Let There Be Music

UNDOUBTEDLY a great and unique German contribution to the culture of the world lies in the field of music. In literature, the plastic and graphic arts, yes, even in philosophy Germany has merely been one among many. The sum total of her musical genius from Luther to Mahler and Strauss, however, has given her preeminence in the realm of tone. We know this to be so and yet, what do we do about it? Our students usually leave us after two, three and even four years of contact with the study of German without having more than the most elementary notions of the great men of German music and their individual contributions. Perhaps they may recall that Bach was an organist, that Hiindel moved to England, that Beethoven wrote symphonies and was in later life deaf, that Wagner wrote operas. They do not know that Luther was a gifted musician and composer who first made the masses music conscious. They have no conception of the titanic stature of Bach, of the brilliance and fecundity of Mozart and Haydn and Schubert. In short, in their contact with German, they have remained untouched by the greatest contribution of the German spirit, its music. Aware of this deficiency in our instruction, I began, some years ago, to include a four weeks' unit on German music in a full year course devoted to German civilization from the earliest times to the

Art · Literature · Arts, Culture, and Music Studies · History