On 22 August 1930, the Comedian Harmonists recorded Wochenend und Sonnenschein, Weekend and Sunshine, in Berlin. The tune was the American song Happy Days Are Here Again. The German text by Charles Amberg was a new song, not a translation. It became one of the group’s biggest hits and is still very well known. Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester recorded it again in 2002.
music
Every Week at the Same Time
The German Choir Association alone has 13,000 choirs with about 700,000 members. At the German Choir Festival in Nuremberg in May 2025, Johannes Hasselhorn, a professor of music education at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, described a change. People are reluctant to commit to coming jede Woche zu einer bestimmten Zeit zur Chorprobe, to choir rehearsal every week at a set time. Traditional club choirs and church choirs struggle with falling membership. New formats such as pub choirs draw large crowds.
Bach at the Coffeehouse
Zimmermann’s coffeehouse stood in the Katharinenstraße in Leipzig, near the market square. From 1729 Johann Sebastian Bach led the Collegium Musicum there, an ensemble that Georg Philipp Telemann had founded as a law student in 1702. Its concerts took place every week, all year round, and twice a week during Leipzig’s three trade fairs. The building was destroyed in the air raids on Leipzig in December 1943.
The Curtain at the Audition
Musicians who apply for a post in a German orchestra play an audition, the Probespiel. In the 1970s a curtain was introduced. Die Leistung im Probespiel wurde durch Einführung des Vorhangs – zumindest in der ersten Runde – anonymisiert. With the curtain, the playing in the audition became anonymous, at least in the first round. In 1971, women made up just under six percent of the musicians in German orchestras. A survey in 2020 of all 129 publicly funded orchestras in Germany found 39.6 percent women.
No Seat After the Curtain Rises
The terms of use of the Bavarian State Theaters are published as an official regulation. One sentence deals with latecomers. Mit Beginn der Veranstaltung erlischt aus Sicherheitsgründen und mit Rücksicht auf die mitwirkenden Künstlerinnen und Künstler sowie die anderen Besucherinnen und Besucher der Anspruch auf den gebuchten Platz. When the performance begins, the claim to the booked seat expires, for safety reasons and out of consideration for the performers and the other members of the audience. A latecomer is let into the hall only if there is a suitable break.
The MP3 Licenses
The MP3 format for compressed music was developed largely at the Fraunhofer Society. From 1998 until April 2017, Fraunhofer and its partner Thomson charged license fees for hardware and software that made or played MP3 files. Fraunhofer ended its licensing program on 23 April 2017.
The Orchestra Chooses Its Conductor
The Berlin Philharmonic was founded in 1882 by 54 musicians who wanted to govern and manage the orchestra themselves. The players elect their chief conductor. On 11 May 2015 they met to choose a successor to Simon Rattle. The meeting lasted eleven hours. After long discussions and several rounds of voting, there was no result. On 22 June 2015 it was announced that the orchestra had elected Kirill Petrenko.
The Orchestra Chooses Its Own Members
The members of the Berlin Philharmonic have voted for more than a century on who may join them. In 1982 the chief conductor, Herbert von Karajan, brought in the clarinetist Sabine Meyer. The orchestra’s members then voted against her appointment by a large majority. Karajan sought complete power over auditions. Serious differences followed between him and the orchestra. The orchestra’s own history says that the collaboration of the late years was overshadowed by disputes and estrangement.
The Urtext Edition
In 1948 Günter Henle founded the G. Henle Verlag. It publishes Urtext editions. These are scores prepared by scholarly and philological methods for musicians to play from. They are based on the composer’s manuscripts, copies and early prints. The dove-blue covers have stayed the same since the early years.
Three Versions of Fidelio
Beethoven wrote one opera, and he wrote it three times. The first version had its premiere on 20 November 1805, after more than two years of work. A revised version followed on 29 March 1806, and Beethoven withdrew it after the second performance. The third version, now called Fidelio, was first performed on 23 May 1814. The revision took him almost half a year. Along the way he wrote four overtures for the work: Leonore I, II and III, and the Fidelio overture. He wrote to his librettist Treitschke: die oper erwirbt mir die Martirerkrone. The opera is earning me the martyr’s crown.