|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
New Germany's Music Miseries
| Article
# : |
19283 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1991 |
1,876 Words |
| Author
: |
Andrew Clark
Andrew Clark is a broadcaster and critic living in Switzerland. |
Musical life in what was once East Germany has been devastated by the economic consequences of German unification. Many well-established East German orchestras and opera companies are being forced to disband. Some musicians have committed suicide after being told they would lose their jobs. Most companies have had their subsidies cut and are surviving on a hand-to-mouth basis. Salaries are being paid late, audience figures have dropped. There is a widespread slump in morale.
Under the communist philosophy of "art for the people," music was a cosseted profession. The former East German government supported eighty-eight orchestras and forty-two opera companies, in a country with a population of only sixteen million. Factory concerts and civic functions provided a livelihood for a large pool of free-lance musicians. Hundreds of state-funded commissions were handed out each year to composers, and every new work received a performance. Singers and instrumentalists had access to regular foreign travel, and opera producers were excluded from the worst strictures of party censors.
In the words of East Germany's leading composer, Siegfried Matthus, the whole philosophy of state culture under the communists was built on an enigma. "Here was a bankrupt state, slowly bleeding to death, but which continued to pour vast amounts of money into music. I was never obliged to accept a commission, I didn't join the party, and I'm not sorry it all came to an end. But despite the difficulties we had to face, art had a social function, and I can't just turn my back on that. I invested part of my life in it. Music had a primary place in people's lives, even if they didn't understand everything they heard. The composer had direct contact with a wide cross section of society. There was much that was worth keeping."
No one doubts that the system needed pruning. There was overmanning of orchestras, unnecessary duplication of functions and events, blind support for ventures of dubious artistic worth. Of the two contemporary music festivals staged by the former communist authorities, one--the DDR Musik-Tage--was open only to officially approved East German composers and has now been axed. The other, the Musik-Biennale for chamber and orchestral music, will in future complement West Berlin's more experimental Inventionen festival. Staffing levels also are being cut. The 1,400-seat Schauspielhaus concert hall in East Berlin, for example, had a payroll of 168--whereas the two halls of West Berlin's Philharmonie, with a capacity of 3,300, are run by a staff of 65. And the cozy old contract system--a form of life insurance that resulted in an average
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
