In the summer semester 2020, the seminar "Die Produktion der klassischen Musik: Eine Exploration in die Kulturindustrie" in the Module "M4 Musikalische Praktiken" was held at the University of Bonn. I investigated how traditional Eastern and Western musical cultures were treated in cultural industry before/after 1945. One of my themes was Japanese song "Kayō-Kyoku" in radio programs by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in the 1930s and its futher development into Japanese music genre "Enka" from the 1950s. In contrast to Japan, my focus was on radio distribution for German musical works of Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1930s by the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk AG (MIRAG) in Leipzig transferred to the Reichssender Leipzig in 1934 regarding the publishing concepts in the 1930s and the 1950s. Why publishers? Because the content of music being duplicated should be determined by descriptions of musical score in the process of duplicating classical music as a "product". Musical scores should be so to speak "first sources" in the production of the classical music.
In 1926, two radio towers with each length 105 meters were built in Leipzig. As part of the radio broadcasts of Bach’s cantatas which had been not so famous at that time, Karl Straube as the cantor and organist in the St. Thomas Church Leipzig arranged the Bach's Magnificat in D major BWV 243. Straube had joined the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) since 1926. As part of cultural propaganda by the NSDAP, this project continued from 1931 until 1939, as Straube retired at the age of 67. (however, there are various opinions of musicologists about his political behavior.) The musical score of the Magnificat published by Edition Peters was arranged by Straube as magnificent music by his additional musical notations such as dynamics, articulations and the others. His arrangement was reprinted
by the US-American publisher Edwin F. Kalmus and distributed in the United States.
Figure 1: Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 (Edition Peters, ca.1910,Nachdruck: E.F. Kalmus, 1933-70, Catalog A2488)
*Public Domain
In 1926, the half Jewish composer Günter Raphael was appointed by Straube to the post of teacher for music theory at the Church Music Institute Leipzig. After the NSDAP's seizure of power 1933, a law enacted in 1939 prevented him from working because of his half Jewish background. He had tuberculosis and was treated in Bad Nauheim during the World War II. A few years before his death in 1960, Raphael interpreted Bach's cantata “Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn!”, BWV 132 published by Bärenreiter in 1954. He only supplemented by some necessary descriptions such as dynamics of all parts for chorus rehearsal by reading musical context of Bach's original manuscript in 1715. This edition by Raphael was also reprinted and published by Kalmus in 1956. The later Kalmus’s edition of the Magnificat reprinted from the Bärenreiter’s edition by Aldred Dürr in 1955 tries to avoid additional acoustic performance and guarantee the originality of the Bach's manuscript.
Figure2 (left): Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 (Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel, 1955, Nachdruck: E.F. Kalmus, New York)
Figure3 (right): Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn, BWV 132 (Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel, 1954, Nachdruck: E.F. Kalmus, New York, 1956)
*Public Domain
In the Straube's arrangement through his subjective interpretation, German musical colture may have been characterized as the authority to influence cultural identity in people's mind in the 1930s. The Raphael's arrangements in the 1950s avoid the addtional performance and only convey Bach's traditional musical work as closely as possible to his original one. It is remarkable that these two editions in their two opposite artistic directions were both sold by Kalmus and anyway contributed to the US-American music industry.
Regarding Bach’s Cantata, Kalmus often reprinted Breitkopf’s musical scores with almost
no additional description and sold them in the United States. For example, there are approx. 100 Bach's cantata reprinted by Kalmus which remain the same of the Breitkopf’s editions from middle/end of the 1800s. Kalmus might have its historical turning point and be supposed to find the new appropriate editions of Bach’s musical works in historical point of view at that time, so in the 1930s and 1950s before and after the World War II to spread German traditional musical culture massively in the United States.
Raku Sato
20.10.2020 (summary of the "European part" of the papers)
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