Heiner Müller and Heiner Goebbels’s Wolokolamsker Chaussee

Description

By gathering historical and musical fragments from a Europe torn apart by the Second World War and the Cold War, East German playwright Heiner Müller and West German composer Heiner Goebbels created Wolokolamsker Chaussee as a musical panorama that stretched across modern European history at a moment of international crisis. The question at the heart of the recording was prescient in the waning years of the Cold War, but it remains no less critical for the “crisis of Europe” today: Is it possible for Europe to be unified? A vast range of musical styles-from folk song to hip-hop, from the symphonic canon to heavy metal-coalesce in the five acts, which expose the wounds of European history while struggling musically to heal them. This extraordinary recording from 1989/90 not only captures the sound of a historical moment, but also powerfully enacts responses to it. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-based books and brings the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese, Brazilian, and European music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Africa, the Middle East, and more. Cover page Halftitle page 33 1/3 Global Title page Copyright page Epigraph Contents Acknowledgments Sources and Translations Literary Sources for the Müller/Goebbels Wolokolamsker Chaussee Preface Introduction: Sounding the Wounded Dialectic The Birth of Epic and the Struggle for History Texts and Tales The Epiclongue durée Epic and the Death of Heroes In the Company of Epic Singers The Lessons of War Of Tanks and Horses Of Uniforms and Uniformity Chiasma and Recording the History of Wounded Dialectic 1 Russian Gambit In the Beginning, Silence Then Chaos Of Laments and Love Songs From Chaos Arises Epic Epic in the Time of Metal Of Chiasma and Caesura 2 Forest near Moscow The Shores of Utopia Authority and Its Discontents A Delicate Balance The Epic Singer’s Island The Unexpected Lightness of Metal 3 The Duel Deutschland über alles Dialectic in Real-Time Order in the Workers’ Paradise Choral Song and Class Struggle “I Was Choked by a Chunk of Time” 4 Centaurs Author and Authority The Utopia of Dystopia Timelessness and Orderliness Order and Ostinato Of Monsters and Men 5 The Foundling The Stretto of Death Fugue The Diseased Dialectic Narrative Simultaneity and the Collapse of Time The Record of Historical Suicide Epilogue: The End of Epic as Its Beginning Sounding the Wall, Past and Present Historical Recording /Recording History Bibliography Index