After COVID, what will workers (and non workers) do ?

Luton Town Hall burhed down, May Day 1919 worker's revolt

What happens when COVID 19 is "over" ? Unprecedented economic collapse,industries that may never recover, billions of lives destroyed. Is it OK that big corporatioins get bailed out, especially if they're  built on dodgy financial models.  Some industries, like airlines and holiday travel, are based on delusion - tourism destroys the places it gets inflicted on, plus it's environmentally unsustainbable : but rich white folk want to get drunk and think they're doing the natives a favour.  And offshore tax havens which could at a single swoop pay for the damage done all over the world.   But what about small businesses on which the economy  is dependent  And what about the gig economy and those living hand to mouth ? And the long term toll on survivors, families, key workers, who include cleaners, underpaid care workers and so on.  This includes orchestras, musicians, soloists : professionals whose lives have been built on years of expertise, suddenly cut adrift, perhaps never to recover.  Let them harvest strawberries for the rich !

But how will people respond ? It says a lot about the UK that a 100-y ear old man can raise more money for the NHS than self righteous folks who think clapping at 8pm compensates for lack of PPE testing etc etc.  Let's drink bleach ! Hail Our Leaders even if they kill us. When the working class themselves are deluded, what hope is there for the world ?  More than ever this year on May Day we should be thinking about the rights of workers and non-workers, the disenfranchised, the unacknowledged, the poor.

Jacques Prévert Les feuilles mortes - art poetry, art song

photo : Flemming Christiansen 2008

Everyone loves the song "Autumn Leaves".  It's so famous that its origins are almost forgotten. The poem is by Jacques Prévert, set by Joseph Kosma.  Prévert was one of the great figures in French poetry in his time, and was also involved in the golden age of French cinema. He wrote scripts for Michel Carné, like Les enfants du Paradis, Le jour se lève, two classics whose quality trancends the genre of "movies" : films that are art in their own right.  Les enfants du Paradies help define me.  Prévert's poetry is so evocative that it also transcends cinema.  Prévert worked closely with Joseph Kosma, who studied with Hanns Eisler, who helped define music for cinema as art music in its own right, not just as sound track. Kosma  also worked with Jean Renoir : class ! Lots on Eisler on this site.  So now that autumn's setting in, a chance to indulge in the poem and the song it inspired.  This translation is much closer to the spirit of the poem than the usual English lyrics.

Oh, je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes,  Des jours heureux quand nous étions amis,  Dans ce temps là, la vie était plus belle,  Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui.

(Oh how I wish that you would remember the happy days when we were friends. At that time, life was beautiful, and the sun more golden than today) 

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,  Tu vois je n'ai pas oublié. Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,  Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi, 
 
(The dead leaves were swept away by rakes, you see, I haven't fogotten.  Menories and regrets swept away, too)

 Et le vent du nord les emporte,  Dans la nuit froide de l'oubli. 
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié, 
La chanson que tu me chantais. 
 
(And the north wind carries them away  into the cold night, where they're forgotten.  You see, I haven't forgotten  the song you sang to me.) 

C'est une chanson, qui nous resemble,  Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.  Nous vivions, tous les deux ensemble, Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais. 

(It was a song that was like the two of us, you who loved me, I who loved you. We lived, two of us together , you who loved me, I who loved you) (notice how Prévert repeats linese as if they would fade away if he didn't, as if he were holding on to the precious memory before it slips away) 

Et la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment,  Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit.  Et la mer efface sur le sable,  Les pas des amants désunis. 

(Yet life separates those who love each other, so softly without making a sound, as the sea wipes away the footprints in the sand of lovers now apart).

Nous vivions, tous les deux ensemble,  Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.  Et la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment,  Tout doucement, sans faire de bruit.
 
(We lived, the two of us together,  you who loved me, I who loved you. But life separates those who have loved,  gently making no noise).

Et la mer efface sur le sable  Les pas des amants désunis...  (and the sea wipes from the sand the traces of those torn apart)

 Please also see my translation of Prévert's Barbara, in Kosma's setting HERE
Recommended recording : Francis Le Roux and Jeff Cohen,  Please see what else I've written on Kosma, French poetry, Mélodie and art song of the period.

Bye-Bye Berlin - classy Weimar with true jazz feel

Weimar Berlin has been evoked in music, film and literature so often that it takes real originality to recreate the Zeitgeist with fresh insight.  Fortunately, this new recording Bye-Bye Berlin from Harmonia Mundi does just that  and more, combining lesser known pieces with the better known, presenting them with proper musical sophistication. This disc is worth getting because it's much better quality than most.  Marion Rampal, Quatuor Manfred and Raphaël Imbert have worked together for many years creating a style where top quality musicianship matters without sacrificing the subversive, louche spirit of Weimar and the Jazz Age.

Youkali comes from Maria Galante, a play based on a novel by Jacques Deval, for which Kurt Weill wrote songs and incidental music. The heroine is a prostitute who works South America, an exotic context to match the sensually swaying lines.  Erwin Schulhoff's Chanson follows, from his Cinq Études du jazz (1927) arranged for chamber ensemble.  The stylishness of these musicians shines : players adept in classical technique with an idiomatic feel for jazz.  The fourth movement from Schulhoff's First String Quartet is equally accomplished.  Paul Hindemith's trascription for chamber ensemble of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman is animated, more good humoured satire than serious horror, in keeping with the defiant wit of Mischa Spoliansky's The Lavender Song.  No-one should be forced to conform ! Nein from Hanns Eisler's Kammerkantate no 6 is followed by the Langsam movement from Kurt Weill's String Quartet in B minor (1918). Between them, famous Brecht/Weill  like Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, and Barbara-Song, and Brecht/Eisler songs like Solidarltätslied, which works rather well as art song and I saw many friends from Eisler's The Hollywood Liederbook.  Two songs by Friedrich Hollaender from the film A Foreign Affair,  The Ruins of Berlin and Black Market take us to the postwar period.  Hollaender's most famous song  Falling in Love again from the film The Blue Angel, made immortal by Marlene Dietrich. To conclude, an art song with a jazzy feel, Die Nachtigall from Alban Berg's Seben Frühe Lieder.

Elgar, Britten, Brian Elias Prom Wigglesworth BBC NOW

Toby Spence, Prom 32 photo : Chris Christoduolou, B|BC

For more about Britten Ballad for Heroes please see here.

Four British composers, four different worlds : Britten, Brian Elias, Purcell and Elgar, Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Choir, Prom 32 Royal Albert Hall.   Wigglesworth and BBC NOW delivered a very fine Elgar's Enigma Variations . The Variations are so interesting  that it would only be "news" if it were exceptionally stellar or not done well, so if I don't write much about this performance, it's because it was thoroughly satisfying though not "news". What was unusual about this Prom were the pieces around it.

