Carnegie Hall

This selection of songs tells many stories about the Weimar era. The music is typical for what one might have heard on radio, shellac record, or at variety shows; danced to in Tanzpalast; or whistled in the streets.

Next to wonderfully timeless romantic songs, many topics are hilariously nutty—as if the end of the monarchy’s census led creative minds to go wild. This playlist also shows how music transcended international borders. And then there are the human beings behind the music: the composers, lyricists, and musicians who benefited from the artistically blooming Weimar era.

For more than 35 years, Max Raabe & Palast Orchester have been bringing smiles to faces with this wonderful era of German music.

More About Max Raabe & Palast Orchester

Palast Orchester was founded in 1986 by Max Raabe and a group of fellow music students yearning to play music from the period of Germany’s Golden Twenties. In addition to their tours through German-speaking countries, they often perform in the US, where the list of venues includes Chicago’s Symphony Center and San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall.

In 1992, Max Raabe & Palast Orchester entered the German charts with the song “Kein Schwein ruft mich an,” written by Raabe. Two years later, their appearance in Sönke Wortmann’s film Der bewegte Mann (The Most Desired Man) brought them even greater acclaim.

Max Raabe & Palast Orchester celebrated their 10th anniversary playing to 20,000 fans in Berlin’s open-air Waldbühne theater. They also received an ECHO Award for the album Charming Weill and appeared on international charts with two albums that featured 1920s-style interpretations of modern pop songs like “Sex Bomb,” “Kiss,” and “Super Trouper.” In 2000, Max Raabe & Palast Orchester also appeared in Werner Herzog’s film Invincible, fitting perfectly into the setting of 1930s Berlin.

A concert tour to Israel in 2010 attracted widespread attention, resulting in a documentary that was screened at Jewish film festivals in Berlin, Australia, Jerusalem, and New York. Since then, Max Raabe & Palast Orchester have been influencing the German pop scene with “Raabe Pop”—songs written by Raabe in collaboration with top German songwriters. For their live concerts, they weave these together with selections from the 1920s and ’30s. The same concept turned their MTV Unplugged appearance in 2019 into a top-selling album.

Last year, Raabe wrote the hit song “Ein Tag wie Gold” for the TV series Babylon Berlin in which he and the orchestra also appear. Along with two new albums, Max Raabe & Palast Orchester continue to sell out concerts around the world.

Photography: Gregor Hohenberg