Description
Book SynopsisHow do individuals, communities, and societies use music as a form of mourning? This book demonstrates how music became a crucial outlet for processing loss in communist East Germany, where the ruling Socialist Unity Party tightly regulated expressions of loss.
Trade ReviewSprigge's inventive study invites us to hear a sonic history of East Germany through its threnody culture, debunking tenacious Cold War shibboleths along the way. Socialist Laments is a vital contribution to German Studies, Trauma Studies, and Musicology. * Joy Calico, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Musicology, Professor of German Studies, Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University *
How do Marxists mourn? In her moving, deeply researched study of commemoration in the former East Germany, Martha Sprigge answers this question through music * music that was composed, performed, and heard in postwar ruins, churches, former concentration camps, and cemeteries. In these places of authorized mourning, East Germans were able come to terms with their losses in the service of Hitler's war without repudiating the official memory regime of their new socialist state. A tour-de-force of musical, political, and emotional analysis, illuminating an essential aspect of both postwar Germanies.Celia Applegate, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of History and Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Vanderbilt University *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Abbreviations Listening Guide for East German Commemorative Music Introduction Chapter 1: The Ruin Chapter 2: The Socialists' Cemetery Chapter 3: The Church Chapter 4: Concentration Camp Memorials Chapter 5: The Artists' Cemetery Bibliography Index
