Degenerate art

This evening, as a part of my multi-evening performance extravaganza, I sang with the Lewis and Clark College Cappella Nova Choir in our Winter Concert. Though I must confess I was a little bit worried about a few of the pieces before the concert (and during the concert...), the performance went very well, and I had a lot of fun.

My favorite piece that we sang was a Christmas themed piece from Hugo Distler's "Geistliche Chormusik" (op.12), which combines elements of renaissance, neo classical, and jazz/popular music. Distler, born in 1908, was a German composer who sadly was reaching his prime at just about the time that Hitler took power in Germany. He composed a fairly large amount of mostly choral music, but in 1942, chose to take his own life rather than face the wrath of the "Third Reich" towards his music (he was one of the artists who the Nazis decided were creating "degenerate art"), or the perhaps inevitable moment when he would be drafted into the military.