Nazi Germany A Very Short Introduction

As is well known, the Third Reich drove many of its gifted composers into exile, to early deaths or to the concentration camps. But a significant responsibility devolved on another group, who became ‘internal exiles’, remaining in Germany, but refusing to become cultural ornaments of the Nazi regime. Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905–1963), in Bavaria, consistently kept the spirit of modernism and human commitment alive in his own work.

The concertos of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, not only richly varied in relation to each other, but also a welcome addition to his more unified group of eight symphonies. Hartmann discovered new and individual solutions that confirm the importance of his concertos as significant and original contributions to the development of this form in the 20th-century. The works compiled on this CD were written between 1931 and 1955, thus providing a superb insight into all of Hartmann's important creative phases.