Benjamin Britten's Ballad Of Heroes, Op 14, 1939  for example.  It' runs 15 minutes and is scored for (by Britten standards) a fairly large orchestra and choir, so doesn't get programmed other than in large-scale concerts where such forces are available.  Please read Paul Spicer's notes on Ballad of Heroes for Boosey &aHawkes HERE because they're comprehensive and by far the best, anywhere.   When I first heard the piece six years ago (Ilan Volkov BBCSO, Barbican) I didn't understand the piece but this time round it made much more sense.  The disparity between the poetry of W H Auden and the doggerel of Randall Swingler is a problem, but Britten uses it with a certain degree of irony.  Though the Spanish Civil War wasn't quite on the scale of 1914-1918, it was a modern political war, as opposed to a war between nations.  The International Brigades represented the idealism of the left versus the repression of Fascism.  Thus the contradictions in the piece provoke, just as the situation did. The piece is about a lot more than a conflict between pro and anti war.  It should be noted that the Spanish Civil War  ended in April 1939, with the triumph of the fascists and their Nazi allies.   The war is over ! This makes all the difference to interpretation.

 The Ballad of Heroes isn't a call to war, by any means, but a scream of frustrarion.  It's also contemporary with Britten's Violin Concerto op 15 (1938/9) expressing the composer's anguish about the fate of Europe. He needed to get away, in order to believe in his ideals. As it happened, his experiences in America made him realize that things there weren't actually that good. Some still sneer at Britten for going abroad. They don't realize what strength it took for him to come back to Britain and face what needed to be done.  Through his music, Britten showed that there are other ways to stand up to violence.  Six years ago, Toby Spence sang the tenor solo, as he did for this Prom : in the years between he personally has been through a few struggles, and has come out the stronger for it. Excellent performance ! (Please read my other pieces on Britten, on music about war and Ernst Busch)

Brian Elias's Cello Concerto, (2015) a BBC commission, received its world premiere with soloist Leonard Elschenbroich, replacing the dedicatee Natalie Clein at short notice.  It's a brooding piece making the most of the cello's dark timbre. Frantic bowing suggests movement and speed, through which rip whips of high-pitched winds and lively percussion.  Part way, the orchestra takes over, the cello biding its time with a growl, then returning to the fray.  Pounding brassy flourishes in the orchestra, not just from the brass.   I've written about Elias's Electra Mourns, Geranos and Meet Me in the Green Glen, released on CD through NMC Recordings in April. Read my review HERE.  Ryan Wigglesworth is himself a composer  and has always had a good feel for new music.
And from one of the earliest known British composers, Henry Purcell Jehova, quam multi suntm in an arrangement by Edward Elgar for choir, tenor (Toby Spence again) and bass (Henry Waddington) conducted by one of the best conductors of British choral music (and a stalwart of the Three Choirs Festival), Adrian Partington.

Anti-nazi Ostersonntag - Hanns Eisler sets Brecht

Ostersonntag Hanns Eisler's setting of Bertolt Brecht's poem Frühling 1938, from Eisler's Hollywood Liederbuch.  Brecht opposed capitalist oppression  but his heirs enforce copyright to extreme lengths.  Fortunately, Eisler believed in the dissemination of Brecht's ideas, and in solidarity with the People. Eisler's song begins almost hesitantly, as if the feelings expressed are too painful to confront. The piano plays dotted rhythms,  pulsating tension and suppressed  anxiety.

"Today", the singer intones, "it's Easter Sunday." But a chill wind blows a sudden snowstorm, across the sea, covering the green shoots of Spring under a blanket of snow. An apricot tree stands in the garden, protected by the warm walls of the house. Will its buds be killed by frost?  The poet's son begs him to protect the tree . The words "younger son" are warmly shaped, in contrast to the frigid tension that's gone before.  The pace becomes more urgent.  The father had been writing a diatribe against the warmongers whose machinations threaten the whole continent, the island of calm, the people there and "my family", words again set with gentle warmth.  Eisler elides the last phrase,  with a dramatic descending curve, ending with the words "vertilgen muss"  half-spoken, half-sung, but sinister.  The edgy chords become stronger and more defiant.  Minor key, but major impact. Silently, father and son place hessian over the freezing buds.  Will the tree survive, will it bear fruit? The song ends inconclusively, the last figures on the piano repeating, hovering, unresolved.  The song lasts barely 90 seconds, yet encompasses vast stretches of time, place and feeling.  Like Brecht, Eisler was in exile, physically comfortable but vulnerable.  Poet and composer both in emotional "islands", trying to stave off the chill of what they knew was happening back home.

Eisler's Hollywood Liederbuch is an amazingly varied document of alienation and protest, the "Winterreise of the Twentieth Century", as Matthias Goerne, its finest interpreter, has called it.   Read more about Goerne and Eisler's Hollywood Liederbuch HERE, and about Eisler's Deutsche Sinfonie HERE. Lots  more on this site about Eisler, Brecht, Goerne, war and anti-facism.

The photo below is ironic, too.  In the early 20th century cars were a symbol of progress and faith in a future where machines would serve man. Thus cars were often depicted on greeting cards, especially at New Year. Although commercial cards were common, people often arranged for photographers to take bespoke greetings cards.   Private photography was only for the rich, then, and people would often pop into studios or hire a professional to commemorate special occasions.  So when these soldiers, at the front somewhere in the 1914-1918 war, posed together in a car, they were having a joke   Notice the "broken" bicycle.  Most of their families and friends back home would not have owned cars, so the novelty would have been even more exciting then than it is now. The original was shot in colour, too, even more impressive !

Hanns Eisler Deutsche Sinfonie : Anti Fascist Cantata

On Sunday, Fabio Luisi conducts Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem at the Barbican. Why "A" German Requiem as opposed to "the" or just plain "German Requiem"? Lots of reasons. An opportune time to consider another "German Requiem", Hanns Eisler's Deutsche Sinfonie  "an Anti-Fascist Cantata", effectively a Requiem for Germany 1933-45 and thereafter, a work which developed in gestation throughout the period, completed only in 1957.  A conventional Requiem would have been out of the question, considering the Holocaust, and in any case Eisler was agnostic. "I wanted", he wrote, "to convey grief without sentimentality", and (to express) "struggle without the use of militaristic music"

Eisler's Deutsches Sinfonie is elegaic, even heroic, but muted. The Präludium sets the mood. Long string lines, rising slowly upwards.  Like smoke "Auferstanden aus Ruinen", though the national anthem of the DDR is, understandably, more upbeat.  Not many national anthems are wreitten by composers like Eisler.  From this haze, hushed voices emerge "O Deutschland, blieche Mutter, wie bist du besudelt mit dem Blut deiner besten Söhne!"  Eisler works in a quote from the Internationale, so the piece connects the defeat of the Nazis and the establishment of the East German state, so the reference to Auferstanden aus Ruinen is quite appropriate and possibly ironic. Though he was unshakeably a Communist, Eisler's individualism and modern tastes in music didn't necessarily endear him to the more conservative forces in the regime.

