“What breathtaking pleasure it is to see the world coming apart at the seams!” At the beginning of the 1920s, this prospect was both terrifying and enticing for the “child of the time” Klaus Mann. No sooner had the First World War survived as a “colossal orgy of hatred and destruction” than the crisis of hyperinflation caused people of all classes to slide into existential hardship. Turmoil, upheaval and growing social contrasts, but also an escape into pleasure, intoxication and all kinds of border-crossing characterized everyday life and the arts in the 1920s.

And were reflected in the music of the era, for which people flocked to operettas, variety shows, revues, dance halls and jazz clubs. With concert designer Iñigo Giner Miranda, cellist Eckart Runge and pianist Jacques Ammon transform our Small Hall into a dazzling place where this creative, ecstatic decade comes to life in pieces by Bloch, Weill, Hindemith, Korngold and film music from “Babylon Berlin” arranged by Runge and Ammon.