Daniel Dominguez Teruel

What songs are there to sing in a time of accelerated division, in a time of right-wing politics, in a time of war? The Hamburg composer Daniel Dominguez Teruel juxtaposes the German national anthem with "Das Moorsoldatenlied", among others. It was written and sung in 1933 by prisoners of the Börgermoor concentration camp as a protest song against the bestiality of the Nazi regime. At Jungfernstieg, a choir formed for this purpose will now perform "Das Moorsoldatenlied" as an acoustic memorial. Another choir will sing a post-national version of the Deutschlandlied while floating on the Alster. The Deutschlandlied was first sung in public on the Jungfernstieg in 1841; in 1922 it was elevated to the status of the first German national anthem and was sung in the Third Reich during the crushing of the workers' movement, the establishment of the Dachau concentration camp and during the November progroms in 1938. The melody of the German national anthem is inextricably linked to Nazi violence. Associations evoked by melodies can develop extreme power. Every time the anthem is played, history resonates as an auditory trauma. Daniel Dominguez Teruel recently presented the two works LOVESONG and VOICES at Kampnagel, two musical explorations of the ambivalent relationship to the German national anthem that are as different as they are remarkable.