The mood changes again with the Passacaglia, slippery, wayward woodwinds defying heavy staccato.The text is Bertolt Brecht, An die Kämpfer in den Konzentrationslagern : the "fighters" in the concentration camps, being socialists, dissidents, Jews, gays, and anyone who fell  foul of the Reich.  Like the woodwinds, the alto lines moves in quirky dance-like angles until the choir joins in with more affirmative confidence. The timpani blast, the choir becomes hushed, but the soloist returns, the winds and brass "marching" alongside.  The Étude for orchestra is marvellously compressed - dizzyingly angular lines, interspersed by scurrying, marching figures, trumpets blasting single chords: jazz-age militarism, madly awry but deftly orchestrated. Woodwinds dash ahead of the tumult. Use your imagination and "see" street fighters battling forces of oppression.

Muffled drumstrokes and a funereal march, from which the solo baritone's voice rises, . The song Zu Potsdam, unter der Eichern describes men who are carrying a coffin down the tree-lined streets of Potsdam, the soul of Prussia. The cross is decorated with oak leaves, commemorating those who had fallen in Verdun. It's a political demonstration, the protestors seeking a future "fit for heroes", so the police barge in,smashing things up.  A short, ironic ditty, and bitter.  After the truly haunting Zu  Potsdam, Sonnenberg, where male and female soloists alternate, is relatively straightforward, though the orchestra  screams protest.  Perhaps we need to catch our breath between Zu Potsdam and the Intermezzo which follows. Like the Étude, this section is highly condensed, long, shifting lines, intercut with sprightly passages which thrust the music forward to an eerily quiet resolution. For the time being, that is.

An ominous bass voice introduces the Burial of the Trouble-maker in a zinc coffin.This is a mini cantata, where the bass interacts with soprano, chorus and orchestra.  Who is sealed inside the box? "Wer sich solidarisch erklcrt mit allen Unterdrückten, der soll von nun an bis in die Ewigkeit in das Zink komen wie dieser da, als ein Hertzer und verschart werden".  The "Millionmassen der Arbeit" who agitate for change and are suppressed.  As in the Hollywood Liederbook, Eisler writes cantata with cantata. The Bauernkantata here comprises four individual songs, three of which seem fairly standard "proletarian" in that a bass sings about peasants and peasant revolt.  But Eisler throws a curveball The third song isn't a song so much as an occluded mystery with spoken voices whispering scraps of text in hurried snatches.  "Die Regierung will niht, dass es bekannt wird, es Leute gibt, die den Krieg bekämpfen". (The Government doesn't want it known that there are people who oppose the war)   What do we make of this, particularly in conjuntion with the politically safe farmer songs ?

The Bauernkantata is followed by the Arbeiterkantata, a much more cohesive song which runs more than twice as long as the four songs of the Bauernkantata.  Further contrasts : written for soprano, baritone, choir, spoken voices and orchestra, the song is a sophisticated "art" work with a complex structure.  The text (also Brecht) is interesting because it incorporates shifting ideas. Who is the "Class Enemy"  here?   The protagonist or protagonists have obediently gone to war,  followed orders and welcomed in the new regime.  The generals names change, but the system hasn't.  Is a classless society possible if struggle is part of the system. "Da mag euer Anstreicher dtreichen, diesen Riss streicht er uns nicht zu " (when there are cracks in the foundations of a building, a housepainter, ie Hitler, can't paint them over)

So how do we interpret the Allegro, the longest and most complex of the three orchestral commentaries? Again, long planes of sound, searching and probing, wildly independent woodwind figures darting agilely ahead, defying the drums, rising about massed strings.  And the brief epigrammatiuc Epilog , where the pure,clean voice of the soprano sings as if  in a void, her words echoing those in the Präludium.  The children (of Germany) have been freed "vom eingefrornen Tank" Suddenly the chorus and orchestra interject "Warm them !"

Eisler's Deutsche Sinfonie op 50 is a panorama, with multiple images and allusions, covering an extended time span. A bit like a collage in an art film. Eisler is sometimes written off because his politics made him aware that music should communicate, but he didn't compromise his artistic integrity.   Like the Hollywood Liederbook, the Deutsche Sinfonie is immensely rewarding.  There are several recordings on the market.  The ones to go for are

Lothar Zagrosek with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig on Decca, recorded 1995 with a particularly wonderful Zu Potsdam with Matthias Goerne, easily the best Eisler singer in the business now.  

Max Pommer with the Rundfunks Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, 1987, on Berlin Classics, where Rosemarie Lang is the alto.

Adolf  Fritz Guhl  with the Rundfunks Sinfonie Orchester Leipzig from 1964 which isn't available anymore. I own it but it's stored away in a cupboard I can't reach. Sound quality a bit rough.

Song Cycle within Song Symphony : Goerne, Mahler Eisler

A song cycle within a song symphony - Matthias Goerne's intriuging approach to Mahler song, with  Marcus Hinterhäuser, at the Wigmore Hall, London.  Mahler's entire output can be described as one vast symphony, spanning an arc that stretches from his earliest songs to the sketches for what would have been his tenth symphony. Song was integral to Mahler's compositional process, germinating ideas that could be used even in symphonies which don't employ conventional singing. Goerne's programme was structured like a symphony, through which songs flowed in thoughtful combination, culminating in the Abschied from  Das Lied von der Erde, revealed as a well-constructed miniature song cycle in its own right.  Goerne is more than a superb singer. He's a true artist who illiminates the musical logic that underlies Mahler's music.
Song is the voice of the human soul. With remarkable consistency, from beginning to end, Mahler's music poses questions about the purpose of human existence in the face of suffering and death, Nearly always, transcendance is found through creative renewal.  Thus this programme began with Der Tamboursg'sell (1901), so well known that it symbolizes the whole Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection of songs. The drummer boy is young but he's being marched to the gallows, for reasons unknown. "Gute Nacht, Gute Nacht!"  Goerne's tone rumbled with chilling darkness, as if haunted.  Das irdische Leben (1892-3) followed, paired with Urlicht, in the piano song version, though it's better known as part of Mahler's Symphony no 2, sung by an alto. This was a thoughtful pairing. Das irdische Leben isn't just about child neglect, but opens onto wider issues like the nurturing of artists. In Urlicht, the protagonist refuses to be turned away, determined to reach its destiny. The song occurs at a critical point in the symphony, where the soul has passed through purgatory and is heading towards resurrection. In Goerne's programme, it is halted, temporarily, though we know there will be resolution. These first three songs thus form a kind of prologue for what is to follow.
Goerne has been singing Mahler for decades, though he hasn't recorded much, which is a loss to posterity as his Mahler is deeply thought through and perceptive.  He's been singing Hanns Eisler even longer, since he grew up a child star in the DDR where Eisler's childrens' songs were well known   He recorded Eisler's German Symphony op 50 (1957) with Lothar Zagrosek in 1995.  Eisler's German Symphony is a song symphony, an "Anti-Fascist Cantata" setting poems by Brecht and Ignazio Silone. Goerne's recording of Eisler's Hollywood Songbook in 1998 is a masterpiece, easily eclipsing all others.and still remainsthe classic.  At the Wigmore Hall, Goerne combined two specialities into a well-integrated whole, the Eialer songs functioning as middle movements expanding the themes in the Mahler songs.

