The Weimar Century

Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany's catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known.

Weimar Staatskapelle With ancestry stretching back to late medieval times, the Staatskapelle Weimar has deeper roots than almost any other German musical ensemble. Like many other German orchestras active in the 18th and 19th centuries, it has been associated with a theater, the present-day Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar. The orchestra started life well before that, in 1482, as the Herzoglichen Hofkapelle or Ducal Court Ensemble.