Berlin im Licht : Storm

“Berlin im Licht” was the title of a light festival in 1928 that transformed night into day in the capital of the Weimar Republic—a city then marked in equal measure by cultural flourishing and economic hardship, political instability and zest for life, light music and pioneering art. My music is inspired by events, milieux, and people associated with Berlin’s dramatic twentieth-century history.

1 – Rosenstrasse. On a February day in 1943, the Gestapo in Berlin initiated the arrest of 2,000 Jewish men married to non‑Jewish women. The unexpected happened: the men’s wives demonstrated, and the men were released on Goebbels’ orders. The protests on Rosenstrasse remain one of the few examples of successful resistance to the Nazi regime.

2 – Käthe Kollwitz – Porträt einer Künstlerin. Käthe Kollwitz worked in Berlin for more than 50 years. With her expressionist style, marked by sharp lines and deep shadows, she portrayed the poor and oppressed with great compassion. Her art was banned by the Nazis. Käthe Kollwitz is regarded as one of the most significant German artists of the twentieth century.

3 – Im Tiergarten. This movement is a musical evocation of the city’s large park.

4 – Alexanderplatz. Alexanderplatz is one of the city’s major hubs. Here, the intense life of the metropolis as depicted in Walter Ruttmann’s film from 1927 “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City” combines with impressions from Alfred Döblin’s novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, especially as interpreted in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film adaptation.

Staffan Storm