Eisler wrote Hollywood Liederbuch while in exile in Hollywood, pondering on the nature of German culture and identity during the cataclysm that was the Third Reich.  Although Eisler is often colonized by pop singers, these songs are serious art songs and include settings of Hölderlin and Heine and really need to be heard with singers like Goerne who can handle the tricky phrasing and vocal range with the understated finesse they need.  These are songs of existential anguish, expressed obliquely because the pain they deal with is almost too hard to articulate.  For this recital, Goerne chose songs set to some of Brecht's finest poetry, like Hotelzimmer 1942 where Brecht describes neatly arranged objects. But from a radio blare out "Die Seigesmeldungen meiner Feinde". Goerne flowed straight into An den kleinen Radioapparat, reinforcing the connection between the two songs so they flowed together as one larger piece.  The piano parts are written with delicacy, suggesting the fragility of radio waves and the vulnerability of life itself.

Brecht, like Eisler, was a refugee, fleeing from persecution.  After this first group of Eisler songs, Goerne placed Über den Selbstmord. The contrast was shocking. The mood changed from suppressed  anxiety to outright horror. Goerne brought out the surreal malevolence, his voice rasping with menace. "Das ist gefährlich". The song is a deliberate reversal of Romantic imagery - bridges, moonlight, rivers - and sudden, unplanned suicide. Goerne sang the last phrase, letting his words hang, suspended  "das uberträgliche Leben"....coming to a violent sudden end on the word "fort".

A brief respite when Goerne recited lines from Blaise Pascal, which Eisler set with minimal coloration to the Brecht Fünf Elegien, refined miniatures about daily life in Los Angeles, where everything seems normal.  Three more songs of poisoned "normalcy"- Ostersonntag, Automne californien and In die Frühe before a return to the grim reality of  Der Sohn I and Die Heimkehr.  Then again Brecht and Eisler overturn Romantic nostalgia. "Vor mir kommen die Bomber, Tödlicher Schwärme" and a horrific parody of a Homecoming hero.  The songs in the Hollywood Liederbuch can be presented in any order, but Goerne arranged them here in a pattern which suggests deceptively light andantes cut short by brutal scherzi. 

Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde progresses from frenzied denial to transfigured acceptance, expressed through a series of very distinctive songs.  In this performance, context came from the songs that had come before, widening the panorama.  Bethge's texts evoke China a thousand years past. Once again, many face what Brecht and Eisler went through. Hearing the Abschied in this context is uncomfortable, yet also uplifting, for it reminds us that the grass will grow again. Hearing the Abschied for piano also makes us focus on the structure of the song, and the way it, too, develops in a series of distinct stages, like a miniature song cycle, like Das Lied von der Erde itself,  "wunderlich im Spiegelbilde".

The orchestral Das Lied von der Erde predicates on the tension between tenor and alto/mezzo, a typical Mahler contrast between unhappy man and redeeming female deity, but as a stand alone, the Abschied lends itself perfectly well to other voice types. Goerne thus resurrects the Abschied for baritones, connecting the songs of passage, whether they be passages through death or domicile.  The message remains the same. The darker hues in Goerne's voice suggest strength and solidity,  values which emphasize the earthiness of the imagery in the text.  He sings gravitas yet the high notes are reached with grace and ease. At the moment he's singing particularly well, better even than when he recorded Eisler's Ernste Gesänge in 2013, also with songs from the Hollywood Songbook.  Marcus Hinterhäuser's playing was exquisite, so elegant that he made the piano sound like pipa or erhu, revealing the refined, chamber music intimacy in the song that the orchestral versions don't often access.  Although the piano/voice recording with Brigtte Fassbaender, Thomas Moser and Cyprien Katsaris has been around for years, there's no comparison whatsoever. At times I thought Hinterhäuser might be playing a new, cleaner edition of the score, since his playing was infinitely  more beautiful and expressive. I suspect he's just a much better pianist, and he and Goerne have worked together a lot in recent years. As Hinterhäuser played the long non-vocal interludes, Goerne was visibly following the score, listening avidly. That's how good Lieder partnerships are made.  As Goerne sang the last "Ewig....ewig...."  I couldn't bear for the music to end.
you might want to read more :

Schubert Winterreise staged Aix, Goerne, now out on DVD
Brahns exults ! Vier ernste Lieder Goerne Eschenbach
Mahler early songs, orh Berio, Goerne
LOTS and lots on Mahler, Eisler, Lieder and  Goerne, please explore
 This review also appears in Opera Today

Wir sind die Moorsoldaten

"Wir sind die Moorsoldaten

und ziehen mit dem Spaten ins Moor. Wir sind die Moorsoldaten und ziehen mit dem Spaten ins Moor."

Like so many work songs, the steady tread of this song fits the conditions in which it was created.  Singing keeps people's spirits up in hard times, when they can't otherwise express themselves. It also serves to keep a group together doing repetitive actions in hard communal situations. The Peat Bog Song was created in a concentration camp, by Socialist and communist prisoners of the Nazis, doing hard labour, digging peat in the bogs of North Germany in the winter of 1933.  Think of Wozzeck gathering willow sticks outside his garrison, his mind slowly disintegrating. The song has been taken up by the oppressed all over the world.  Below, Ernst Busch sings. Busch narrowly missed being grabbed by the Nazis at the border. This version of the song was written by Hanns Eisler when the two men met up in London in 1935.  Busch went on to Spain and joined the International Brigade. Eisler went to Hollywood but was hounded out by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Below, Busch's recording of the Eisler version,

Links ! Links ! Links !

Hangmen also die! Fritz Lang, Brecht and Hanns Eisler

Reissued last year on DVD in a restoration by the BFI, Fritz Lang's Hangmen also Die!. (1943).  Lang worked with Bertolt Brecht on the script, which loosely recounts the reprisals that followed the assasination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in May 1942. The score was written by Hanns Eisler. The producer was Arnold Pressbuger.  Some of the actors were émigrés, too.  In theory,  the co-operation of so many Weimar exiles could have made the movie quite something. The film isn't quite a masterpiece though it's good and gripping. Its value lies in its political significance. It ends with the word "Not" held on screen for several moments. Does this mean "Not" as in German? Could be. But the words "The End" follow, reminding the audience at the time that the Reich was still in power, and that the struggle against Hitler must continue.

