The Rest Is Noise Series: City of Nets: Berlin in the Twenties

This is a chapter taken from Alex Ross’s groundbreaking history of twentieth-century classical music, The Rest is Noise.The newly-created democratic state of Weimar Germany was, famously, a crucible for progressive art of all kinds, and classical music was no different. From Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera to Schoenberg’s development of the influential twelve-tone technique, Ross charts this flowering of avant-garde creativity.Now a major festival running throughout 2013 at London’s Southbank, The Rest is Noise is an intricate commentary not just on the sounds that defined the century, but on art’s troublesome dance with politics, social and cultural change.Alex Ross …