Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:59:30am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Media and Pedagogy Session Chair: Matthew Baumer | |
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Musizieren mit unsichtbaren Partnern: producing community over the radio in Weimar Germany University of California, Berkeley On November 23, 1931, the radio program Musizieren mit unsichtbaren Partnern (“Music-making with invisible partners”) first aired on the Deutsche Welle radio station. Broadcast to all of Germany every Monday evening until early 1933, the program’s format was simple: musicians in the studio would play a piece of chamber music with one part missing while listeners around the country played the missing part at home. Each broadcast began with an introduction to that evening’s piece and a performance of the whole work, after which listeners were invited to join in using sheet music distributed in advance via radio magazines. This series of broadcasts was one of many attempts in the Weimar Republic to render the experience of radio more participatory. The program was designed and led by the musicologist Herbert Just, a leading figure in the Jugendmusikbewegung (Youth Music Movement), who shared the convictions of Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Adorno, Kurt Weill, and others that the radio produced passive listeners disengaged from political and social responsibility. While high art experiments like the Hörspiel Der Lindberghflug, a collaboration between Brecht, Weill, and Paul Hindemith, had limited success in engaging listeners over the airwaves, Musizieren mit unsichtbaren Partnern successfully integrated listeners into radio broadcasts for several years. The program’s success invites a new framework for understanding radio and collective music-making during the Weimar period, especially given Just’s later involvement with National Socialist music education policy. Drawing mainly on material published in radio magazines and music periodicals, this paper will explore the philosophies of performance behind these broadcasts. Given the emphasis placed on communal music-making by the Jugendmusikbewegung, how did Just and his interlocutors understand the value of playing along with other musicians without real-time interaction? What kind of national community and what kinds of connections between individuals can be created when each performer is isolated at home but connected by the shared experience of playing along with the radio? | |