Although Hanns Eisler received one of his Oscar nominations for the soundtrack, there isn't a lot of music in this movie, which is fair enough. The subject is grim, the mood too tense for background diversion. Eisler writes a stirring introduction, heard as the camera pans over mock-up scenes of Prague. When his music does enter, it's atmospheric. In the scene in a restaurant, the music suggests dance music, though it comes over slightly distorted. No-one is really in the mood for dancing when hostages are being taken and suspects hunted down. Later there's a scene when arrested people are taken off in trucks to their deaths. It's oddly clean and antiseptic: it's Hollywood, after all.  The final screenplay used wasn't echt Brecht or Lang. The men start singing a maudlin rhyming song which ends with the cry "No surrender!". It's a far cry from Solidaritätslied but could be the kind of song ordinary people might sing, which is part of the purpose behind making the movie, which was to inspire the masses. Luckily, there's plenty of really top notch Eisler elsewhere.

By Hollywood thriller standards, Hangmen also Die! is a  movie that keeps you on your toes. I first saw it as a teenager, fascinated by Weimar and its aftermath though I didn't yet know who Hanns Eisler was, but I vividly remember the atmosphere.

Jascha Horenstein on Hanns Eisler

Jascha Horenstein on Hanns Eisler, from Sinn und Form, 1964. With many, many thanks to Mischa Horenstein, who runs the Jascha Horenstein page on Facebook (link here).

"It is perhaps characteristic that my first encounter with Hanns took place on the soccer field at the Vienna Prater. Most of the young musicians of my generation became acquainted either in one of the four galleries of the court opera or the standing room of the Musikvereinsaal. Hanns and I were, to be sure, fellow students of the same high school, but we were separated in different classes; we did not know each other. An enthusiasm for soccer is what brought us together. It is perhaps characteristic that my first encounter with Hanns took place on the soccer field at the Vienna Prater. Most

This occurred in Vienna in 1912, and this first meeting is clear in my mind even today. The noisy atmosphere of a sports stadium was certainly a much better place to begin a friendship with Hanns than the rather aristocratic ambiance of the Vienna Opera would have been. At first sight he seemed comical to me. Even his clothing was somewhat absurd. It was as if part of his dress had come out of his father's closet, and the rest out of his younger brother's. The overall impression was that his suit was at the same time too large and too small. And as if that weren't enough, the thirteen-year-old already had the bald head of a forty-year-old. If one can imagine that, on top of a rather short-built body sat a large head, with a cheerful, full-moon-shaped, mischievously grinning face, which at every turn revealed a bald head, then it will be easy to understand that, after more than 50 years, I cannot forget this first impression of Hanns.

'And when wasn't he excited?'

He had the voice of a child, and this voice would often break, even in later years, and it broke especially when Hanns was excited. And when wasn't he excited! This often shrill, "unmusical" voice was a very important component of his arsenal used in endless discussions, as it was no longer used for the end of a soccer game, but rather for more serious things. You could hear this voice a few years later when Hanns, at that time already a prospective student of Arnold Schönberg, dressed in the uniform of an Austrian army which no longer exists, leading all-night discussions in the barracks in Grinzing, on the one hand about the music of Schönberg and Webern, and on the other hand about the events, consequences and views of the Russian Revolution of 1917. This voice reached its highest tone, that of scorn, when his polemic vented itself in the extreme against the "splendid isolation" of the Vienna composers of that time who counted for something, against their "art for the sake of art" attitude, against their disdain for the historical events which had literally unhinged the world.

At that time only one man was granted the limitless mercy of the merciless Hanns: Arnold Schönberg. The esteem, love, admiration and devotion that Eisler felt and demonstrated for Schönberg can hardly be explained without the help of psychology or psychoanalysis. Schönberg was for Hanns neither the greatest composer or painter, poet or thinker, nor the greatest musician and teacher: to him he was simply the greatest. Period. It was that way when Hanns was 20 and it remained so until Schönberg's death. I remember one afternoon at Schönberg's house in Los Angeles—it was 1944 or 1945—when Hanns literally became deathly pale because I had dared, during a conversation with Schönberg at tea time, to contradict a remark made by Schönberg. On the way home from Schönberg's house, Hanns was rather depressed and short-tempered. In order to provoke him, I turned the conversation around to Schönberg—his character, his music, his many remarks about contemporary artistic questions which had been the topic of conversation that afternoon. And then I asked Hanns what he thought a socialist society should/would do with a man such as Schönberg. "Ah," said Hanns, and his mood changed instantly from grouchy to cheerful and boisterous. "A wonderful palace would need to be built for him, completely out of glass, of course, with wonderful gardens, large fountains, and colorful exotic birds. And in this glass house would sit the old man, painting his twelve-tone rows in gigantic notes, undisturbed by what was going on in the world, while the rest of us, outside, on the periphery of his glass palace, would build up socialism. Thus should Schönberg live until the end of his life, like the Caliphs in the Thousand and One Nights."

When Hanns' listeners would not go along with him, as would sometimes happen in the barracks in Grinzing, then he would appoint himself as his own audience, stage boos, and finally maneuver himself into some corner from which there was no longer a way back, and then there would be a detour through lots of laughter. And who, of those who lived it, could forget the crescendo, the accelerando, the heavenly boisterousness, and the uninhibited happiness of his laughter. Or instead Hanns would act dumb, in a way that only few can do.

A communicative basis for music

During his indescribably hard studies with Schönberg, I sometimes heard comments from Hanns which convinced me that he had already at that time, perhaps only intuitively, sought a communicative basis in music. We see in his development only a short period in which he was attracted to the "New" per se. The piano sonata, the duet, the "Palmström Songs belong to this period. With the fresh, aggressive "Newspaper Clippings" (Zeitungsauschnitte) he "attempted—through a radical, anti-traditional manner and through "persiflage" which reminds one with its open brutality of Georg Grosz—to point out and make fun of the decades-old unbearable, accumulated pseudo-romantic bombast. Because at that time, the end of World War I, the "New" could be realized only through the shock effect. Eisler very soon tired of this "commoner-shock" attitude. "New" as a goal in itself no longer interested him. Events forced him to "express his opinion"—the intensification of the political situation forced decisions. The composer Eisler, whose musical language, under the influence of Schönberg, was tied to late romanticism, from which he forged a style that belonged more to "art for art's sake" than it corresponded to the need for a communicative basis, decided, and to be sure with a certain suddenness, on an almost heroic step: to write, on the basis of communicative art and with materialistically very modest means, music which was simple, sound, optimistic and powerful. The opinion is often given, especially in America, that it was Bert Brecht who caused this change in Hanns. That is nonsense. Hanns underwent this change at least five years before he met Brecht.

The editor of this memoir—and this publication does not deal with anything else—does not have the intention of giving an aesthetic valuation of the works of Eisler, and particularly not of those written in collaboration with Brecht. Only one detail should perhaps be mentioned, namely that this change in style was by no means unconditional—and therefore by no means a definitive renunciation of the "first" post-romantic period. In many compositions, expecially the songs for voice and piano which were written in America during the war, one can find numerous elements of an almost Schubert-like tenderness and beauty with a very nostalgic undertone of the Austrian countryside.

