Erwin Schulhoff – Symphonia Germanica (1919)

“Dadadadadadadaaaaa….”

Thus speaks the first line of Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff’s Dadaism-inspired piece, “Symphonia Germanica”. When one thinks of Dadaism, the genres that often come to mind may include visual collages, assemblages, and photomontages. The influences of Dadaism also extended into the world of music, where musicians, with the same mindset as the visual artists, embraced the world of the surreal to express themselves in ways previously unknown. The movement came to be as a reaction to World War I. Those who considered themselves as part of the artistic movement cast away the logic, reason, and aestheticism they associated with the workings of capitalism, and instead took upon the irrational, the chaotic, and the impossible.

“Symphonia Germanica”, composed in 1919 around the time of or shortly after the Treaty of Versailles, lampoons the fervent revanchist sentiments common during the postprimomundibellum Weimar Republic in which he lived. It consists of either a drunk or a madman, frothing at his mouth, wildly singing the nationalist song “Deutschlandlied” (the melody was written by Joseph Haydn and was used by the Austro-Hungarian Empire as its national anthem until 1918). The right-wing “Deutschlandlied” became the German national anthem in 1922, while the left-wing black, red, and gold color scheme constituted the German Republic’s flag as a compromise by President Friedrich Ebert. In the background, various chaotic sounds are made by the performer to generate as much noise as possible. The scattered and chaotic appearances of other anthems also figure, including “La Marseillaise” and “God Save the King”.

It, along with “Sonata Erotica”, remained unpublished and was considered lost until long after Schulhoff died of tuberculosis at Wülzburg prison in Bavaria, Germany, where the Nazis interned him after intercepting his attempted escape to the Soviet Union. Schulhoff’s Soviet citizenship, which he obtained shortly after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to gain protection as a foreign national, was no longer respected by the German authorities once Operation Barbarossa (which had the Germans betray the Soviets) commenced.

Date: 1919
Dedicatee: “The Great P. Z.”

Performer: Jaap Blonk on voice and other stuff

Note: This channel does not own the score or audio, and they are used for non-commercial purposes. The contents of the video were obtained from the publisher and uploaded with permission from the publisher.

Score: © 2016 Ebony Band Edition.
https://ebonyband.nl/en/library/detail/naam/schulhoff/title/symphonia-germanica/

Engraving: R. D. Lee, 2023.

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