The Music of Hans Pfitzner

For many reasons Hans Pfitzner was and remains controversial. This stems partly from his difficult personality, and partly from the nationalistic context in which are set his cultural beliefs. His music has also tended to be coloured by such labels as conservative and romantic. Yet he actually has a wide

This is the first book-length study of the genre of 'artist-opera', in which the work's central character is an artist who is uncomfortable with his place in the world. It investigates how three such operas (Pfitzner's Palestrina (1915), Krenek's Jonny spielt auf (1926) and Hindemith's Mathis der Maler (1935)) contributed

Is music removed from politics? To what ends, beneficent or malevolent, can music and musicians be put? In short, when human rights are grossly abused and politics turned to fascist demagoguery, can art and artists be innocent? These questions and their implications are explored in Michael Kater's broad survey of

How does creativity thrive in the face of fascism? How can a highly artistic individual function professionally in so threatening a climate?Composers of the Nazi Era is the final book in a critically acclaimed trilogy that includes Different Drummers (OUP 1992) and The Twisted Muse (OUP 1997), which won the

Books about Hans Pfitzner und das musikalische Theater