Hanns Eisler was not a radical anti-Romantic. Under a tough exterior (lit. "rough shell") was hidden a very sensitive, warmhearted musician. What was unbearable to him was the esoteric jargon of the contemporary lyricists—especially Rilke. With his outspoken taste for caricature, Hanns could in inimitable ways improvise poems "à la Rilke," and he would accompany the recitation of such an improvisation with a grotesque choreography of classical ballet. It's not that he had no sense for great lyrics. He knew his Goethe, he loved Morike and Hölderlin, and of his contemporaries he valued the poetry of Berthold Viertels—but the mystical symbolism of a Stefan George or Rilke could not win him over. I remember one incident very clearly, when Hanns was looking over the composing attempts of a musician friend. This happened in Vienna, around 1920. He sat at the piano; in front of him lay the musical arrangement of a Rilke poem. Hanns played the first few opening bars and then began to sing the first lines of the song, "The evening is my book...." He stopped here suddenly and shrieked with all his might: "But that is impossible! One cannot compose such a thing! The evening is not a book, the evening is a newspaper, and to be sure a...." And now broke forth a waterfall, a cascade—a gruesome, true-to-nature description of a Viennese afternoon newspaper called The Evening. And this description was no compliment to this newspaper or its publishers, as one can easily imagine, and certainly no compliment to Rilke or the young composer.

In literature, Hanns was already very experienced as a young man. Today he must be especially given credit for the fact that he was the only one of the young men and also the only one among the Schönberg circle who did not unconditionally accept Karl Kraus. I have him to thank for my first acquaintance with the great French romantic novelists. Stendhal was his great love. When I once spoke enthusiastically of a novel by a Russian author, Arzybaschev, he merely schrugged his shoulders and the corners of his mouth, and he said, "You must read Stendhal." A few days later he brought me the "Chartreuse de Parme" in German translation. He had a great admiration for French literature, [but] much less for French music, and no understanding at all of French painting. He was not a visual person. He was proud of his French heritage, somewhere on his paternal side. When he mentioned Robespierre, Danton or Marat, it was as though he were speaking of his cousins. But he was equally proud of his rural, Saxon heritage from his mother's side.

I believe that in certain phases of his life, cynicism and tactics hid behind the face which he presented to the public. Without perhaps realizing it himself, he suffered immeasurably from the fact that he did not succeed at reaching the reality of the proletarian. He could not alter his character. Despite a light, perhaps too easily comprehensible musical idiom (which he put aside after his return from America in 1948) which was supposed to meet the challenges of its era and place of composition, a style which got on the nerves of educated musicians and irritated and horrified the sophisticated listener, he lived and died as a radical, anti-subjective but late middle-class artist, certainly as a creature of the nineteenth century and as a musician of the late-romantic Viennese school of Arnold Schönberg.

Eisler had a pronounced talent for friendship. His good will, patience, and his compassion for his colleagues were of quite a rare variety. Professional circumstances sometimes made it necessary for Hanns to come together with composers whose music had very little worth or was altogether worthless. It was an extraordinary drama to observe with what friendliness and politeness Hanns dealt with these musicians, as if he had to compensate for their endless bad luck, namely their lack of talent, with an extra measure of good.

Hanns and I came through many bitter years of Hitler and emigration side by side. Our last meeting, several years ago, took place in Vienna, not far from the soccer field in the Prater where we first met in 1912."

Arbeiter, Bauern, gegen Faschismus !

Arbeiter, Bauern, nehmt die Gewehre nehmt die Gewehre zur Hand! Zerschlagt die faschistischen Räuberheere, setzt alle Herzen in Brand.

Labourers, farmers, take up the guns, take the guns into your hands! Smash the fascist bandits' armies, set all hearts on fire....the war submerging all countries is the war against you, prole! Labourers, farmers, take up the guns, take the guns into your hands! Smash the fascist bandits' armies, set all hearts on fire. Plant your red Labour banner on every field, on every factory - then a socialist World Republic will rise from the ashes of the old society!

The text is from 1941, about mobilizing the proletariat of the world to defend the Soviet Union from the Nazis. Ideas still relevant today - there was an updated version of this at the time of the Iraq invasion.   The music is Hanns Eisler, originally written for the film Niemansland (1931) directed by Victor Trivas.  It's copyright free and can be dowloaded in full HERE.

In the film, five men cheerfully enlist. In the trenches, they get cut off from their own lines and shelter together in a dug out. Gradually they get to know each other as men, not as enemies. When the shelling stops, they march out together. Where to  The film doesn't say but they're marching against a common foe - war itself.  That's when the Schlussmarch comes in, beautifully, no words. This is what socialism once stood for,. Blair admired Thatcher and said she was his role model. But even she would not have sold the country down the drain to please George Bush. "No alternative" now means "you must keep voting me in because you don't want the other lot". That's why they are scared witless that the system might change. Party above democracy. Ironic?

Although the film is didactic, there are some very good moments, such as the Jewish wedding and especially Louis Douglas, a black American who worked a lot in Europe where the colour bar was less oppressive. He's wonderful, singing and dancing and relaxing everyone else, though he himself is as scared as the rest of them.  There were quite a lot of black actors in European film, even during the Nazi era. Since France and Germany had colonies in Africa, there were thousands of blacks in Europe, some of whom had served in the First Wortld War. The French had entire battalions, who became prisoners of war after the fall of France. They were badly treated and used as slave labour (including as extras in Ufa films). Many died, though one later became the president of Senegal. One German-born African lived and worked in Berlin until he died in 1954. As for Louis Douglas, he went back to the US.

Goebbels Eislermaterial download

Here's a link to a free streaming download of Heiner Goebbels's Eislermaterial. One of the best examples of adapting a composer to new situations. It was thru Goebbels that I discovered Hanns Eisler, when we were both young and avant garde. Now Heiner is an innovative music theatre person and gets the German equivalent of Arts Council grants! But I remember when he used to play seedy gigs and the ICA.

Berlin - Symphony of a Great City DOWNLOAD

Berlin : Symphony of a Great City (1927) is showing again in London this weekend, but here is the FULL DOWNLOAD. It's also available on DVD, which is worth getting as it's a cleaner version with music, because this is a film that you can watch over and over again without getting bored - like a symphony! It's not a film in the usual sense of a narrative motion picture. Instead the very concept comes from abstract music. Multiple, diverse images are used like themes in music.  They're layered and juxtaposed like musical ideas. The images are grouped in several main "movements" that as a whole follow a trajectory from morning to night. A snapshot of the life of the city. Please read my analysis of this wonderful work HERE, describing the structure and individual images some of which aren't readily obvious.

