Der Liszt Tvist

In Munich, teen-agers sport peppermint-striped skirts whose hems bear the legend "Achtung, es wird getwistet" (Watch out, we're doing the twist) and wiggle to the recorded groanings of one Oliver Twist and his group, Die Happy Twisters. In West Berlin's jumping Eden

Saloon, lithe and limber Jamaican and Ghanaian girls nightly instruct votaries in a ritualistic, undulating "voodoo twist." Months after it began spraining sacroiliacs in the U.S., Britain and France, the twist has seized Germany.

No dance band can squeeze in more than one quick waltz or fox trot before the crowd begins chanting "Tvist! Tvist!" The bands quickly oblige. In less than two months, German record companies have spun out 300,000 twist disks, hope to triple their sales in six months. Of 100 different twist tunes, none on the market is more popular than a weirdie called Liebestraum von Liszt Twist, which is selling nearly 30,000 platters a week. Sample lyrics:

Das ist, das ist, das ist der Liebestraum von Liszt,

Der Liebestraum von Liszt--als twist.

Dock keiner kanns so gut wie Papa Liszt.

Ja, das ist, das ist, das ist der schoene weltbekannte Liebestraum von Liszt,

Der Liebestraum von Liszt--als twist.*

If he could hear what has happened to his schoene, weltbekannte melody, Papa Liszt no doubt would be writhing, not twisting. And he would have plenty of company--solid German doctors who warn against "accelerating one's hips and legs in opposite directions," parents and churchmen who deplore "the overt sexual implications of the dance." But some German intellectuals defend the twist. It is, says one Munich psychiatrist, "a proper cure for working off frustrations." And a psychiatrist in Berlin, where the cold war takes the rap for all sorts of aberrations, sees it as a byproduct of an anxious age. ''The twist craze," says he, "can be attributed to Atomangst"

* In abbreviated translation: "This is the Liebestraum by Liszt--done as a twist. But nobody can do it as well as Papa Liszt. Yes, this is the beautiful, world-renowned Liebestraum by Liszt--done as a twist."

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