Deutscher Sang was commissioned by the Radio Drama Department of Hessian Broadcasting, Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany. The play’s theme of nationalism has been reinterpreted with some irony by Barlow who recorded all entries beginning with “deutsch” in a German telephone directory being read by an Englishman. 

A second layer of the piece comprises Haydn’s Emperor melody, used as an Austrian anthem before it was appropriated by the German authorities in 1922 as their national anthem. The piece was adopted by the Nazi regime and also by today’s Federal Republic. In Barlow’s work, Haydn’s melody was performed on a mediaeval fiddle and notated as harmonics, making it sound two octaves higher than normal. The recording was then played at one-quarter the speed, which lowered the pitch and lengthened the melody. 

The two recordings were then treated as a twelve-part canon with a gradually decreasing timedelay, while the volume of the mid-range frequencies in the spoken track were progressively reduced. Near the end, the piece culminates in a final chorale – the text from the German National Anthem as sung until the fall of the Nazis: “Deutsche Frauen, deutsche Treue / Deutscher Wein und deutscher Sang” meaning “German women, German loyalty / German wine and German song”. The text is phonetically sung backwards to the Haydn melody, which is also harmonized backwards in the 14th century manner. Barlow then reversed the tape, resulting in an uncomfortable forward-moving text atop a backwards melody, forwards harmony.