Singing Like Germans - by Kira Thurman

About the Book

"This book examines the history of Black musicians in Germany and Austria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries"--

Book Synopsis

In Singing Like Germans, Kira Thurman tells the sweeping story of Black musicians in German-speaking Europe over more than a century. Thurman brings to life the incredible musical interactions and transnational collaborations among people of African descent and white Germans and Austrians. Through this compelling history, she explores how people reinforced or challenged racial identities in the concert hall.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, audiences assumed the categories of Blackness and Germanness were mutually exclusive. Yet on attending a performance of German music by a Black musician, many listeners were surprised to discover that German identity is not a biological marker but something that could be learned, performed, and mastered. While Germans and Austrians located their national identity in music, championing composers such as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as national heroes, the performance of their works by Black musicians complicated the public's understanding of who had the right to play them. Audiences wavered between seeing these musicians as the rightful heirs of Austro-German musical culture and dangerous outsiders to it.

Thurman explores the tension between the supposedly transcendental powers of classical music and the global conversations that developed about who could perform it. An interdisciplinary and transatlantic history, Singing Like Germans suggests that listening to music is not a passive experience, but an active process where racial and gendered categories are constantly made and unmade.

Review Quotes

The focus on Germany and Austria certainly allows her [Thurman] to concentrate on the driving forces of the nineteenth-century aesthetic of absolute music, though in places a little more acknowledgment of the diversity and multiplicity of European music and its influence on American society could have added a degree of nuance to the picture drawn.

-- "Journal of Modern History"

With Singing Like Germans, Thurman joins Naomi Adele André, author of Black Opera, at the vanguard of cultural histories reexamining musical production and consumption through the lens of critical race theory.

-- "Los Angeles Review of Books"

Singing Like Germans is a superb piece of historical research enlivened by its author's deep fascination with her subject matter. This book will be fascinating to a wide body of readers who are interested in classical music, German history, and African American history.

-- "New York Journal of Books"

In Singing Like Germans, the historian Kira Thurman adds a new dimension to the story by focusing on African American classical musicians who studied, performed, or settled in German-speaking Europe, offering valuable insights into how Germans viewed these Black artists.

-- "New York Review of Books"

Sometimes, a book comes along that completely breaks new ground--a total eye-opener. And that's the book called Singing Like Germans. It's meticulously researched, but the writing style goes down like water. Most importantly, it uncovers a story of people and a performance practice and rebuilds an unknown period in music history.

-- "NPR"

Thurman's exacting research, synthesizing a kaleidoscope of source material, paints a rich portrait of Black classical music-making in Europe spanning well over a century. Filled with compelling accounts of the contradictions inherent in classical music's universalist claims, Singing Like Germans demonstrates that the lives of Black classical musicians cannot be reduced to a narrative of struggle.

-- "Boston Review"

Thurman's study of Black musicians is an indispensable and foundational achievment. Thurman's work represents a monumental and necessary step towards rewritng the history of German music.

-- "Monatshefte"

We love history like this that explores how people reinforced or challenged racial identities in specific circumstances.

-- "East Bay Booksellers, Oakland, CA"

About the Author

Kira Thurman is Associate Professor of History, German Studies, and Musicology at the University of Michigan. A classically trained pianist who grew up in Vienna, Austria, she is also a founder of the website blackcentraleurope.com.