Music has long been a German tradition, from the classical music of Telemann and Bach to the modern compositions of Stockhausen and Orff. Germany has more than 120 opera houses and 140 professional orchestras, including the famous Berlin Philharmonic and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. More than 100 music festivals are celebrated each year throughout the country, many in honour of famous German composers, such as Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Among the best-known early German painters are Albrecht Durer and Lucas Cranach. 20th century artists include the expressionists Paul Klee and Lyonel Feininger, the surrealist painter Max Ernst, and installation artist Josef Beuys.

Many German cities have beautifully decorated churches and buildings dating from the Baroque period in the 18th century. Early in the 20th century, Germany set the standard for modernist architecture with a group called the Bauhaus, led by Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. The Bauhaus emphasized simplicity and clarity in architecture and design.

Perhaps the most famous German writer was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). He was a poet, playwright, painter, scientist and philosopher. The poems of Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Schiller inspired many 19th-century composers, who turned them into songs. Heinrich Böll (Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1972), Bertolt Brecht, Gunter Grass, Hermann Hesse, Siegfried Lenz, Thomas Mann (Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1929), Erich Maria Remarque and Herbert Rosendorfer are some of Germany's most celebrated 20th century writers.

Did you know?
	Till Eulenspiegel was a 14th century peasant who was famous for his wit and irreverence. He loved to play practical jokes on pompous people in authority. His story was written down in the 16th century and became the inspiration for an orchestral work by Richard Strauss and a poem by Gerhardt Hauptmann.

The German folk tradition has given the world some of its favourite stories. The brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were professors of linguistics in the 19th century. They collected and published more than 200 German folk tales, including Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin and Hansel and Gretel.

Germans have created many brilliant and thought-provoking films. The most notable directors include Margarethe von Trotta, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.