The Roaring Twenties - Silent Film, Revue, Avant-Garde - Kultursommer 2026

The 1920s were an extraordinarily vibrant period for music - and cinema too experienced its first golden age during these years. By the end of the decade, sound film began to displace silent film, but until then, silent films accompanied by live orchestral ensembles were the norm. "L'horloge magique" ("The Magic Clock") and "La forêt enchantée" ("The Enchanted Forest") by Władysław Starewicz hold an exceptional place in the film production of that era, as Starewicz was one of the pioneers of puppet animation, particularly using the stop-motion technique.

Both films rank among Starewicz's finest works and are supported by music by Paul Dessau, adapted to the image. Paul Dessau was, incidentally, a conductor in Mainz from 1923 to 1925. The arranged and reconstructed version of the film music (for clarinet, violin, cello, double bass, accordion, and percussion) comes from composer and arranger Bernd Thewes, who lives in Mainz.

Paul Hindemith's Kammermusik op. 24 No. 1 for twelve musicians also belonged to the avant-garde. This work, with its unusual instrumentation, had its premiere in 1922 in the second year of the Donaueschingen Music Festival and provoked a scandal, after which Hindemith was called a "terror to the bourgeoisie". Critic Heuß described the music in 1923 as follows: "It is achieved! Modern German music has finally managed to capture contemporary life where it manifests itself most frivolously and basely. One stands before this music as no German composer of artistic integrity ever dared to think or write - music of such lasciviousness and frivolity that only a very specially constituted composer could produce." Hindemith's work captivates through its motoricity, reminiscent of Stravinsky, but in the final movement also returns to the foxtrot.

Because dance music defined the twenties.