Vom Urknall bis zum Mauerfall
A resonant social history reflected in songs from East and West
In music, in Schlager, chanson, pop, and rock, it’s about people. About feelings and memories that are connected with songs: about the trip to vacation, the first love or breakup, the first intoxication, the last cigarette. With music, young people rebelled against their parents, and at times even emancipated themselves. Every generation has its own songs for that: “Schlager history is social history, even if many don’t like it,” as film critic and music biographer Wilfried Berghahn once wrote. At least this is true for the time when computer programs hadn’t yet developed melodies and pieced words together to create pleasing universal lyrics. In that time, people wrote lyrics about things that moved them; other people set them to music, arranged them, recorded them, and sang them.
In surprisingly many of these songs, one discovers cross-border commonalities in East and West. Some things stopped at the “Iron Curtain.” On both sides. Henry Nandzik and Dirk Rave sing their way through the history of the two German states using a mix of Schlager, pop and rock songs, and chansons, telling the story chronologically and thematically: from the post-war years shaped by hardship in East and West, through the decent 50s and rebellious 60s, all the way to the fall of the Wall.
With Schlager and songs by Bärbel Wachholz, Evelyn Künneke, Bully Buhlan, Trude Herr, Ruth Brandin, Helga Brauer, Vicky Leandros, Tanja Berg, Frank Schöbel, Gitte Haenning, Nina Hagen, Hoffmann und Hoffmann, Karat, and many others, all newly arranged for accordion by Dirk Rave.
Join in singing!
3:00 PM