Max Brand (b. Lemberg, 26. April 1896 – d. Langenzerdorf, 5. April 1980) : Maschinist Hopkins [Preface]

Abstract

Maschinist Hopkins (1927–1928, first performance 1929 in Duisburg) like many other challenging works of the twentieth century, is more talked about than heard or understood. Indeed, in the current telling of modern musical history, Maschinist Hopkins has been given a largely metonymic relation to both the aesthetic excesses of the 1920s in general and genre of Zeitoper in particular. This is the end to which it is described in Alex Ross‘s The Rest Is Noise, using a pithy, if significantly misleading, summary from Nicolas Slonimsky. To say that Maschinist Hopkins is a trendy romp through the decadent 1920s is like saying that the Marquis de Sade was a disaffected Enlightenment epigone: it conflates the generalised spirit of an age for its brutal negation.