Brilliant German plan to block US snoopers with classical music

Brilliant German plan to block US snoopers with classical music

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norman lebrecht

July 16, 2014

The Telegraph lifts a story from the Suddeutsche Zeitung, reporting that the Bundestag’s counter-espionage committee is now so alarmed at unfriendly US surveillance that it conducts meetings to the accompaniment of loud classical music. Grieg’s piano concerto is the preferred choice, apparently. We think Hall of the Mountain Kings might be more appropriate.

Would readers care to recommend something stronger?

Something to send those fiendish spooks screaming into the open?

Early Stockhausen at full blast? Dark moments from Die Soldaten? Or maybe the rigours of Brahms German Requiem. That’ll drive them mad in Foggy Bottom.

 

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Comments

  • GEll says:

    R. Strauss’ ominous opening to Also Sprach Zarathustra or the sexual escapade in Ein Heldenleben or even the whole of the Sinfonia Domestica.
    (-:

  • Paul Pellay says:

    Anything by Henze, Rihm, Glanert or Lachenmann should work wonders!

  • Anne says:

    Titan (the symphony, not the missile).

  • GEll says:

    Let us add Wanda Landowska’s impossible to bear Bach on clavichord. Or Maria Yudina’s perversely gothic Bach-Liszt Prelude & Fugue in A minor. And while at it why not Glenn Gould’s equally perverse Mozart? Any of these would send the snoopers scrambling away from their listening posts.

  • Tom says:

    Nancarrow studies for player-piano. That’s a good 5 hours with no repeat playings 🙂

  • Jonas says:

    Boulez, Boulez, Boulez, Boulez, Boulez. And more Boulez.

  • Kathy says:

    Satie’s Vexations

  • Paul D says:

    Ameriques, by Verese.

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