“Art is only art if it helps to change people, to move them forward. The Bauhaus. Those who founded it, those who represented it, knew how to merge life and art, art and life. Within us. The Bauhaus forever.”
“The…
Read more
The Weimar Spectacle, live show
BREMNER SINGS: “HOW TO PACK A REVOLUTION IN YOUR SUITCASE”
What do you pack when you run? What can you use to fight evil? Art & music & songs! In 1920s Germany, creativity flourished in the wild, sexy artistic world of Berlin, while Hitler called artists “incompetents, cheats & madmen.” Artists had to flee, but they carried their culture around the world and continued to fight.
You know that I’m obsessed with the music of the 1920’s and 1930’s. So much of that music came out of social struggles and revolutionary ideas. And so many of those song writers and artists were forced to pack their bags and flee, carrying those ideas with them. And those ideas and songs and artistic movements went on to change the world! In this show I sing masterworks from some extraordinary Weimar Composers: from Weill and Brecht to Hollaender and Spoliansky and Eisler.
I believe we are still living in revolutionary times. An age of people around the world fleeing violence and economic and climate disasters, and the looming threat of new authoritarian regimes. These songs and ideas are just as powerful in the modern day, and teach us about being human, about social justice and about the possibilities for change and resistance.
The weimar spectacle podcast
Episode 13, The Red Count, the extraordinary life and diaries of Count Harry Kessler
February 1st, 1921, Amsterdam: "Dinner with Einstein. Talked about God and Humanity. I said: 'The human with his endlessly colourful fantasy and intelligence rests in God like the pearl in the oyster.' To which Einstein countered: 'On the contrary, the…
Read more
Episode 12: Today, are we living in the last days of the Weimar Republic??
“Nazism seemed to many just an extreme version of what [most Germans] had always believed in or taken for granted. It was nationalistic, respectful of the armed forces, socially conservative, disdainful of laziness, hostile to eccentric or incomprehensive ideas that…
Read more
Episode 11, The Einstein of Sex, Daniel Brook chronicles the groundbreaking fight of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld
There is no transcript for this interview.
The cover to Daniel Brook's new book on Hirschfeld
Listen to Bremner's two albums of Weimar Cabaret songs
https://songwhip.com/bremnerduthie/bremner-sings-weill
https://songwhip.com/bremnerduthie/bremner-sings-kurt-weill-vol-2-moon-faced-starry-eyed
Magnus Hirschfeld and his carefully created dapper, yet slightly rumpled image
The Institute…
Read more
Episode 10, 'Degenerate Art', Did the Nazis curate the most popular modern art show of all time
Culture wars. They’re everywhere right now. The right wing screaming about the ‘woke’, as if liberal culture is the real problem in the world right now, and the left wing throwing the word fascist around, as if it meant simply…
Read more
Episode 9: George Grosz and John Heartfield, a talent for revolution
"My Drawings expressed my despair, hate and disillusionment, I drew drunkards; puking men; men with clenched fists cursing at the moon. ... I drew a man, face filled with fright, washing blood from his hands ... I drew lonely little…
Read more
Episode 8: Will the real Sally Bowles please stand up! Brian Fairbanks uncovers the real lives behind the musical Cabaret.
“Berlin was in a state of civil war. Hate exploded suddenly, without warning, out of nowhere; at street corners, in restaurants, cinemas, dance halls, swimming-baths; at midnight, after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon ... From 1929 to 1933…
Read more
Episode 7, Weimar Hyperinflation: when money is the worst thing in your pocket.
"Conditions have taken a catastrophic turn here,” wrote Berlin resident Betty Scholem to her son in October 15, 1923. “This letter cost 15 million” marks to send, she said, and “it will be 30 million beginning the day after tomorrow.”…
Read more
Episode 6: Building the Dream, The Utopian Realism of Weimar Architecture
“let us consciously be ‘imaginary architects’! We believe that only a total revolution can guide us in our task. Our fellow citizens, even our colleagues quite rightly suspect in us the forces of revolution. Break up and undermine all former…
Read more
Episode 5: Brecht Banter, a kitchen table conversation on Brecht, Weimar and New Orleans
What do you get when you mix a bottle of Laphroaig Whiskey with three charming Weimar raconteurs? A freewheeling conversation that touches, among other topics, on the disturbing and the hopeful similarities of the Weimar period with our own days,…
Read more