Degenerate music

Degenerate music (German: Entartete Musik, German pronunciation: [ɛntaʁtɛtə muziːk]) was a label applied in the 1930s by the Nazi government in Germany to certain forms of music that it considered to be harmful or decadent. The Nazi government's concern for degenerate music was a part of its larger and more well-known campaign against degenerate art ('Entartete Kunst'). In both cases, the government attempted to isolate, discredit, discourage, or ban the works. Their ideas drew on decades of anti-Semitic writing on music and on a debate on the relationship between music and mental illness.

Jewish composers such as Felix Mendelssohn and Gustav Mahler were disparaged and condemned by the Nazis (Petit and Giner 2015,). In Leipzig, a bronze statue of Mendelssohn was removed. The regime commissioned music to replace his incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream (Petit and Giner 2015,).

From the Nazi seizure of power onward, these composers found it increasingly difficult, and often impossible, to get work or have their music performed. Many went into exile (e.g., Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, Berthold Goldschmidt); or retreated into 'internal exile' (e.g., Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Boris Blacher); or ended up in the concentration camps (e.g., Viktor Ullmann, or Erwin Schulhoff).

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