Offenbach's Can-can | The scandalous Moulin Rouge's dance

The French Cancan dance is an eight-minute performance facing the audience, during which dancers measuring 5’7” tall lead the dance to a piece of music by German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880).

It’s an art that requires Parisian cabaret dancers to have balance, flexibility, acrobatic ability and rhythm.

They have to be able to do the splits and perform impressive moves like the “port d’armes”, the “cathedral” and the “military salute”.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | At the Moulin Rouge, the Dance, 1889-90 | Philadelphia Museum of Art

Johann Sebastian Bach | The Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846

The Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 846, is a keyboard composition written by German composer and musician of the late Baroque period Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

It is the first prelude and fugue in the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, a series of 48 preludes and fugues by the composer.

An early version of the prelude, BWV 846A, is found in the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

Francis Sydney Muschamp (British, 1851-1929) | A musical interlude

Elli Michler | I wish you Time

I don't wish you all sorts of gifts.

I just wish you, what most people don't have.

I wish you the time to be happy and to laugh

and if you use it, you can make something out of it.

I wish you the time for your doings and thinking,

not only for yourself, but also to give away.

Mozart | Concerto for Flute and Harp | 1 - Allegro

Mozart wrote the "Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major" in April 1778, during his seven-month sojourn in Paris.

It was commissioned by Adrien-Louis de Bonnières, duc de Guînes (1735-1806), a flutist, for his use and for that of his eldest daughter, Marie-Louise-Philippine (1759-1796), a harpist, who was taking composition lessons from the composer, at the duke's home, the Hôtel de Castries.

Mozart stated in a letter to his father that he thought the duke played the flute "extremely well" and that Marie's playing of the harp was "magnifique".

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905) | Mozart child with a violin, 1887 | Musée Fabre

Ave Maria (Schubert)

"Ellens dritter Gesang" ("Ellens Gesang III", D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6, 1825), in English: "Ellen's Third Song", was composed by Franz Schubert in 1825 as part of his Op. 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's 1810 popular narrative poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German.

Giovanni Battista Salvi called Sassoferrato (1609-1685) | The Madonna in prayer | Christie's

Richard Wagner | Tristan und Isolde (Overture)

Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg.

First conceived in 1854, the music was composed between 1857-1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting.

Gustav Klimt | The Kiss, 1908 | Österreichische Galerie Belvedere

Paul Emil Jacobs | Orientalist painter

Paul Emil Jacobs (1802-1866) was a German painter, noted for Orientalist themes, portraits and figures.

Jacobs, son of the philologist Frederick Jacobs, received his art training at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and first became known for his painting of Mercury and Argus (from Classical mythology).

In 1824 he went to Rome, where he attracted critical attention by painting "The Raising of Lazarus".

In 1836 he made a series of historical paintings at the Welfenschloss in Hannover.

Wilhelm Leibl | Genre painter

Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl (1844-1900) was a German realist painter of portraits and scenes of peasant life.

Leibl was born in Cologne, where his father was the director of the Cathedral choir.

He was apprenticed to a locksmith before beginning his artistic training with the local painter Hermann Becker in 1861.

He entered the Munich Academy in 1864, subsequently studying with several artists including Carl Theodor von Piloty.

Carl von Marr | Genre painter

Carl von Marr (1858-1936) was an American-born German painter whose work encompassed religious and mythological subjects, genre and portraits.

He was also a professor of art in Munich.

He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He was a pupil of Henry Vianden in Milwaukee, of Martin Schauß in Weimar, of Karl Gussow in Berlin, and subsequently of Otto Seitz at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

His first work, Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, received a medal in Munich.

Bertolt Brecht | Piaceri / Pleasures, 1954/55

Il primo sguardo dalla finestra al mattino

il vecchio libro ritrovato

volti entusiasti

neve, il mutare delle stagioni

il giornale

il cane

la dialettica

fare la doccia, nuotare

musica antica

Jean-Honoré Fragonard | A young woman with pale skin, wearing a goldenrod-yellow dress, 1769 | National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

August Macke (1887-1914)

August Macke è stato un pittore Tedesco, uno degli esponenti principali del movimento espressionista tedesco Der Blaue Reiter (Il cavaliere blu).

Macke visse durante un periodo particolarmente innovativo per l'arte tedesca che vide lo sviluppo dei principali movimenti espressionisti tedeschi nonché l'arrivo dei successivi movimenti di avanguardia che si stavano formando nel resto d'Europa.

Come un vero artista del suo tempo, Macke sapeva come integrare nei suoi quadri gli elementi dell'avanguardia che più lo interessavano.

Heinz Geilfus | Repairing Hearts

Heinz Geilfus (born Johannes Karl Heinrich Geilfus on November 25, 1890 in Gießen - died January 25, 1956 in Bad Nauheim) was a German commercial artist, cartoonist and hunting painter.

