albums reaching the number one in the German record charts, Bap is one of the most successful rock acts in their home country....
, who sing in the hard-to-understand dialect of their hometown Cologne/Köln
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
.
Outside of Germany especially, the industrial metal
Industrial metal
Industrial metal is a musical genre that draws from industrial music and many different types of heavy metal, using repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Founding industrial metal acts include Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM.Industrial metal's...
band Rammstein
Rammstein
Rammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
and the gothic act Lacrimosa
Lacrimosa (band)
Lacrimosa is a duo led by German Tilo Wolff, the main composer, and Finnish Anne Nurmi, currently based in Switzerland, but originally from Germany...
are largely popular worldwide.
Klezmer
Germany became a hotbed for klezmerKlezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
music in the 1980s, and has produced many of the most popular bands in the field since then. Controversially, many or most of the German klezmer bands are not, in fact, Jewish.
Before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Holocaust, Jews in Germany had not taken much interest in klezmer, at least compared to Jews in places like the United States. During the Cold War, East German Jews like Lin Jaldati and Perry Friedman tried to establish a German Jewish musical scene, but failed due to interference by the Communist Party.
As a result, the East German klezmer scene didn't take off until the arrival of Aufwind in 1984. The West German klezmer scene, on the other hand, got started soon after the student revolutions of the late 1960s. The tour of Kapelye, an American klezmer band, in 1984 also added some energy to the scene, which soon began thriving.
Latin pop
Germany was the starting point of the international career of Cuban-born singer & songwriter Addys D'MercedesAddys D'Mercedes
Addys Mercedes formerly known as "Addys D'Mercedes" is a Cuban pop and worldmusic singer living between Germany and Spain.She made her UK debut in 2001 at the Guildford Festival and since then has undertaken two British tours.- Life :...
.
External links
Audio clip: traditional German music. Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève. Accessed November 25, 2010.- GermanSounds AG Music Export Germany
- German HITRadio ---> Schlager, Pop Schlager, Fox, Volksmusik, Alpenrock, Jodler, Polka.....
- German Music Export Office
- The Germanophone Playlist Comprehensive overview by genre of German music as link catalog with comments and video samples
- DeutscheMusik.net Website set up for the promotion of German Music to the English speaking world
- German music Brief biographies, sound samples, & CDs from folk music to classical composers to contemporary rock, pop, and hip-hop German music.
- Radio VHR- Schlager and Volksmusik - Online-Radio (Broadband)
- Schlager/Volksmusik - various online-streams
- Homepage of the Berlin Philharmonic
- Deutsche Schlager German Clasic Sound
- Why Don't Germans Sing in Their Own Language
- Web Portal on Music in Germany, Goethe-InstitutGoethe-InstitutThe Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...
- Russian web-site about German folk and medieval music