The idea of film as music wasn't unique, since early audiences were often more used to music than movies, and several early films unfold as "movements". The full title of Nosferatu is Nosferatu : eine synfonie des Grauens, "a symphony of horrors". This, too, is available in full download on this site. But Berlin : Die Sinfonie der Grossstadt develops the idea on a grand scale. Because it's abstract, much more detail is possible, and more possibilties of interpretation. Like music! The Director, Walter Ruttmann (1887-1941) also made experimental films, bypassing actors and plots. He used technolgy as a pa[nter might, exploring the possibilties of light, shadow and movement for their own sake.  The process dictates the form. Please see one of Ruttmann's early Lichtspiele HERE. They were made in co-operation with Hanns Eisler, who wrote music to be played live as the films were screened.  So again, the concept of music combined with film before the technology to make sound movies was even possible.
Plenty more on this site on earlty art film, Eisler, Weimar etc and many full downloads.

Albert Coates conducts Hanns Eisler Pagliacci

Albert Coates conducts the Boyd Neel Orchestra playing  Hanns Eisler? No, not Kampflieder or the German Symphony but Eisler's version of Pagliacci. A few weeks ago I attended the first ever UK Conference on Hanns Eisler. One of the papers was Peter Schweinhardt's "My work was nil": An attempt to Rescue Eisler's Peculiar Pagliacci"

This interesting venture came from Trafalgar Studios in 1936. It's in English, with words by John Drinkwater, the poet.. English text, Boyd Neel, Trafalgar, London, Albert Coates, the epitome of Establishment Britishism? In  fact the studio was fronted by a German émigré called  Max Schach, directed by Karl Grune, and employed Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler.

The idea was, I think, to turn the opera into an extravagant star vehicle for Richard Tauber, who sings all the parts and dances, too. There's extra dialogue, new scenarios and state of the art colour processing. The studio collapsed soon after, having made only three films, putting its employees out of work, and owing creditors big money. Crafty Brecht had already been paid, enough for him to buy a house in Denmark, though his work wasn't used and he's not credited.  Eisler said "My work was nil", but Schweinhardt shows how Eisler rearranged some of the music and added some completely original passages.

Schweinhardt showed clips from the film, and others are available on youtube. Now here are some quotes too good to miss. Opera Quarterly 1986/4, :"Indigestible, yet wierdly tempting....Tauber appears as a rotund, benevolent Big Daddy..... a W C Fields snowstorm...final catastrophe before an audience of hundreds in Cremona"  Now I want to see the whole. .

Ruttmann and Eisler experimental film

Walter Ruttmann's masterpiece, Berlin: Der Sinfonie der Grossstadt (1927) can be seen in full on this site HERE.  Above, though is his op 3 from 1924, described as a Lichtspiel, a "play of light", where the action  is generated by the very process of filming itself.   Visually, they're not a patch on other experimmental films of the period, such as those by Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Hans Richter, Man Ray, Viking Egglund and so on.  Indeed, Ruttman's op 4 (1925), a symphony of black and white stripes looks static compared with Duchamp's Anémic Cinéma (1926) where the lines form psychedelic whirling spirals, inspiring many Op Art copies in the 1960's. Conceptually, though, Ruttman's films are adventurous because they are experimenting with the very idea of  using a visual medium in a non-visual way, deliberately challenging the senses.

The film above is interesting too because it was meant to be heard with Hanns Eisler's Passacaglia. No sound recording then, but I think this was meant to be screened together with live performance. Cinema musicians in the 1920's were far more sophisticated  than many assume today. Thousands of formally trained musicians worked in cinemas, hotel lobbies, restaurants, ocean liners etc. Some were of course playing popular dance tunes, but in theory there's no reason why they couldn't play art music. This film bridges the social divide. It also combines film with music. (See Leger's film, also 1924, with Antheil's music in Ballet Méchanique HERE on this site).

Thus it connects to Berlin der Sinfonie der Grossstadt,  made only 3 years later, where visual images function like musical elements, . Like a symphony, the film is structured around movements each of which develops a theme. Within each theme, images move and intertwine, creating a collage almost more musical than purely visual.  Again, conceptually, it's an altogether different way of thinking about film. It's an apotheosis of film as art.  It doesn't pull emotional heartstrings in the way that, say, The Thief of Bagdad or The Sheik whipped their audiences into a frenzy. No "movie stars", but real people going through their normal lives.

Perhaps I shouldn't read too much into this politically, but there may well be a connection between the way swashbuckling movies play on primitive emotions, and celebrity stars substitute fantasy for individual freedom.  Perhaps Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will can be seen as a type of Hollywood extravaganza. albeit with particularly evil subjects. There is a line of descent from D W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and thus a loose connection even to Cecil B DeMille's more lurid "religious" biopics. Poor Ruttmann, whose experiments with modernsm were decidedly entartete, ended his life working at Ufa. At least, when Eisler went to Hollywood, his views on film were different. .

Horenstein Conducts Hanns Eisler in Global Warming Movie

Anyone who enjoyed the Edgard Varèse weekend  would probably love Hanns Eisler. His music is accessible because, as a passionate socialist, he believed that music was meant to communicate with people. His usual image is that he writes simplistic agitprop. But in fact,  his music – particularly the chamber music – is exquisitely beautiful and sensitive.  Above is his Kammersymphonie op 69.  (1940)  The camerawork in this film is outstanding. If it wasn't for the horrible narrative, this would be an exquisite work of art. Technically, it can't have been easy to set up these shots. To appreciate how good it is, just watch some of the embarrassingly bad Virgil Thompson movies of the period. It's also better than the Joris Ivens movie Regen, though Eisler's music for that is the famous, and wonderful Fourteen ways to describe the Rain.  The subject is amazingly up to date, too - volcanoes and global warming!

The conductor is Jascha Horenstein, often associated with Mahler and Nielsen. Horenstein and Eisler were boyhood friends. Horenstein conducted several Eisler movies, like The Forgotten Village,  but White Flood (Kammersymphonie) is the best.

Eisler also wrote for the movies, long before he went to America. As early as 1929 he realized how movies could be expanded with sound recording. His seminally important Kuhle Wampe is on this site here (complete download). Eisler didn't lose his integrity when he found success in Hollywood. Though he won an Oscar, his music made movies into art. Eisler represents an aesthetic for popular movies different to Korngold or Miklos Rosza.  Eisler got kicked out by the US House Committee on Un-American Activities. A fewe years later,  he supplied an atmospheric score to Alain Resnais' 1955 film about the Holocaust, Night and Fog.

Vienna to Weimar -Study Day, New Directions arising

The mark of a good conference is the amount of new ideas it generates. The Vienna to Weimar study at Kings Place on Saturday 30/1 should keep anyone interested in the period busy for ages.

As Prof Erik Levi said in his opening speech, the period was marked by many new directions and possibilities. Just as society was adjusting to change, so did music. Douglas Jarman spoke about the new mood in Vienna at the turn of the last century. He elucidated the relationship between Schoenberg and Eisler. Peter Franklin focused on three depictions of Paradise in opera of the period: Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane , Pfitzner's Das Herz and Schreker's Der Schmeid von Gent. Racism is nuts because it pigeonholes composers by their origins, not their music. Then, Gudo Heldt showed clips from various films (including Kuhle Wampe) to illustrate different ways of writing music for film. Watch the bicycle symphony in part 1, where the men stand still in expectation while the music whizzes madly. Once they start off: silence. The music's not background but commentary.