Johannes Karl Heinrich "Heinz" Geilfus was born in late November 1890 as the son of the justice secretary Otto Geilfus and his wife Minna (née Rühl) in Gießen.

He grew up with his younger brother August and attended secondary school in Gießen.

He then completed a commercial apprenticeship and training as a technical draftsman.

Joseph Christian Leyendecker | Art Nouveau illustrator

German-American illustrator Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951) was one of the most prominent and financially successful freelance commercial artists in the U.S.

He was active between 1895 and 1951 producing drawings and paintings for hundreds of posters, books, advertisements, and magazine covers and stories.

He is best known for his 80 covers for Collier's Weekly, 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post, and advertising illustrations for B. Kuppenheimer men's clothing and Arrow brand shirts and detachable collars.

He was one of the few known reportedly gay artists working in the early-twentieth century U.S.

Beethoven | Heiligenstadt Testament, 1802

Il Testamento di Heiligenstadt è una lettera manoscritta del musicista tedesco Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) indirizzata ai suoi fratelli Kaspar Karl e Nikolaus Johann, scritta il 6 ottobre 1802 a Heiligenstadt, un sobborgo di Vienna, dove il compositore aveva la residenza.

A soli 32 anni, Beethoven intuisce che la sua sordità sarà irreversibile.

I primi sintomi erano stati già individuati dal grande compositore tedesco nel 1796, cioè a 26 anni.

Joseph Karl Stieler | Beethoven with the Manuscript of the Missa Solemnis, 1820

Marlène Dietrich and Édith Piaf

"My Friend Édith Piaf" by Marlène Dietrich

From the autobiographical book Marlène D., 1984

"In my eyes, she really was the sparrow, the little bird whose name she bore.

But she was also Jezebel, whose unquenchable thirst for love must have been due to a feeling of imperfection, her 'ugliness', as she put it -- her delicate, scrawny body, which she sent forth into battle like Circe, the Sirens and Lorelei, the temptress who with her incomparable vitality promised all the pleasures of the world".

Marlene Dietrich ed Édith Piaf, 1952

Così parlò Zarathustra | Nietzsche, 1885

Così parlò Zarathustra

Parte seconda | Il canto notturno

È notte: solo ora si svegliano tutti i canti degli amanti. E anche la mia anima è il canto di un amante.

Qualcosa di insaziato, insaziabile è in me; che vuole farsi sentire. È in me un desiderio d'amore, che parla il linguaggio dell'amore.

Io sono luce: ah, fossi notte! Ma questa è la mia solitudine, che io sono cinto di luce.

Ah, fossi io oscuro e notturno! Come vorrei attaccarmi alle mammelle della luce!

Caspar David Friedrich | Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818 | Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Detlev Nitschke, 1935 | Impressionist painter

The German artist Detlev Nitschke is mainly known for his picturesque scenes and outdoor paintings (plein air), which he developed into designs for calendars and maps.

In 1954 he graduated from school as a lithographer.

He went on to continue his studies at Meisterschule Fur Druck and Graphik.

He later served as the director of a graphic company until 1969 when he opened his own studio.

Hermann Hesse | In the Fog / Nella Nebbia / Im Nebel

Strano vagare nella nebbia!

È solo ogni cespuglio ed ogni pietra,

né gli alberi si scorgono tra loro,

ognuno è solo.

Pieno di amici mi appariva il mondo

quando era la mia vita ancora chiara;

adesso che la nebbia cala

non ne vedo più alcuno.

Julius Von Leypold | Wanderer in the Storm, 1835 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Otto Pippel | Impressionist painter

German painter Otto Eduard Pippel (1878-1960) was one of the most important Impressionists in Southern Germany.

As the son of German parents who had emigrated to Lodz, Pippel enrolled at the School of Applied Arts in Straßburg in 1896 with the express wish to become an interior decorator and a decorative painter.

He had to interrupt his studies shortly afterwards, however, as he was drafted into the Russian army for four years.

Felix Nussbaum | Artist of the Holocaust

"If I perish, don’t let my works die; show them to the public", Felix Nussbaum begged a friend before he was deported to Auschwitz.

Felix Nussbaum painted multiple self-portraits during the Holocaust, giving us a unique artistic insight into the experience of one man, among the millions that were murdered.

Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944) was a German-Jewish surrealist painter.

Nussbaum's paintings, including Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card (1943) and Triumph of Death (1944), explore his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust.

Felix Nussbaum | Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card / Autoritratto con passaporto ebraico, 1943

His work is usually associated with the New Objectivity movement, and was influenced by the works of Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Rousseau and Vincent van Gogh.

He took refuge in Belgium after the Nazi rise to power, but was deported to Auschwitz along with his wife Felka Platek only a few months before the British liberation of Brussels on 3 September 1944.