About this Recording

The first volume in this series traced the inter-war craze for carefree dance music in Austria and the Czech Lands (see GP813). This latest album focuses on Germany where jazz-influenced music flourished from the mid-1920s onwards even in the face of some social, political and racial opposition. Cabarets and dancehalls rejected this nationalist resistance and the Weimar Republic rejoiced in a cross-pollination of symphonic jazz and Kunstjazz – a fusion of dance and classical elements. The many previously unrecorded pieces here chart the progress of this vigorous musical rejuvenation.

Eugen d’Albert | Public Domain
Eugen d’Albert
Public Domain
Siegfried Borris | Private Collection
Siegfried Borris
Private Collection
Fidelio F. Finke | Public Domain
Fidelio F. Finke
Public Domain
Walter Goehr | Courtesy of the Goehr family
Walter Goehr
Courtesy of the Goehr family
Paul Hindemith | With kind permission from the Hindemith Foundation
Paul Hindemith
With kind permission from the Hindemith Foundation
Walter Niemann | © Dipl.-Ing. Gerhard Helzel, Edition Romana Hamburg
Walter Niemann
© Dipl.-Ing. Gerhard Helzel, Edition Romana Hamburg
Kurt Weill | Courtesy of the Kurt Weill Foundation
Kurt Weill
Courtesy of the Kurt Weill Foundation
Stefan Wolpe | Courtesy of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Stefan Wolpe
Courtesy of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin

‘My “coups de coeur” of this volume are Walter Niemann’s elegant Moderne Tanzsuite, and the two pieces from Marie Galante by Kurt Weill, with Youkali-Tango which I present for the first time in its original piano version.’ – Gottlieb Wallisch