What are the directions I'm thinking in terms of ? For one, the role of Munich, whose Secession movement started five years before Vienna. Indeed the very term Jugendstil derives from the radical Munich magazine Jugend. (as does the word kitsch!) More artists, designers radical social politics and writers in Munich but that's where the aesthetic developed. And remember there were almost as many articles about music in the journal of the Blaue Reiter movement as about painting. And of course Schoenberg was heavily involved. Lots of reasons why Vienna captures the public imagination but it wasn't the full story.

Over Xmas I spent ages listening to K A Hartmann's Simplicissmus. See analysis HERE. Hartmann sends up Nazism while ostensibly writing "medieval" music that should have appealed to retrogressive tastes. Subversive! This puts Carmina Burana into a different context: the jury's still not completely out on Carl Orff. And the idea of Hollywood arising from Weimar. Franz Waxman, for example who conducted The Blue Angel and went on to write the music for The Bride of Frankenstein. (1935). He was both jazz and classical: blending genres and stereotypes long before Korngold, Eisler and the post Anschluss emigration. See "David Weber". And then: the whole effect of American and Anglo culture. Brecht and his "international" names, exotic themes injected into Germanic culture. Even the hero of The Testament of Dr Mabuse bears the incongruous name of "Tom Kent". (I'll upload the movie soon as it's the best of the Lang Mabuse triology)

The photo shows Hannah Hoch's 1919 collage Cut with the Dada Kitchen knife, the Weimar Photomontage. Hoch, who was an all-round remarkable character. really unusual personality, disrupts the idea of"formal" painting. She's using the idea of disconnected images to create a new whole. Think musique concrète, think Varèse. To understand the future of classical music, it's essential to properly understand the past. And that won't happen if the 20th century is ignored. PLease see my other posts about Vienna-Wrimar, including a way of recreating the song recital for yourself, a comparison of Weimar and Chinese films and a detailed review of Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus. PLus lots and lots of related topics -- use search facility.

The Cripple Brigade bear witness

Most politicians are crooks but every now and then one’s so delusional as to lurch beyond criminality into utter unreality. A few years ago an interviewer asked Tony Blair if he’d thought through the implications of invading Iraq. He replied: “I asked God, and he agreed I must be right.” Perhaps that pact with God (or some other supernatural power) will shield bLiar from retribution. But there are many who'll stand witness.

Hanns Eisler set this text by David Weber. Weber was born Robert Winterfeld but used "David Weber" for left wing cabaret, poetry and music. He used the name "Robert Gilbert" when working in operetta and musicals. Besides writing texts like this, he wrote the lyrics of O mein Papa and collaborated on the notorious Im weissen Rössl (White Horse Inn) with Robert Stolz (whose equally amazing life story is HERE) Later in life he translated hits like Hello Dolly and Oklahoma! while simultaneously apprearing in cabaret in Munich. As a young man, Weber/Winterfeld/Gilbert was very left wing and linked to the Spartakists. He was a close friend of Hannah Arendt. And in addition to radical agit prop he wrote music more likely to appeal to the Right. So much for easy generalizations. Read more HERE

Ballade von der Krüppelgarde

Wir sind die Krüppelgarde,
die schönste Garde der Welt;
wir zählen fast eine Milliarde,
wenn man die Toten mitzählt.
Die Toten können nicht mitgehn,
die müssen im Grabe sein
und wir können nicht im Schritt gehn,
die Mehrzahl hat nur ein Bein.

Unser Leutnant kommt von den Toten
unser Hauptmann hat einen Stumpf
Unser Feldmarschall knecht am Boden,
und ist nur noch ein Rumpf

Wir sind die Garde der Krüppel und jedem zweiten Mann
schnallt man solide Knüppel direct an die Knochen an.
Sie sagten: Es sind die Prothesen
viel schöner als Arm und Bein.
Sie sagten: die Blinden lesen mit den Fingem,
noch mal so fein.

Wartet ab, wenn wir auch hinken,
gegen euch werd’n wir stramm marschier’n.
Was tut’s, wenn wir zum linken das rechte Bein verlier’n.
Wir sind die Krüppelgarde, das stärkste Bataillon,
die allererste Reihe in der Front der Revolution

We are the Cripple Brigade, the most beautiful Brigade in the world. We number close to a billion, if you include the dead in the count. The dead can’t march with us, though. They’ve got to stay in their graves. And we can’t march in step because most of us have only one leg.

Our Lieutenant comes from the ranks of the Dead, our Captain has a stump for a leg, Our Field Marshal crawls on the ground. He’s a torso.

We are the Brigade of Cripples and every second man gets a wooden leg strapped onto his knees. They said to us: Prosthetics are better than arms or legs. They said: Blind people can read better with their fingers ….

Just watch out! Though we are limping now, we’ll march again strong against you even if we lose to the left our right legs. We are the Cripple Brigade, the strongest battalion, the front of the revolution.

Alternative Xmas - anti war Lieder

Just because it's Xmas we don't all want supermarket soundtrack muzak. So I'll be doing a few alternative seasonal offerings, with original translations if possible. (Please also see what I did last December, especially the wonderful Dem Revolutinär Jesus vom Geburtstag. This is another song by Hanns Eisler, and sung by Ernst Busch, but this time a setting of a poem by Kurt Tucholsky. It's 1918. Germany has been defeated, there's been a revolution, people are suffering, many of them displaced.This is a reminder that war isn't glory and also that the British western front didn't get all the good songs. Eisler's glittery flittergold piano trembles and then disintegrates like broken glass. In this 1950's performance, Busch updates the text to say that he'll hang the Adenauers in the branches of the tree, and blames racism. As for Tucholsky, he committed suicide in 1933. He saw what was coming.

"I'm standing in front of the rubble of Germany, singing a Christmas song. What's round me was once the envy of the world. It's different now, we grumble. I hum, quietly, hardly noticing the refrain of my childhood, O Tannenbaum!"

"If I was Knecht Ruprecht ( the chimney sweep that follows St Nicholas) come to this Brimborium (jumble), I'd show the German public, I'd sweep it all away. The last crumb onto the snow, the alley brushed clean. I'd festoon it with your branches, O Tannebaum!"

"I look at the Knisterkerzen (paper decorations) . Whose fault is this misery? Why have we had such blood and pain? Germans with the patience of lambs now live as brothers of the cannon. I dreamed my old dream: strike down the the warmongers, don't believe those brutes anymore! Then sing in freedom the Christmas song O Tannenbaum ! O Tannenbaum! how your leaves shine !"

The photo shows "Ostpreussiche Flüchtlinge" on their arrival in Elbing during the First World War. See the carts pulled by horses, farmers fleeing from the east. Click to enlarge. Soon afterwards, Elbingers would be refugees too.