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Aug 24, 2018
Robyn Archer review: A dangerous dance on volcano's lip
By John Shand
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The euphoria of the end of the war to end all wars - with its consequent artistic, social and sexual bravado - collided with the crunch of the Great Depression and then impaled itself on the rise of Nazism. Yes, the Weimar Republic had it all, and so did its songs.
From another defining songwriter of the era, Friedrich Hollaender, came a worldly and world-weary Falling in Love Again and, even better, "Eine Kleine Sehnsucht" (A Little Daydream), a beguiling song darkened by the first silhouette of Hitler. Walter Mehring's spoken "The Stock Exchange Song" savagely indicted the Depression's causes, and Hollaender's "The Jews" even more furiously satirised anti-Semitism.SHARE THIS NEWS ITEM